Washington ? President Bush named John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, as the government’s first national intelligence director Thursday, turning to a veteran diplomat to revive a spy community besieged by criticism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Ending a nine-week search, Bush chose Negroponte, who has been in Iraq for less than a year, for the difficult job of implementing the most sweeping intelligence overhaul in 50 years.

Negroponte, 65, is tasked with bringing together 15 highly competitive spy agencies and learning to work with the combative Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the brand-new CIA Director Porter Goss and other intelligence leaders. He’ll oversee a covert intelligence budget estimated at $40 billion.

Negroponte, a former ambassador to the United Nations and a number of countries, called the job his “most challenging assignment” in more than 40 years of government work.

He was widely believed not to have been the first choice, but Bush officials denied the president had trouble filling the position.

If confirmed by the Senate, as expected, Negroponte said he planned “reform of the intelligence community in ways designed to best meet the intelligence needs of the 21st century.”

Bush signaled that he saw Negroponte as the man to steer his intelligence clearinghouse. “If we’re going to stop the terrorists before they strike, we must ensure that our intelligence agencies work as a single, unified enterprise,” Bush said.

Negroponte will have coveted time with the president during daily intelligence briefings and will have authority over the spy community’s intelligence collection priorities. Perhaps most importantly, Bush made clear that Negroponte will set budgets for the national intelligence agencies.

Bush also announced he had chosen an intelligence insider to serve as Negroponte’s deputy, Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, the National Security Agency’s director since 1999.

In a statement Thursday, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., praised Negroponte’s selection and said the panel would hold a confirmation hearing as soon as his duties in Iraq are complete. A Roberts aide said that could still be weeks away.