Hayden confirmation advances

WASHINGTON — Gen. Michael Hayden moved one step closer to taking over the troubled CIA on Tuesday after the Senate Intelligence Committee voted 12 to 3 to confirm him to replace Porter Goss.

The full Senate may vote on Hayden's nomination as early as Thursday, and he could be sworn in as the nation's 20th CIA chief before Congress leaves Friday for the holiday recess.

Goss, whose last day on the job is Friday, resigned this month after an exodus of CIA staff members and clashes with John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence. Hayden is Negroponte's deputy.

Hayden's "an outstanding choice," Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said after the committee voted in closed session to send the nomination to the full Senate. Roberts, the committee chairman, said Hayden would receive wide, bipartisan support in the Senate.

"He is a proven leader and a supremely qualified intelligence professional," Roberts said.

The panel approved Hayden, 61, despite reservations about his role in two Bush administration anti-terrorism programs that started when Hayden led the National Security Agency. Last week, Hayden told senators that officials use a "probable cause" standard to eavesdrop without court warrants on international phone calls or e-mails when at least one party is suspected of having links to terrorists. He said it was unlikely innocent Americans would be wiretapped.

He did not comment on a USA Today report that the NSA has secretly collected the domestic phone-call records of tens of millions of Americans. President Bush has confirmed the NSA surveillance program but not the telephone call database. Citing current and former intelligence officials with knowledge of the program, USA Today reported Tuesday that the NSA used phone records linked to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to create a template of how calls among terrorists would look.

Democratic Sens. Evan Bayh of Indiana, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Ron Wyden of Oregon voted against Hayden.

Wyden said he "couldn't resolve" inconsistencies in Hayden's public statements about the extent of NSA programs and later reports in USA Today. "I don't want to see repeated at the CIA what happened at NSA," he said, adding that he "wasn't satisfied" after Hayden refused in a private meeting Monday to give assurances that Congress would be told about other classified programs in the future.