How to extract U.S. troops from Iraq and a review of the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program are among the contentious issues on the agenda of the House Intelligence Committee’s incoming chairman.

But Silvestre Reyes said Friday he also plans to delve into some of the issues he specialized in as a committee member, such as border security and diversity in the spy community.

“First and foremost, I want to prioritize committee work with the understanding that we need to work towards keeping a safe and secure nation, that we don’t want to take a chance we get hit again like on 9/11,” Reyes said in an interview.

Selected Friday to lead the panel by incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Reyes said he had not yet decided how or whether to proceed on legislation such as a bill addressing the warrantless surveillance program run by the National Security Agency (NSA).

He also deferred on questions of whether the Intelligence Committee should have both appropriations and authorization powers, as recommended by the independent Sept. 11 Commission, until after he spoke with Pelosi. Democrats have vowed to implement those recommendations, but Pelosi is unlikely to implement some of them on intelligence oversight, and would run into resistance from appropriators if she did.

Sources close to Pelosi used committee term limits to justify passing over the panel’s current ranking Democrat, Jane Harman of California, and evicting her from the committee — even though the Sept. 11 Commission recommended eliminating those term limits. Harman complained Friday that term limits should be lifted for all members.

Reyes said he would “work in concert with other committees in looking at what are our options with respect to the situation in Iraq.” His committee’s role would contribute in areas such as “understanding the role of intelligence and the role of intelligence agencies” and how lawmakers and the administration “work our way through the question of how do we start removing our troops from Iraq?”

“That’s one of the big general priorities that we’re going to deal with this first year,” Reyes said.

Reyes said another general priority in his first year as chairman will be reviews of the NSA surveillance program, the CIA’s secret prisons, and interrogation practices for detainees.

He said those were “some of the controversial programs that have pretty much undermined the way the rest of the world sees us and our American values.”

His long-term agenda includes determining “what are the emerging threats, what are the challenges we will see in the future that we’re going to have to face and prepare for. In that category would be things like Iran, North Korea, and some of the other areas of the world that we haven’t paid close attention.” His list of other areas to examine included Latin America, the Balkans and Russia.

Reyes personal priorities as a committee member also will see an increased emphasis now that he will wield the panel’s gavel.

On diversity in the spy community, he said, one tact might be to assign budget priorities that promote the hiring of intelligence officials with varying backgrounds. He said he would push for the hiring of employees with language skills for more parts of the world than just the Middle East. “We’ve got to stay ahead of the threats,” he said.

He also said he would work with the House Homeland Security Committee to ensure the Department of Homeland Security’s agencies get the intelligence they need, and share any “actionable intelligence” they gather.

Reyes said he did not know how or if his other committee assignments would change, but he hoped to remain a member of the Armed Services panel. Realistically, however, Reyes said he expected another lawmaker to be tapped to lead the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of that panel, an assignment he was in line to take in the 110th Congress.