Ex-US Pacom chief who sent GIs vs Abus eyed as Obama's intel head

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama’s top pick to become national intelligence director won high marks for countering terrorism in Southeast Asia after Sept. 11, 2001, but he will preside over an agency that may be reduced under the new administration.

As chief of the US military’s Pacific Command, Dennis Blair responded to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by devising an active anti-terror effort in South Asia. Blair worked closely with foreign partners to target the Abu Sayyaf organization in the Philippines and Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia, offensives that crippled both terror groups, according to intelligence and military officials familiar with his work.

Last month, Obama transition officials vacillated over whether to pick the retired admiral because of concerns that he was not a perfect fit in an agency expected to lose influence. Obama wanted a national intelligence director willing to work in a streamlined office with a narrowed focus on giving strong direction to the country’s 16 intelligence agencies, according to one current intelligence official.

The officials who commented about the 34-year Navy veteran spoke on condition of anonymity because the Obama transition team has insisted on confidentiality in its internal deliberations about personnel.

Congress followed the recommendation of the Sept. 11 Commission and created the national intelligence director’s office in 2004 to knit together the missions, priorities, resources and analysis of the 16 intelligence agencies. The national intelligence office was envisioned to have a staff of 500 people, but that has grown to 1,500.

Blair would have control over the CIA’s planning and its role in overall intelligence strategy but not over the agency’s budget. That disparity between the duties and powers of the national intelligence director’s office has spawned conflicts between the two agencies.    

Blair is also a China expert, and he was formerly an associate director for military support at the CIA. – AP