New US House intelligence chairman is war critic

Incoming House speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a strong new signal on Friday by naming a Texas congressman who opposed the war in Iraq as the next chairman of the House intelligence committee.

Incoming House speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a strong new signal on Friday by naming a Texas congressman who opposed the war in Iraq as the next chairman of the House intelligence committee.

This choice, of Representative Silvestre Reyes to head one of Congress’s most important committees, ended weeks of closed-door lobbying and public posturing among Democrats who had been competing for the post. By choosing Reyes, a former Border Patrol agent and Vietnam combat veteran, Pelosi passed over the panel’s top Democrat, Representative Jane Harman of California, a more hawkish figure who voted to authorise the war in Iraq and a political rival with whom Pelosi has long had a stormy relationship.

Reyes has a far lower profile in national security circles than does Harman, an outspoken centrist who has become a regular guest on Sunday talk shows since the Sept 11 attacks.

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But Pelosi chose him over Harman in part because he has repeatedly taken a more combative stance toward Bush administration policies like the invasion of Iraq, military tribunals for terrorist suspects, and the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance programme.

In June, Reyes said that the failures in Iraq “cry out for oversight.” In September, he blasted the White House for the wiretapping programme. Reyes will inherit a committee that has become one of Congress’s most dysfunctional and partisan.

–MARK MAZZETTI & JEFF ZELENY