Mike McConnell’s predecessor, John Negroponte, is moving to the State Department to become Condoleezza Rice’s deputy.

John Negroponte: “It’s been a great honor, Mr. President, to serve as your first director of national intelligence. I will always be grateful to you for having given me the opportunity to help achieve the goals that you and the Congress set for intelligence reform. During the past 20 months, I believe that our intelligence community has embraced the challenge of functioning as a single, unified enterprise and reaffirmed the fact that it is the best intelligence community in the world, second to none.”