Panetta's Peers Back Him for CIA-They Cite Years of Relevant Experience

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Panetta's Peers Back Him for CIA
They Cite Years of Relevant Experience

By Michael Abramowitz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 7, 2009; Page A06


As a top official at the White House in 1996, Richard A. Clarke was looking for an ally after concluding that the CIA and FBI needed an additional $1 billion for counterterrorism programs. Officials at the Office of Management of Budget were dismissive of the request, so Clarke sought an audience with Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta.

Clarke said he made his case to Panetta, who queried him closely about the need for the funds and whether the agencies were prepared to spend them. As Clarke recalled yesterday, Panetta then gave the go-ahead for the initiative, disappointing a large retinue of hostile budget officials who had gathered in the chief's spacious West Wing office expecting the onetime budget director to skewer Clarke.

"He was in the small handful of people who knew there was a terrorism problem long before anybody else had heard of al-Qaeda," Clarke said of Panetta.

As questions continued to swirl on Capitol Hill about President-elect Barack Obama's selection of Panetta to be his CIA director, several of his former White House colleagues rebutted criticism that he lacked the necessary experience and qualifications for the post. They said Panetta worked closely with President Bill Clinton and his most senior lieutenants on every national security issue that came through the White House between 1994 and 1997 while becoming a sophisticated consumer of intelligence during the daily briefings the CIA provided for Clinton and senior advisers.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/06/AR2009010602867.html