Jay Rockefeller votes against Goss for CIA post



5744,10862053%255E2703,00.html, Jay Rockefeller votes against Goss for CIA post

Old spy wins CIA top post

September 24, 2004

WASHINGTON: The US Senate has confirmed Porter Goss, who led efforts in Congress to reform intelligence-gathering, as head of the Central Intelligence Agency for which he once worked as a spy.

Senators voted 77-17 to allow the Florida lawmaker and former chairman of the House intelligence committee to take over from George Tenet, who resigned in July.

Among the 17 senators who voted against Goss -- all Democrats -- were senators Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton and Jay Rockefeller, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee.

Mr Goss, 65, spent more than 10 years as a US spy before entering politics. He is the second member of Congress, after the elder George Bush, to become CIA director.

He is a graduate of Yale University who speaks French and Spanish and was in army intelligence for two years before becoming a CIA agent from 1962 to 1971.

Supporters said Mr Goss's background made him the perfect choice to rebuild the troubled agency, which is facing strong criticism over the failure to head off the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the misinformation used to justify the Iraq war.

But opponents have criticised Mr Goss as being too closely connected to the Bush administration and the intelligence establishment.

AFP

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