Obama announces national security team

US President-elect Barack Obama on Friday named Leon Panetta, a former White House Chief of Staff, to head the Central Intelligence Agency and retired admiral Dennis Blair as the director of the National Intelligence.

John Brenna, a former leader of the National Counter-terrorism Center, will be his Homeland Security Adviser and Deputy National Security Adviser for Counter-terrorism Serving, Obama announced.

The outgoing DNI chief Mike McConnell has been nominated to his foreign intelligence advisory board.

"To have a successful and sustainable national security strategy, I've made clear that we will need to deploy and balance all elements of American power - our military, diplomacy, homeland security, economic might, and moral suasion. Good intelligence work is necessary to support each of these endeavors," Obama said on the occasion.

Introducing his team at a press conference, Obama said: "I'm confident that Blair and Panetta are the right leaders to advance the work of our intelligence communities. They are public servants with unquestioned integrity, broad experience, strong management skills, and the core pragmatism we need in dangerous times."

By announcing his choices for the CIA director and national intelligence director, Obama completed his national security team.

He said Blair, a former National Security Council staffer and the first associate director of Central Intelligence for Military Support, is uniquely qualified to build bridges of cooperation among national security institutions.

On Panetta's nomination as CIA director, with critics specially some members of the Senate questioning his lack of experience in intelligence, Obama said: "Let me be clear, in Leon Panetta, the agency will have a director who has my complete trust and substantial clout.

"He will be a strong manager and a strong advocate for the CIA. He knows how to focus resources where they are needed, and he has had a proven track record of building consensus and working on a bipartisan basis with Congress."

The president-elect, who takes office on January 20, said Panetta "has unparalleled experience in making the institutions of government work better for the American people as a congressman, OMB director, and White House chief of staff.

He has handled intelligence daily at the very highest levels, and time and again, he has demonstrated sound judgment, grace under fire, and complete integrity."