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Obama Team Debating Whether Kappes Will Join Panetta and Blair for PEBO Intel Announcement
January 08, 2009 11:53 AM
ABC NEWS' GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS AND JAKE TAPPER REPORT:
ABC News has learned that President-elect Obama is debating whether the current deputy director of the CIA, 27-year agency veteran Stephen Kappes, will be present when Obama unveils his Intelligence Team Friday. The President-elect will likely keep Kappes in his current No. 2 role.
This step would largely be done as a way of placating critics who have expressed concern about his pick for CIA director, former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta, and said he lacks direct intelligence experience.
Some, such as both Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the incoming chair of the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence, and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, the outgoing chair, have made it clear that they would have liked to have seen an intelligence professional get the director's job, with Kappes's name often mentioned.
Including Kappes in the announcement could symbolize that the agency will be run by both an outsider who has the confidence of the president, and a longtime insider -- the best of both worlds.
Mr. Obama's nominee to be Director of National Intelligence, Retired Admiral Dennis Blair, will also be formally announced.
-- Jake Tapper and George Stephanopoulos
UPDATE: This post has been updated.
January 8, 2009 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (23)
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We should all prepare ourselves for another attack on American soil.
Obama has zero foreign policy experience.
Hillary Clinton has none unless you want to count her story of dodging bullets in Bosnia.
The incoming Director of Homeland Security only knows about immigration enforcement because of her experience in Arizona.
The Attorney General knows nothing about combating terrorism and pardoned of the FALN terrorists.
Panetta, is the worse choice to head CIA, has no experience and was formally notably as head of the Budget committee, OMB director, and Chief of Staff to the President.
This Obama administration will be like Carter. One term and he will be done in by a foreign crisis and run us into debt.
I saw his speech, it appears that Obama is nostalgic for his campaign days. Which speech did he pull that from October 13, 2008??? Again with the change rhetoric. I didn't vote for Obama but January 20th couldn't get here any faster. Then he can stop hiding behind "One president at a time" and Change.
Posted by: Peace Train | Jan 8, 2009 12:07:37 PM
jpt writes:
"The blog was updated to reflect the Obama Team's changing view of this situation."
Apparently it was "updated" to remove information about "Mr. Obama's nominee to be Director of National Intelligence, Retired Admiral Dennis Blair". WHY?? If the US is now a right-wing military dictatorship, instead of hopey-change land, might as well just announce it, and let those who want to leave, leave.
Do The One's people-pickers somehow NOT have the ability to search the internet for the history of their proposed picks? (WHO is proposing these picks? What do they HAVE on PEBO? Maybe He'd better fess up and declare His independence.)
Here's MORE on Blair, whose proposed appointment should ENRAGE Democrats:
"In April 2000, over the objections of U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia Robert S. Gelbard, members of Congress and State Department officials, Blair made the first high-level visit to Indonesia since all military assistance was cut off in the aftermath of the 1999
independence referendum in East Timor."
Posted by: Belle Starr | Jan 8, 2009 12:03:02 PM
Great, everything the guys does has a political overtone. That has been so good for America in the past. (sarcsm).
Panetta is a heck of a lot better than most CIA directors we have had. So quit trying to placate Fienstien and Fox 'News'
Posted by: Blake | Jan 8, 2009 11:55:25 AM
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