ID :
39027
Tue, 01/06/2009 - 13:00
Auther :
Shortlink :
http://m.oananews.org//node/39027
The shortlink copeid
Obama picks Bill Clinton`s chief of staff as CIA director for reform: reports
By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 (Yonhap) -- U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has chosen
former White House chief of staff Leon Panetta as director of the Central
Intelligence Agency, media reports said Monday.
Dennis Blair, a retired admiral and former chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, has
also been picked as national intelligence director to compensate for Panetta's
inexperience in the intelligence community, CNN and other reports said.
The selection of the 70-year-old Panetta, who served in the Clinton
administration, is seen as an attempt by Obama to overhaul the CIA, which has
been under fire for its failure to provide warning of the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks and for falsely asserting that Iraq had weapons of mass
destruction, which led to the U.S. invasion in 2003.
U.S. President George W. Bush recently said that he regretted the false
information on Iraq's WMD, although he defended the invasion as being justified
to oust Saddam Hussein's dictatorship.
The U.S. has spent more than US$600 billion in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
home of the Al Queda terrorist network, straining an economy that is struggling
with trade and budget deficits and bailout funds for ailing U.S. financial
institutions.
More than 4,200 U.S. soldiers have been killed in the war on Iraq, the biggest
single factor in Bush's plummeting approval rating, one of the lowest among
presidents ever before the economic woes caused by the subprime mortgage crisis.
Panetta currently serves as the director of the Panetta Institute at California
State University in Monterey.
The former nine-term congressman served as a member of the bipartisan Iraq Study
Group in 2006 to look into the unpopular war in Iraq and make recommendations to
Bush.
Obama arrived in Washington late Sunday without fanfare amid deepening economic
woes, international uproar over Israel's invasion in the Gaza Strip and New
Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's withdrawal from nomination as commerce secretary
due to an inquiry over a state business contract granted to a political advocate.
He takes office on Jan. 20.
hdh@yna.co.kr
(END)
WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 (Yonhap) -- U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has chosen
former White House chief of staff Leon Panetta as director of the Central
Intelligence Agency, media reports said Monday.
Dennis Blair, a retired admiral and former chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, has
also been picked as national intelligence director to compensate for Panetta's
inexperience in the intelligence community, CNN and other reports said.
The selection of the 70-year-old Panetta, who served in the Clinton
administration, is seen as an attempt by Obama to overhaul the CIA, which has
been under fire for its failure to provide warning of the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks and for falsely asserting that Iraq had weapons of mass
destruction, which led to the U.S. invasion in 2003.
U.S. President George W. Bush recently said that he regretted the false
information on Iraq's WMD, although he defended the invasion as being justified
to oust Saddam Hussein's dictatorship.
The U.S. has spent more than US$600 billion in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
home of the Al Queda terrorist network, straining an economy that is struggling
with trade and budget deficits and bailout funds for ailing U.S. financial
institutions.
More than 4,200 U.S. soldiers have been killed in the war on Iraq, the biggest
single factor in Bush's plummeting approval rating, one of the lowest among
presidents ever before the economic woes caused by the subprime mortgage crisis.
Panetta currently serves as the director of the Panetta Institute at California
State University in Monterey.
The former nine-term congressman served as a member of the bipartisan Iraq Study
Group in 2006 to look into the unpopular war in Iraq and make recommendations to
Bush.
Obama arrived in Washington late Sunday without fanfare amid deepening economic
woes, international uproar over Israel's invasion in the Gaza Strip and New
Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's withdrawal from nomination as commerce secretary
due to an inquiry over a state business contract granted to a political advocate.
He takes office on Jan. 20.
hdh@yna.co.kr
(END)
