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Obama Selects Blair as Director of National Intelligence By SIOBHAN GORMAN
President-elect Barack Obama has chosen retired Adm. Dennis C. Blair to be his top spymaster, indicating his preference for a strong military manager to fill the most senior intelligence post, according to people close to the transition.
Mr. Obama is still weighing options for director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Mr. Blair is expected to advise in that selection, further cementing the intelligence director's role as the chief of all 16 intelligence agencies.
Choosing Mr. Blair may reignite long-simmering tensions between military and civilian intelligence officials. "It's controversial from those within the intelligence community," one former top intelligence official said.
If confirmed, Mr. Blair would succeed another retired Navy admiral, Mike McConnell, to become the third director of national intelligence since Congress created the post four years ago. Mr. Obama has said he would prefer that the intelligence director serve longer terms to depoliticize the post, like the Federal Bureau of Investigation director, who serves up to two five-year terms.
Mr. Blair would inherit an unfinished intelligence overhaul in which power battles continue, particularly between the intelligence director's office and the CIA, intelligence officials say.
In addition to stepping up efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Mr. Obama wants to tackle some of the tougher intelligence issues that the Bush administration hasn't resolved. Two former intelligence officials said the Obama team is weighing whether to propose the creation of a domestic intelligence agency. Another idea under study is creating a White House office to handle cybersecurity, a growing national- security problem.
A former commander of the military's forces in the Pacific who served 34 years in the Navy, Mr. Blair did one tour as the CIA's military liaison in the mid-1990s. That experience will provide important perspective in overseeing the CIA and other intelligence agencies, say those who have worked with Mr. Blair. He has advised Mr. Obama occasionally in the Senate, and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University with Bill Clinton.
With a reputation as a brainy straight-shooter, Mr. Blair is free of the baggage from controversial spy programs such as the CIA interrogation program and the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance.
But in the confirmation process he will likely be asked to explain a Pentagon inspector general's finding that he violated conflict-of- interest standards.
As president of the Institute for Defense Analyses, Mr. Blair was involved with a study of a contract for the F-22 fighter jet while sitting on the board of a subcontractor on that program, EDO Corp. The inspector general found in a 2006 report that Mr. Blair violated the institute's conflict-of-interest standards but didn't influence the outcome for the study. IDA is a nonprofit corporation that administers federal research programs. Mr. Blair was forced to resign from IDA over the matter and he also stepped down from the EDO board.
Mr. Blair currently serves in a senior analytic post at the National Bureau of Asian Research, where he recently published a study of military powers in Asia and their relations to the U.S. He is on the board of directors at Tyco International and at Iridium Satellite, a Maryland-based satellite company.
The CIA director post remains to be filled. Former CIA official John O. Brennan, a 25-year CIA veteran, was originally seen as a likely choice to head the CIA, but he withdrew his name in the face of liberal backlash. Some liberal Democrats said Mr. Brennan bore some responsibility for the CIA's detention program, which used simulated drowning called waterboarding in interrogations and was widely seen as a form of torture. He said he argued against such interrogation tactics.
New names for CIA director have surfaced in recent weeks, including deputy CIA director Steven R. Kappes, former CIA analysis chief John Gannon, and former CIA operations chief Jack Devine. Some lawmakers have also asked Mr. Obama to reconsider Mr. Brennan. Mr. Obama could also choose to retain current CIA Director Michael V. Hayden, though several people close to the transition say that's unlikely.