A Surprise for Langley: Leon Panetta "is not going to preside over the demise of the CIA."

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: A Surprise for Langley
By David Ignatius
Wednesday, January 7, 2009; Page A15

On its face, it's a puzzling choice: Barack Obama selects as his spy chief a former congressman with no firsthand experience as an intelligence professional....Here's the message, according to Obama's advisers: Panetta is a Washington heavyweight with the political clout to protect the agency and help it rebuild after a traumatic eight years under George Bush, when it became a kind of national pincushion.

"Leon is not going to preside over the demise of the CIA," explains one member of the Obama transition team. "The CIA needs to have someone who can represent them well."

This argument for Panetta makes sense. Ideally, the next CIA director would have been an experienced professional -- someone like Steve Kappes, the veteran case officer who now serves as deputy director. But the reality is that the professionals now lack the political muscle to fend off the agency's critics and second-guessers. That's the heart of the problem: The agency needs to rebuild political support before it can be depoliticized.

The Panetta choice illustrates, once again, Obama's desire for strong personalities in key jobs. As White House chief of staff during the second Clinton term, Panetta was one of the few people who could discipline the omnivorous President Bill Clinton. He sat in on the daily intelligence briefings as chief of staff, and he reviewed the nation's most secret intelligence-collection and covert-action programs in his previous post as director of the Office of Management and Budget....

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A quick survey of CIA sources indicated support for Panetta among a workforce that is notoriously prickly -- and that has demonstrated an ability to sabotage bosses it doesn't like. "Thank goodness it's not a military guy," said one former officer, who, like some other colleagues, had resented the growing role of former military officers such as Hayden as CIA director and retired Adm. Mike McConnell as director of national intelligence.

Complementing the Panetta nomination is the choice of Dennis Blair to succeed McConnell as DNI....

With the high-profile Panetta at CIA and the low-key Blair at DNI, the relative balance in the intelligence community would shift a bit, in the CIA's favor. The point of contact for foreign intelligence services will be the CIA, in Washington and overseas, according to the Obama team. That will please both agency officers and foreign spy chiefs who have complained about the confusion created by McConnell's overreaching DNI staff.

Obama doesn't have any background in intelligence, but insiders say that since the election, he has been immersing himself in the murky world of secret operations with his characteristic lawyerly diligence. He made a surprising decision in picking Panetta, but on balance, a good one.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/06/AR2009010602826.html?hpid=opinionsbox1