(AP) WASHINGTON – President Bush has chosen Rep. Porter Goss, head of the House intelligence committee, to be the new director of the CIA, it was learned Tuesday. A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Bush planned to announce the selection of Goss later Tuesday during a White House appearance.

Goss, a Republican from Florida, has been mentioned prominently in speculation about a successor to departed CIA Director George Tenet.

Bush’s decision comes in the wake of the president’s embrace of a key recommendation of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks: creation of a new intelligence czar to oversee the activities of the CIA and more than a dozen other intelligence agencies.

Speaking last week of the pleas for change by the 9/11 commission, Goss had said “we cannot afford to make changes blindly or in an unnecessary haste. We can ill-afford to rush to judgment any more than we can tolerate needless delay.”

Although Goss was among the leading candidates mentioned when Tenet announced his resignation earlier this year, there had been some recent speculation that his prospects had dimmed, due at least in part to the unavoidable controversies that surround a leading player in Congress.

Tenet’s last day was July 11, and the much-criticized agency since then has been under the leadership of acting Director John McLaughlin.

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