Eli Lake: Dennis Blair Resigns

Eli Lake reports on the resignation of Dennis Blair:

Mr. Blair, director of national intelligence, announced his resignation, effective May 28 in a five-sentence statement that ended with praise for the national intelligence bureaucracy he will no longer command. "Keep it up - I will be cheering for you," he said.

A U.S. official in a position to know said, "We have been interviewing several strong candidates to be his replacement."

Among the candidates are former Deputy Defense Secretary John J. Hamre, now president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies; retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper, the deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence; and Michael G. Vickers, a former CIA official and currently the Pentagon's assistant secretary of defense for special operations.

Mr. Blair, a retired Navy admiral who served under President Clinton as commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, was at times viewed by analysts as out of step with the White House. Mr. Blair's first choice to chair the National Intelligence Council, Charles "Chas" Freeman was pressured to resign. Mr. Blair also had to retract criticism he made publicly about the administration's decision to pursue a civil trial for Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, charged as the would-be Christmas Day jetliner bomber.

For example, Mr. Blair told a Senate hearing in January that Mr. Abdulmutallab should have been interrogated by a special unit created for high-value terrorism suspects.

Hours after the unusual public criticism during the Senate testimony, Mr. Blair's office released a statement saying he had misspoken, and noted that the interrogation unit, known as the High Value Interrogation Group or HIG, had not yet been established. The statement also praised the FBI for conducting the solo interrogation, stating that valuable information was obtained, despite the fact that other government interrogations specialists were excluded from the debriefing.

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