NBC: Obama picks Panetta for CIA director

Leon Panetta was Bill Clinton's chief of staff and Iraq Study Group member

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Panetta for CIA
Jan. 5: President-elect Obama has chosen former Clinton chief of staff Leon Panetta to be his CIA director. NBC’s Chuck Todd reports.

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updated 3:03 p.m. ET Jan. 5, 2009

NBC News has confirmed that President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to run the CIA.

Panetta was a surprise pick for the post, with no experience in the intelligence world. An Obama transition official and another Democrat disclosed his nomination on a condition of anonymity since it was not yet public.

Panetta was director of the Office of Management and Budget and a longtime congressman from California.

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He served on the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel that released a report at the end of 2006 with dozens of recommendations for the reversing course in the Iraq war.

Panetta currently directs with his wife Sylvia the Leon & Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy, based at California State University, Monterey Bay a university he helped establish on the site of the former U.S. Army base, Fort Ord.

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NBC's Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie contributed to this story.