Negropointe, Supporter of Central American Death Squads, nominated for Iraq Ambassador

AP - Negroponte's nomination for a U.N. post was confirmed by the Senate in September 2001, but that confirmation didn't come easy.

It was delayed a half-year mostly because of criticism of his record as the U.S. ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985. In Honduras, Negroponte played a prominent role in assisting the Contras in Nicaragua in their war with the left-wing Sandinista government, which was aligned with Cuba and the Soviet Union.

For weeks before his Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Negroponte was questioned by staff members on whether he had acquiesced to human rights abuses by a Honduran death squad funded and partly trained by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Negroponte testified that he did not believe the abuses were part of a deliberate Honduran government policy. "To this day," he said, "I do not believe that death squads were operating in Honduras."

el - fawning AP article written from administration talking points. Political Animal explains weariness with Bush extremist appointments and short-list as arguments for why he might be confirmed. Negropointe has worked closely with the CIA and is part of what some call the US CIA-linked shadow government But then, so is the Bush family.