Washington: US President Barack Obama has nominated on Monday White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan as CIA director and Chuck Hagel as defense secretary.
“Brennan has the full trust and confidence of the president,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP earlier in the day.
“Over the past four years, he has been involved in virtually all major national security issues and will be able to hit the ground running at CIA.”
Brennan, a 25-year Central Intelligence Agency veteran, is an Arabic-speaking Middle East expert.
Trained as a spy, Brennan rose quickly as a counter-terrorism analyst and manager in the Near East and South Asia branch of the agency’s intelligence directorate.
Hagel, a decorated Vietnam veteran, is known for a fiercely independent streak and a tendency to speak bluntly.
In a recent interview with the history magazine Vietnam, he denied he was a pacifist.
“I believe in using force, but only after a very careful decision-making process,” he was quoted by the magazine as saying. “I will do everything I can to avoid needless, senseless war.”
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