Surprising CIA choice isn't a bad one

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. Is Obama dissing the CIA? Is he further politicizing this bruised agency? What signal is he sending by picking Leon Panetta as CIA director?

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 to rebuild after a traumatic eight years under George Bush, when it became a kind of national pin cushion.

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 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 post as director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Both Kappes and his boss, retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, wanted the job. Both were rejected - partly because they were seen as too connected to the policies of the past, and partly because they lacked political heft.

Obama's advisers want Kappes to continue as deputy. And in another sign that Obama doesn't see previous CIA service as a disqualification, John Brennan, a top aide to former CIA Director George Tenet, is likely to be offered a senior position on the National Security Council staff.

A quick survey of CIA sources indicated support for Panetta among a work force that is notoriously prickly - and 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. Blair is another retired admiral, but Obama's advisers say he will bring a "light touch" to his new job of coordinating the intelligence community.

Blair's mission, according to Obama's advisers, will be to streamline the 2004 intelligence reorganization that created the DNI structure to oversee the nation's 16 intelligence agencies. In the view of one key member of the Obama team, that reorganization "currently verges on dysfunction," with too many people working in the DNI staff, and too much internal bickering.

Blair is likely to move quickly to reduce the number of personnel and contractors in the DNI bureaucracy, and to make other changes that signal he wants a leaner and more disciplined organization.

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 agency officers and foreign spy chiefs who have complained about 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.

© 2009, Washington Post Writers Group