WASHINGTON (AP) -- Stephen A. Cambone, the Pentagon's top intelligence official and a close ally of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, will step down at the end of the year, becoming the first key department member to leave in the wake of Rumsfeld's resignation.More tomorrow when the Times arrives and tells me more than the AP blurb. Anyway, this isn't the first Friday newsdump and it won't be the last, but it is one of the more significant. Cambrone has been in the midst of everything the DoD has done lately that has an air of "wrong" about it, right up to and including Abu Ghraib.
It had been widely speculated that Cambone, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, would resign as the Pentagon prepares for the expected Senate confirmation of a new defense chief -- former CIA Director Robert Gates.
The Pentagon's intelligence-gathering has come under fire during Cambone's tenure, with critics accusing the Defense Department of trying to take expanded control over the nation's intelligence activities.
Cambone was in charge of intelligence when it was disclosed a year ago that a Pentagon database of suspicious activities contained the names of anti-war groups that had been found not be security risks. Cambone ordered a review of the program.
Five will get you ten that General Karpinski said something in her testimony this week that hastened his departure. What'll ya bet?
