WASHINGTON -- John D. Negroponte's exit from the nation's top spy post after just 19 months will temporarily stall reform efforts for the nation's 16 intelligence agencies and sow further instability, lawmakers and intelligence officials said yesterday.
The departure leaves Negroponte's likely successor, retired Vice Adm. J. Michael McConnell, with little time to put the fledgling office on solid footing before the next White House turnover, they said.
The leadership change in the Director of National Intelligence office is compounded by the absence of a deputy to replace Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who left the job as second-in-command last spring to head the CIA.
"Having two vacancies at the top of our joint command for intelligence is of great concern at a time when the world is so dangerous," said California Democratic Rep. Jane Harman, a chief architect of the legislation that created Negroponte's office.
A senior intelligence official confirmed yesterday that Negroponte was leaving to become deputy secretary of state. Another intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because it had not been officially announced, said that McConnell, a former National Security Agency director, would be nominated to replace Negroponte.
Harman said any new director will need time to learn the organization, and "we don't have a while ... various parts of the world could implode at any time."
Yesterday, intelligence officials weighed their discomfort with more turnover - no major intelligence agency head has served for more than two years - against hope that an infusion of new defense and intelligence leadership would allow a reworking of the post-9/11 U.S. intelligence apparatus.
Turnover in the intelligence hierarchy has been particularly swift. McConnell, if confirmed, will become the fourth person to lead the intelligence agencies in the past five years.
The White House was reluctant to create the new intelligence director's post but embraced the idea after the 9/11 Commission proposed it in 2004. Filling the post took months, as several candidates, including now-Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, turned town the job.
The White House finally persuaded Negroponte, a career diplomat and envoy to Iraq, to take the job, but intelligence officials said he never settled into the cloak-and-dagger spy world.
