Bush Selects General To Run Spy Agency

Bush Selects General to Run Spy Agency

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/27/po...7pentagon.html

(Gold9472: Another 9/11 Promotion?)

By ERIC SCHMITT
Published: September 27, 2005

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 - President Bush has nominated Maj. Gen. Michael D. Maples of the Army to be director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the first time in decades that someone who is not a career intelligence officer has been picked to lead the agency.

The appointment, announced Monday by the Pentagon, reflects Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's desire to put an officer who has used intelligence in the field extensively, but not produced it, in charge of an agency responsible for supplying information to battlefield commanders.

General Maples, a West Point graduate, would succeed Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby of the Navy, who is stepping down in November after heading the agency for more than three years.

General Maples, who will be promoted to lieutenant general if his nomination is confirmed by the Senate, is now vice director of the military's Joint Staff. In that job, he has tackled several politically sensitive assignments for the Joint Chiefs.

For instance, General Maples has been the point man for the Joint Staff on detainee policy and operations. He also coordinated the testimony of Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, before the Sept. 11 commission.

A career artillery officer, General Maples has commanded troops at the battalion and brigade level. He served as deputy chief of staff for intelligence and operations for the allied rapid-reaction force in Macedonia and Kosovo in the late 1990's.

After that, General Maples served as an assistant commander for the First Armored Division in Germany and then as commander of the Field Artillery Center for the Army at Fort Sill, Okla., before moving into the Joint Staff job in December 2003.

Some career intelligence officers reacted with skepticism on Monday to General Maples's appointment.

"As an intelligence professional, I'm disappointed that the senior military intelligence job in the Department of Defense is not going to an intelligence officer," Vice Adm. Thomas R. Wilson of the Navy, a retired director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said in an interview.

Admiral Wilson said he did not know General Maples and did not want to prejudge his abilities. But he said, "Just because you put an operator in there doesn't mean he can solve all the problems associated with intelligence support to operators," adding, "It's a very complicated business."