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Leon Panetta Tapped to Head CIA, Sources Say
Leon Panetta, who was chief of staff under former President Bill Clinton, is Barack Obama's pick to head the CIA, sources confirm to FOX News.
FOXNews.com
Monday, January 05, 2009

Bill Clinton's former chief of staff has been tapped to head the CIA in President-elect Barack Obama's administration, FOX News has learned.

Two Democratic sources close to the transition process said Monday that Leon Panetta, who also previously led the White House Office of Management and Budget, is Obama's pick to replace Michael Hayden at the CIA.

One Democratic official also confirmed that retired Adm. Dennis Blair is Obama's choice for national intelligence director. That announcement is not unexpected. The 34-year old Navy veteran was chief of the U.S. Pacific Command during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Blair is also a China expert, and he was an associate director for military support at the CIA.

Panetta is a surprise pick since he has no experience in the intelligence world. However, as chief of staff he had considerable access to intelligence information and knows how the community operates.

Panetta was a longtime congressman from California who also served on the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel that released a report at the end of 2006 with dozens of recommendations for reversing course in the Iraq war.

He is just the latest Clinton-era official to be invited into Obama's administration. Obama's pick for chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, also worked in the Clinton White House as a senior adviser to the president. A number of other nominees to key positions worked in the Clinton administration.

Panetta currently directs with his wife Sylvia the Leon & Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy, based at California State University, Monterey Bay a university he helped establish on the site of the former U.S. Army base, Fort Ord.

FOX News' Major Garrett and The Associated Press contributed to this report