Reports: Panetta to CIA, Adm. Blair as Dir. of Nat’l Intel

President-elect Obama has chosen former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta to serve as CIA director and retired Adm. Dennis Blair to be his director of national intelligence, according to reports.

By choosing Panetta, a former House member from California and President Clinton’s top White House staffer, Obama has someone with no connection to the CIA’s interrogation methods under the Bush administration, reports The New York Times. The agency had been criticized for using interview techniques, such as waterboarding, that amounted to torture.

Blair, chief of the U.S. Pacific Command during the 9/11 terror attacks, will be a principal adviser to Obama, the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council, the Associated Press reports.