The nomination of Robert Gates as the new U.S. secretary of defense has begun to ease concerns in the nation's intelligence community about the rapid growth of Pentagon intelligence activities since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

Gates, a former CIA director, has a long history of opposing expansive Pentagon intelligence activities and has voiced unease about roles being taken over by Pentagon personnel, in part because more than 80 percent of all intelligence spending is now done by Defense Department agencies, the report said, quoting experts inside and outside the government and on Capitol Hill.

Donald Rumsfeld, the outgoing defense secretary, has vastly expanded Pentagon intelligence activities, increasing operations overseas and creating a new position and a new agency to handle military intelligence.

In 1991, after being confirmed for the dual role of director of central intelligence and CIA director, Gates tried to rein in Pentagon activities by getting a White House directive from then- President George H. W. Bush that created the Community Management Staff to help oversee all intelligence activities.

In an op-ed piece in The Washington Post in May, Gates wrote that he and other CIA veterans were "unhappy about the dominance of the Defense Department in the intelligence arena" at a time when "close cooperation between the military and the CIA in both clandestine and intelligence collection is essential."

In the article, Gates supported Michael Hayden becoming CIA director in part because Hayden, while director of the National Security Agency (NSA), opposed Rumsfeld keeping control of the NSA instead of having it move to the new director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte.

One quick indication of how Gates will deal with interagency tensions will be whether Rumsfeld's undersecretary of defense for intelligence, Stephen Cambone, and his top deputy, William Boykin, remain in their current positions, the Post report said.

Source: Xinhua