Cold warrior, spymaster

Last Oct. 26, the US director of national intelligence released "The National Intelligence Strategy of the United States of America."

The strategy details "mission objectives," which refer to "efforts to predict, penetrate and preempt threats" to US national security.

Among the mission objectives: to "defeat terrorists at home and abroad by disarming their operational capabilities, and seizing the initiative from them by promoting the growth of freedom and democracy."

During the brief visit in Manila this week of US Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, I asked him if he was concerned about the dysfunction in Philippine democracy and its potential to compromise the war on terror.

Negroponte, who was ambassador here from 1993 to 1996, deftly avoided commenting on local politics.

He would only say that the US viewed the Philippines "as a partner in the pursuit of democratic objectives" in East Asia.

He "absolutely" did not see the Philippines turning into a failed state, he said. And while saying that democracy and good governance require free elections, competent and honest public officials and strong national institutions, he would not be drawn into commenting even indirectly on vote-rigging or corruption scandals in the Philippines.

Filipinos have grown used to Uncle Sam stepping in during periods of deep political turmoil in this country.

This time, even if the war on terror could suffer from political warfare, Washington is keeping its hands off the turbulence in Manila, refusing to take sides.

Negroponte did meet with former President Fidel Ramos at noon last Wednesday at the US Embassy residence in Forbes Park, but not to back any coup that Ramos is suspected to be plotting. Negroponte, who waited half an hour for the perennially late ex-president, told me the meeting was merely to renew acquaintances, because he was ambassador here during the Ramos administration.

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In his latest public role, however, Negroponte could find himself increasingly drawn into some form of interference in the affairs of sovereign states. If this happens, he will be no stranger to intervention.

Two decades ago John Dimitri Negroponte was a cold warrior, accused of ignoring systematic human rights abuses of the Honduran government because it was helping Washington fight the communist Sandinistas in neighboring Nicaragua.

Battalion 3-16, the Honduran military’s special intelligence unit that came to be known as a death squad, was trained by the US Central Intelligence Agency and the Argentine military.

Negroponte has consistently denied knowledge of the rights abuses when he was US ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985.

Now he is at the forefront of a different kind of war, and his government is once again under fire for disregarding human rights in waging a war without borders, where the enemy does not abide by international rules.

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Negroponte will not discuss the details of how this new war is being waged. He will only say that his office is strengthening intelligence cooperation with allies in the war on terror, and increasing human intelligence capability by as much as 50 percent in the coming years.

His role in the war on terror is so new he’s still defining it.

America’s director of national intelligence oversees the collection and processing of intelligence within the United States and from around the globe.

When his appointment was announced in February by US President George W. Bush, Negroponte had vowed to provide "timely and objective national intelligence" to the commander-in-chief.

Negroponte, 65, has a tough mandate: to prevent a repeat of the failure of intelligence that led to 9/11, and the faulty intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.

As US ambassador to the United Nations, Negroponte had helped sell the war on Iraq to a skeptical international community. That was his job; the massaged intelligence on WMD was not his responsibility. And he got the job done.

It was the same in Honduras, where he did what he thought was best for US interests in preventing the spread of communism in Latin America. The human rights complaints hounded his confirmation hearings for the UN post. But in the end American lawmakers acknowledged the work of the cold warrior and gave him their nod.

They had such faith in him that they sent him to Iraq as the first post-war US ambassador. And they apparently liked his work in Baghdad as well. When he was handpicked by Bush to whip into shape the intelligence services, Negroponte got bipartisan support in Congress.

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His position is so new many people are still confused about his functions, and the parameters he is setting for his role. I still see him as a diplomat. Standing at the foyer of the sprawling Forbes Park house where he lived for three years, he recalled that it was his wife Diana who had renovated the residence.

Still the diplomat, he commented only on positive changes in his former host country. He took note of the new flyovers and said there is less traffic in Manila, considering it’s the Christmas season.

Negroponte oversees 15 spy agencies, including the CIA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation — agencies with chronic turf problems that have been partly blamed for the failure of intelligence that led to 9/11.

The "watchword" of his intelligence strategy, Negroponte said, is "integration" of the efforts of all the spy agencies.

"I am creating a new agency so there are many challenges connected with establishing a new department and carrying out intelligence reform," he told me.

As far as democracy and good governance are concerned, he wants the intel community to be able to understand "political dynamics" in other countries so difficulties or crises can be anticipated and US policy-makers can be alerted for proper action.

How will the intel be gathered? Political assessments are relatively easy; intel gathering on terrorism is something else. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is currently confronting the outcry of allies over secret CIA prisons in Europe, and the Bush administration has long been under fire for the use of torture in interrogating suspected terrorists.

CIA Director Porter Goss said recently that what they do "does not come close to torture."

The US national intelligence strategy aims to build an integrated intel capability that is "consistent with US laws and the protection of privacy and civil liberties."

For now America’s spymaster is focused on integrating intelligence services, and intensifying intel sharing with allies.

"This is something that cannot be done alone," he told me. "One needs friends around the world in an international struggle such as this."