President-Elect Barack Obama is expected to name retired Navy Adm. Dennis Blair as the nation's new National Intelligence Director shortly. But while transition and Democratic Party sources say Obama and Blair have reached agreement about Blair's nomination as the next “intelligence czar” (as predicted in this week's Newsweek), there is considerable debate behind the scenes as to what, precisely, his duties will entail.

The issue goes back to the troubled beginnings of the Office of Director of National Intelligence in 2004. In a frenzy to demonstrate they were doing something to remedy lapses in the handling of intelligence reports on al Qaeda before 9/11, Congress legislated the creation of the DNI to force historically competitive agencies like the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency to share information. Congress also wanted to bring more discipline to the largely unaccountable budgets of defense intel agencies--like NSA, which runs a worldwide electronic eavesdropping network, and the National Reconnaissance Office, which builds and operates spy satellites. Under post-World War II legislation, the director of the CIA--whose official title was Director of Central Intelligence--was supposed to be able to force agencies to share info. The CIA chief also was supposed to have some power to manage spending throughout the intelligence "community."

But successive CIA directors never succeeded in asserting dominion over Pentagon agencies, whose spending on systems like satellites and spy planes dwarfs the CIA's spending on recruitment and handling of human secret agents. Over the years the CIA director's power to force agencies to share information also atrophied. The CIA's Operations directorate--the bureau that handles undercover spying--itself became one of the "community's" most turf-conscious players, as was demonstrated when post-9/11 inquests established that CIA had been monitoring two future 9/11 hijackers since early 2000 but did little to alert the FBI when the suspects moved to the United States.

Some Bush advisors and many intelligence officials opposed post-9/11 proposals to establish a new intelligence czar. They argued that this would only create a new level of bureaucracy, and that a simpler solution would be to bolster the CIA chief's powers to require sharing and budget discipline among all spy agencies. Congress went ahead and created the DNI office anyway, although from the start questions hung over the new czar's authority over Pentagon spying budgets.

It’s generally agreed that the system began working better in 2007 after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his hardline subordinates were replaced at the Pentagon by Robert Gates--a former Director of Central Intelligence. Since then Pentagon techno-spies have demonstrated a much greater willingness to submit themselves to the supervision of the intelligence czar's office. But at the same time, complaints have emerged that the czar's office has become a top-heavy bureaucracy that second-guesses managers in front-line agencies and slows down decision-making along the chain of command. For instance, the intelligence czar's office has made it clear that it expects foreign intelligence services, which traditionally have established direct relationships with American agencies like CIA, FBI or NSA, to check in with its officials before conducting significant business with their traditional U.S. counterparts. Also, there is a question of whether the intelligence czar has enough time to carry out his dual responsibilities as top manager of 16 competing U.S. agencies and as the President's senior intelligence advisor. The current DNI director, retired Admiral (and one-time NSA chief) Mike McConnell, spends hours early each morning preparing to personally deliver daily intelligence briefings to President Bush--an activity that has sapped the time and energy he needs to ride herd on squabbling and unruly agencies.

Members of Obama's transition team for intelligence, who have been meeting for about a month under the leadership of two former top CIA officials (John Brennan and Jami Miscik) have been examining the intelligence czar's duties and responsibilities. People close to the transition say that Blair, who while in uniform once worked at CIA headquarters as the agency's chief liaison to the Pentagon, has been participating in briefings by transition advisors about the challenges facing a new National Intelligence Director. But according to one well-informed source, Blair himself hasn't yet expressed strong opinions on how he might want to change the way the intelligence czar's office works.

Meanwhile, Obama and his advisors are still fretting about a new CIA director. Intel transition team leader Brennan was the leading candidate to assume command of his former agency until liberal bloggers complained that he had publicly defended controversial Bush Administration policies on the imprisonment and interrogation of top Al-Qaeda operatives held and roughly questioned by the CIA. Brennan then removed himself from consideration (though he stayed in charge of the transition effort). But his withdrawal raised questions as to whether anyone from CIA associated with Bush Administration policies could pass muster with Obama's political base. Democratic sources have indicated nonetheless that a leading candidate still being considered by Obama for CIA chief is the agency's current deputy director, Stephen Kappes--a veteran but media-shy spy who almost certainly was involved in the agency's handling of terrorist suspects while serving as Number Two in the Operations Directorate between 2002 and 2004. Kappes was driven out of the agency when Republican Congressman Porter Goss and a coterie of hyper-partisan Capitol Hill aides took control at Langley in 2004; he was invited back after Goss and his team were forced out by John Negroponte, then serving as Intelligence Czar. Kappes’ willingness to stand up to the Republicans may well have endeared him to Democrats who follow intelligence issues closely, and may be why Kappes' candidacy for CIA chief hasn't yet foundered on the same shoals that damaged Brennan's prospects. One person close to the transition said that Kappes' overall qualifications for CIA chief were so formidable that confronting left-wing critics over him was a fight that Obama not only ought to join but that the new president would have little difficulty winning.

By Jessica Bennett and Daniel Stone

As gay activists protest the selection of evangelical megapastor Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation, they could have reason to cheer a future Obama announcement. Sources tell NEWSWEEK that the president-elect is considering the appointment of the first openly gay chief of a military branch.

Bill White, president of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York, is being backed by congressional and former military leaders to be the next secretary of the Navy. Among White's vocal supporters are retired Gen. Hugh Shelton, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat whose district includes the newly renovated Intrepid museum which sits on an aircraft carrier in the Hudson River. Nadler says members of Obama's transition team have reached out to him about White. "They're clearly vetting him," he tells NEWSWEEK.

Another favorite caught in the Beltway chatter for the job is Juan Garcia, a former naval aviator who attended Harvard Law School with Obama and was chairman of his campaign in Texas.

Because the Navy secretary is a civilian job, White's appointment wouldn't directly conflict with the military ban on gays. But it would certainly bring new attention to the Pentagon's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy as Obama gets ready to take office. Getting rid of that law--under which more than 12,000 members of the military have been discharged--was an Obama campaign promise, though the president-elect has since acknowledged its repeal might take some time. If nominated, White, 42, will likely face questions about his take on that policy, implemented by President Clinton in 1993.

Though he's never served in the military, backers say White has extensive contacts in the armed forces through his role with the Intrepid Museum and the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, a $100 million nonprofit set up to help military families and wounded vets. White also serves as a trustee of the Fisher House Foundation, which provides free housing at military and veterans hospitals for families who want to be near the recovery process. Reached by telephone, a spokeswoman for White said he would not be commenting, but has considered his work with the armed forces "truly the highest privilege."

"I certainly recommend him," Nadler says. "For the many years that I've known him, he's been an advocate for military personnel and their families, and for veterans." A source close to the talks says that incoming secretary of state Hillary Clinton has expressed support for White's nomination, although a spokesperson for Clinton (who remains a senator until she is confirmed next month) did not return calls for comment.

Supporters of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" have said that nominating White would send the wrong signal. "It's a matter of judgment, and I think that would be very poor judgment on the part of the commander in chief," Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, told The Washington Times, which first reported the White rumors. Meanwhile, in a statement released by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay advocacy group, President Joe Solmonese said White's nomination would be a "concrete demostration" that the Obama administration sees "no place" for employment discrimination in government. "President-elect Obama has said both during his time in the Senate and on the campaign trail that overturning 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' was a priority for him, but he's also been straightforward and realistic that this is a measure that's going to require a great deal of strategy," Solmonese tells NEWSWEEK. "The consideration of this appointment certainly bodes well for keeping with Obama's commitment to address this issue."

The Obama transition team declined to comment.

On her Lab Notes blog, Sharon Begley runs down the reaction from the scientific community over reports that Barack Obama will chose a prominent physicist as his science adviser:

That sigh of relief emanating from laboratories around the world is the sound of scientists reacting to reports that president-elect Obama will name physicist John Holdren his science adviser. Holdren has a resume longer than your arm (he is Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy and Director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, President and Director of the Woods Hole Research Center, Professor of Environmental Science and Policy in Harvard’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and former president, and chairman of the board of American Association for the Advancement of Science), but what he will bring to the table is an unflinching commitment to evidence-based policy making.

That, of course, has been in short supply over the last 8 years, as I detailed in Newsweek's recent election issue. Whether it was programs on sex education (abstinence only! who cares if that doesn't reduce teen pregnancy, STDs or achieve other outcomes you'd think would be one of the purposes of sex ed), or policies on endangered species or climate change or stem cells or . . . (the list goes on), the Bush Administration seemed to have never met a fact it wasn't perfectly content to dismiss.

Climate change is arguably the most egregious example, and on this issue Holdren has been a leading voice for reducing greenhouse gas emissions as well as adapting to the inevitable changes already locked into the climate system. Among the themes he has reiterated in public as well as private:

READ THE REST HERE:

 

By Adam B. Kushner

A source close to Shaun Donovan, the New York City housing commissioner, expects Donovan to be named tomorrow as President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). (UPDATE: It's official; Obama announced the pick in his Saturday video address) “It’s a done deal,” the source said. This would contradict Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion Jr., who told an audience last week that he would be tapped. The Obama transition team did not respond to requests for comment.

Donovan, who once worked on multifamily housing units at HUD as a deputy assistant secretary, has made affordable housing the centerpiece of his term in New York. His department’s main program has been to build 165,000 units for half a million New Yorkers, making it the country’s largest housing plan. During an anticipated housing crunch because of the economic downturn, affordable-housing cred will be crucial for a HUD secretary—and useful in lobbying Congress for legislation Obama might propose.

After his first stint at HUD—where, according to his biography, he disbursed $9 billion every year to 1.7 million families—Donovan was a visiting scholar at NYU studying federal housing and how to preserve it. He is trained as an architect.

At a City Hall briefing in July, Donovan talked about the housing challenges facing Washington policymakers:

Q: Do you think there's enough of an understanding in Washington of why New York needs the kinds of investments that you want them to adopt for New York?

A: I guess I would enlarge the question a little bit. I think the fundamental challenge has been to demonstrate to the American people that they know affordable housing is important. What they don't necessarily know is that government knows how to do it right. ... The truth is, when affordable housing works, it's almost invisible. We're doing today, and lots of folks in this room are doing mixed income developments. We have a project that is moving its way through the approval and construction process right now in the Bronx that will combine market-rate condominiums with supportive housing with the formerly homeless. We are combining and integrating market-rate and affordable housing in a way that nobody would have thought possible a few decades ago. And, frankly, it means that we have to get out and tell the positive story, because a lot of folks don't even know that there's affordable housing in that building or that it's part of their community. The image that remains is this old outdated image of public housing that failed. We've got a lot of work to do to explain the advances that we've made and what we've learned and to demonstrate that yes, in fact, we will use taxpayer dollars wisely in terms of rebuilding. I think there is an opportunity, given the subprime crisis. A mentor of mine that I worked for in my first government job in Washington said, "A crisis is a terrible thing to waste." In fact, we have an opportunity, despite the terrible things that are happening in neighborhoods because of the subprime crisis, to really reframe the housing challenges, nationally, as a result of what we've seen over the last few years. Housing is on the national agenda again maybe for the first time in a generation. We have an opportunity, I think, to really utilize that to reframe the issue.

The HUD post is often occupied by a minority candidate. In this cycle, names mentioned as possible nominees included Carrion Jr. and Manny Diaz, the mayor of Miami. President Clinton chose Henry Cisneros and President Bush picked Mel Martinez, both Latinos. Martinez was succeeded by African American Alphonso Jackson. Obama has already selected one big-name Latino for the Cabinet in Commerce nominee Bill Richardson.

Names are beginning to surface for the job of Surgeon General, the nation’s top doc. One leading candidate is neurosurgeon Gail Rosseau, chief of surgery at the Neurologic and Orthopedic Institute of Chicago and an assistant professor of neurosurgery at Rush University Medical Center, Chicago’s major teaching hospital. Rosseau is one of only 300 female neurosurgeons in the nation and is often called upon to comment on various issues related to neurosurgery and also women’s health issues and women’s role in the medical profession. Rosseau, 52, is a registered nurse in addition to being a medical doctor. She was an early Obama supporter and acted as a surrogate for him during the campaign on health issues. A French speaker, she is active in the World Federation of Neurological Societies, teaching in developing countries and traveling regularly to French-speaking Africa to care for children and adults.

Another possibility: CNN celebrity journalist and doctor Sanjay Gupta, 39, is being mentioned by some for the job. He hosts “House Call with Dr. Sanjay Gupta,” has a regular gig with CBS, writes a column for Time Magazine, and his book, “Chasing Life,” was a best seller. An Indian-American, he grew up in Michigan where his parents emigrated in the 1960’s to work in the Ford Dearborn plant. Gupta is based in Atlanta, where he is an assistant professor of neurosurgery at Emory University School of Medicine and associate chief of the neurosurgery service at Grady Memorial Hospital.

Since Barack Obama's election, a ticket to his inauguration has become the hottest commodity not just in town, but also around the world. According to new police estimates, the number of visitors to Washington around January 20 could now reach up to 5 million -- 25 percent of the 20 million visitors the District sees annually. And that's also nearly two percent of all Americans.

Secret Service assured NEWSWEEK last month that preparations have been thoughtful and comprehensive and security officials can handle the hordes of people that will descend on the National Mall for the swearing in and on Pennsylvania Avenue for the parade that follows.

But as the Washington Times points out today, the weekend is looking to be more like a logistical nightmare. More than 10,000 buses are expected in town that week, making getting around and parking more than just a rush-hour headache. The demand for Internet and cell phone service could severely strain the existing infrastructure of towers and lead to blackouts for everyone. Even employees at the hotels and catering companies that will produce the evening's glitzy parties will have trouble getting to work and making sure all the food and decorations arrive on time.

Then there are problems for the locals. Four million extra people in DC means that supermarkets will have to stockpile staples like bread and milk to meet the demand. And even if they do, the goods will still disappear quickly, leaving some customers looking at cleared-out shelves.

All of which leaves lots of money to be made. The city's metro system -- which plans to begin service at 4 a.m. the day of the inaugural and run trains on a rush hour schedule -- has advertised that it will sell a commemorative fare card with Obama's likeness on it leading up to the big day. Not a bad idea, considering the cards (which start at $1.35 and will be refillable) will the cheapest way to say "I was there."

Although odds are it won't be the only way the city cashes in.

Obama's cabinet choices thus far reveal the president-elect's desire to tap big names with long national resumes—Hillary, Robert Gates, Bill Richardson—over the lesser-known folks who wouldn't add shock value but might bring some field or industry experience to his table. With several key cabinet posts still to fill, one pick in particular will reveal exactly how Obama is thinking and what his broader vision is for his cabinet. Whoever he chooses to sit at the head of Energy—one of the several issues he attached the word "crisis" to (economic and environmental were the others)—will indicate exactly how big a risk Obama wants to take on an issue with extremely high stakes.

If he continues the trend of nominating national power-hitters to sit around his cabinet table, he's likely to choose someone who has already been tested as a public servant. Like who? Arnold Schwarzenegger has been floated, so has Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell. All have public-policy experience in energy development and regulation, and their names (especially Arnold's) would provide significant backbone to the already high-profile Obama cabinet. And with energy continuing to grow as an issue with implications of national-security and global interconnectedness, someone like Sebelius or Rendell walking into a international energy conference to represent the U.S. would carry significant water for the already burdened almost-president.

But Obama did campaign on the promise of change. Which shines some light on Dan Reicher, director of climate change and energy initiatives for Google, the Internet giant that seems to have staked its future on getting ahead of everything related to innovation. Google has devoted significant resources to energy tech and power generation for several reasons (not least of which to power its massive farms of computer servers). Reicher served for a period as assistant energy secretary during the Clinton administration, but in moving from Silicon Valley to Washington, he would bring something unique: private-sector experience and a mind-set not currently limited by the bounds of government. Worth mentioning in the same vein is John Bryson, former chairman of Edison International and co-chair of the Electric Drive Transportation Association.

Google's Reicher, though, does seem to be the man to watch. At the Democratic National Convention in August, an Obama strategist pointed toward Reicher and told a NEWSWEEK reporter "Keep and eye on that guy, they've been talking about him a lot."