Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and member of the Intelligence Committee, called Panetta a “strong choice” who “has the skills to usher in a new era of accountability at the nation’s premier intelligence agency.” The choice of Panetta reflects the difficulty Obama encountered in finding a candidate capable of taking charge of the agency but is not tied to the interrogation program run by CIA under President Bush.

As President Clinton’s chief of staff, Panetta attended intelligence briefing, and has a reputation as a skilled manager and power broker. But he has little direct intelligence experience. If confirmed by the Senate, Panetta would take control of the agency responsible for hunting leaders of Al Qaeda.

An early test in his tenure would be to determine the future of the agency’s interrogation program. “Those who support torture may believe that we can abuse captives ..... and still be true to our values,” he wrote in The Washington Monthly last year. “But that is a false compromise.” But some experts called the selection underwhelming. “It’s a puzzling choice and a high-risk choice,” said Amy Zegart, a professor at the University of California.