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18 May 2006

International Intelligence Exchange Top Priority, Says Hayden

CIA needs help from foreign partners to defeat terrorism, WMD proliferation

By David I. McKeeby
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- If confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, General Michael Hayden said that cooperation with foreign intelligence agencies would be among his top priorities.

“International terrorism cannot be defeated without international cooperation,” Hayden told the Senate Select Intelligence Committee in May 18 testimony.

Hayden said that, as a major agency among 17 in the U.S. intelligence community, the CIA has a responsibility to focus intensively on information exchanges with its foreign counterparts on threats of mutual concern, particularly terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.  (See related article.)

The intelligence community’s relationships with its foreign partners, he said, “are of the utmost importance for our security, especially in the context of the fight against those terrorists who seek to do us harm.  These sensitive relationships have to be handled with great care and attention, and I would, if confirmed, regard this responsibility as a top priority.”

He told the committee that, on a practical level, this expansion of intelligence could take the form of exchanging more documents and opening more databases to trusted foreign partners.  This would be a move away from CIA’s tradition of “transactional” intelligence -- sharing only at the request of its partners -- in favor of a more open, “common knowledge” approach.

“CIA has an important role to play in ensuring that intelligence information is shared with those who need it,” he said.

Citing his experience as director of the National Security Agency, Hayden told senators that “users should have access to information at the earliest possible moment, and in the rawest possible form, where value from its sharing could actually be obtained.”

A top Air Force general, Hayden currently serves as deputy to John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence.  (See related article.)

Hayden appeared before the committee following his nomination by President Bush to head the CIA after the resignation of its director, Porter M. Goss.  Based on its findings, the committee will decide whether to recommend that the full Senate confirm Hayden’s nomination.  (See related article.)

Hayden said that the greatest challenge to today’s CIA is improving how it collects and analyzes intelligence to advise U.S. leaders while continuously gathering information about new and emerging security threats.

“The agency must be transformed without slowing the high tempo under which it already operates to counter today's threats,” he said.

The full text (PDF, 5 pages) of Hayden’s prepared remarks is available on the Web site of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee.

For more information, see International Security and Response to Terrorism.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)