Analysis: Panetta’s CIA Nomination Part of Broader Obama Plan

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
America’s largest newspapers describe US President Elect Barack Obama’s choice of Leon E. Panetta as CIA’s next Director as “a surpris[ing] and unusual choice” that has “stunned the national intelligence community“. These descriptions are not far from the truth. More importantly, however, the selection of the former Bill Clinton aide to head the nation’s most powerful intelligence agency reveals the continuing rift between the incoming Democratic Administration and many conservative hawks at the CIA. The latter openly warned the President Elect last month that he “may have difficulty finding a candidate who can be embraced by both veteran officials at the agency and the left flank of the Democratic Party”. Keep reading →