President-elect Barack Obama will name former congressman and Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to head the CIA, tapping a veteran government manager who once oversaw the top-secret U.S. intelligence budget but has no hands-on espionage experience, Democratic officials said on Monday.
If he’s confirmed by the Senate, Panetta would take over an agency that’s leading the fight against terrorism as it struggles to overcome the damage dealt to its credibility and integrity by its Sept. 11 and Iraq intelligence failures and by its use of interrogation methods on suspected terrorists at secret prisons that many experts consider torture.
