President Bush formally nominated Gen. Michael V. Hayden to head the Central Intelligence Agency. The announcement is almost anticlimactic; Bush’s choice has been the subject of endless Beltway discourse since Hayden’s name came up shortly after former CIA head Porter Goss resigned. The Hayden pluses include his long experience in the intelligence arena and his seeming ability to work amicably with Capitol Hill. The Hayden minuses include his active-duty status (easily remedied by retirement, but he would not be the first—try Adm. Stansfield Turner, who retired from the Navy in his second year as DCI) and his lack of human-operative experience (he is known as a technology man.) News from coast to coast has been full of pros and cons. (Here are Hayden’s own words about the evolving world of intelligence, from AFA’s recent Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla.)
The U.S. thwarted a drone attack on U.S. forces at Al Asad air base in western Iraq on April 22, marking the first time that American troops have been targeted since February, U.S. officials said. “We can confirm it was an attack on Al Asad,” a defense official told Air & Space…