In this Sept. 23, 1994 file photo, then-White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta gestures while... 
(AP)Obama "has drawn a former Cabinet-level official to take a sub-Cabinet position, which means for a much more powerful CIA in the constellation of intelligence agencies," Hamre said.
Panetta was director of the Office of Management and Budget and a longtime congressman from California. As White House Chief of Staff during the Clinton administration, he spearheaded the internal effort to find a new CIA chief that led to the selection of John Deutsch in 1995. Deutsch served for 18 months. After he resigned, CIA security officers found classified material on his home computer, a violation of security procedures.
Panetta also served on the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel that released a report at the end of 2006 with dozens of recommendations for reversing course in the war.
With his wife, Sylvia, Panetta directs the Leon & Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy, based at California State University, Monterey Bay. The university that he helped establish is on the site of the former U.S. Army base at Fort Ord. Panetta also served for two years on a review board that helped oversee two major reports on the history of sex abuse in U.S. Catholic dioceses.
Obama's selection of Blair, a former U.S. Pacific Command chief, had been expected.
Blair served in the Navy for 34 years and was chief of the U.S. Pacific Command during the Sept. 11 attacks. Blair also is a China expert, and he was an associate director for military support at the CIA.
Blair and Panetta would replace retired Adm. Mike McConnell and former Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, respectively. Both men had said they would stay in their positions if asked.
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