Obama to Nominate John Brennan to Run the CIA
President Obama will reportedly nominate John Brennan, the nation's current head of counterterrorism operations, to replace David Petraeus as the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency. If he is successfully confirmed, Brennan will join former Senator Chuck Hagel as the leading members of the President's revamped national security team. Both their nominations will be formally announced together at a White House event later today.
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Brennan, a 25-year veteran of the CIA, was actually one of the leading choices for the job back in 2008, but was too closely linked to George W. Bush's CIA policies, including the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques." Instead, the job went to Leon Panetta (before he became Secretary of Defense) and Brennan joined the President's White House team, taking the role of Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. Among his key responsibilities is overseeing the administration's "kill list" of high-value terrorism suspects who become targets for assassinations and drone attacks.
