Rep. Porter Goss speaks to reporters as President Bush looks on in the Rose Garden of the White House Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2004, in Washington. (Reuters)

President Bush on Tuesday nominated House of Representatives intelligence chief Porter Goss to head the CIA and quickly encountered skepticism on whether the congressman could help revive the flagging intelligence community after its spectacular failures over Iraq and Sept. 11, 2001.

Bush told a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden that the 65-year-old former Army intelligence officer and CIA operative would be "the right man to lead this important agency at this critical moment."

The nomination comes as the United States faces the uncertainty of possible terrorist attacks before the Nov. 2 election and calls for sweeping intelligence reforms proposed by a bipartisan commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks.

Among the commission's chief recommendations was to subordinate the head of the CIA and the chiefs of other such agencies under a single, new intelligence director.

Democrats questioned whether Goss, a Republican congressman from the key election battleground of Florida, was too partisan for the position and promised tough questions in the U.S. Senate, which must confirm his nomination.

"This is the worst nomination in the history of the job," said former CIA Director Stansfield Turner, who served as U.S. spymaster under Democrat Jimmy Carter.

It was unclear how much authority any new CIA chief would wield, or how long a Goss tenure might last if Bush lost the Nov. 2 election to Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.

Kerry joined Republicans and many Democrats in calling for swift confirmation hearings for Bush's choice of a fellow Yale alumnus.

"The most important thing we can do right now is reform and strengthen our intelligence services as the 9/11 commission has recommended. I hope that Congressman Goss shares this view," Kerry said of the Republican committee chairman tapped by the Bush-Cheney campaign earlier this summer to criticize a Kerry speech on national security.

Republicans and some Democrats cited Goss' decade of service in the spy agency andstewardship of the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence since 1997.

No confirmation hearings were immediately scheduled, and lawmakers are in recess until Sept. 7. Earlier, key Democrats said they would not support Goss for the CIA post.

Congressional sources said Democratic doubts about Goss's enthusiasm for reform stemmed from a bill he introduced in June that would place the CIA director in charge of the entire U.S. intelligence community.

That appeared to contradict a central recommendation of the Sept. 11 commission -- backed publicly by both Bush and Kerry -- to create a new national intelligence director in an effort to unite often squabbling branches of the secret services. A Goss spokesman had no comment on the matter.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan left open the possibility that the position of CIA director could be transformed into national intelligence director.

The CIA has been widely criticized for failing to provide enough intelligence to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks and for inaccurate information on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

(Agencies)