Obama picks Panetta for CIA

Last Update: 1:53 pm

Iraq Study Group member and former Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton Leon Panetta (C) speaks as member Vernon Jordan (L), Senior Managing Director of Lazard, Freres & Co. LLC., listens during a news conference on the group's report on the war in Iraq December 6, 2006 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong, Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (AP) - Two Democratic officials say President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to run the CIA.

Panetta was a surprise pick for the post, with no experience in the intelligence world. An Obama transition official and another Democrat disclosed his nomination on a condition of anonymity since it was not yet public.

Panetta was director of the Office of Management and Budget and a longtime congressman from California.

He served on the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel that released a report at the end of 2006 with dozens of recommendations for the reversing course in the Iraq war.

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.
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