US President-elect Barack Obama selects Bill Clinton's White House chief of staff Leon Panetta as the director of the CIA, Democrat officials say.
An Obama transition official and another Democrat disclosed his nomination on condition of anonymity since it was not to be yet public.
Panetta who was chief of staff to former president Bill Clinton has most recently been the director of the Panetta Institute. The institute is a non-partisan policy center at California State University in Monterey.
Panetta, who served in Congress from 1977 until 1993, is regarded as a good manager, but has little intelligence experience.
