The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee vowed Tuesday to block any attempt by the Obama administration at placing the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command into the hands of two separate directors.
Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, adamantly rejected the possible split while speaking at a cybersecurity hearing on Capitol Hill held amid reports of a possible separation of powers.
Navy Adm. Michael Rogers currently sits atop both the NSA and Cyber Command in the same “dual-hatted” tradition started by his predecessor, Gen. Keith Alexander. According to a report published Tuesday in The Washington Post, however, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper are both pushing the White House toward splitting the leadership roles among two separate officials.
“Let me be very clear: I do not believe rushing to separate the dual hat in the final months of an administration is appropriate, given the very serious challenges we face in cyberspace and the failure of this administration to develop an effective deterrence policy,” Mr. McCain said Tuesday. “Therefore, if a decision is prematurely made to separate NSA and Cyber Command, I will object to the confirmation of any individual nominated by the president to replace the director of the National Security Agency if that person is not also nominated to be the commander of Cyber Command.”
Adm. Rogers, a witness at Tuesday’s hearing, said he believed that continuing to simultaneously serve as chief of both the NSA and Cyber Command was in the best national security interest of the country.
Mr. McCain has long been critical of the Obama administration’s policies concerning cybersecurity, and in January said the White House’s inability to form a cohesive cyberwarfare strategy “have failed to deter our adversaries or decrease the vulnerability of our nation in cyberspace.”
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