Gates Said To Be Near A Deal to Keep Post

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Official: Gates to Stay at Pentagon

President-elect Barack Obama is said to have asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to remain in office for the beginning of Obama's presidential term.

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Meanwhile, a former CIA official who was in the running for a top intelligence post under Obama withdrew his candidacy yesterday after coming under criticism from groups that accused him of having ties to the agency's controversial interrogation policies.

John O. Brennan, who held senior positions in a nearly 25-year stint at the spy agency, notified Obama of his decision in a brief note, saying he no longer wished to be considered for a job in the intelligence agencies. Brennan was widely reported to be a contender for CIA director or director of national intelligence.

"The challenges ahead of our nation are too daunting, and the role of the CIA too critical, for there to be any distraction," Brennan wrote. He also defended himself against charges that he has supported torture, writing: "The fact that I was not involved in the decisionmaking process for any of these controversial policies and actions has been ignored."

Brennan said he opposed many Bush-era policies, including the Iraq war and the use of coercive interrogation practices. He noted that his criticism of CIA policies had prompted the Bush administration to block his promotion to more senior positions. "I am extremely proud of my 25-year record of intelligence work," he said in the letter.

The statements contrast with comments Brennan made in interviews over the past several years. In an interview on PBS's "NewsHour," he called the CIA practice of "rendition," or the secret transfer of terrorism suspects from one country to another, a "vital tool." In a CBS interview, he said the CIA's interrogation techniques provided "lifesaving" intelligence.

One human rights activist, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of Obama's Cabinet search, said he was not aware of any evidence that Brennan had objected to the controversial practices. "There were a lot of people in the Bush administration who objected to it," he said. "A lot of people risked their careers by saying, 'You are going too far.' "

Brennan, chief executive of the Analysis Corp., a Fairfax County-based private intelligence company, had been an early supporter of Obama, and many intelligence community insiders backed his candidacy.

Other possible candidates to take top intelligence posts include Donald M. Kerr, a former CIA and FBI official who is the Bush administration's principal deputy director of national intelligence, and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), chairman of an intelligence subcommittee.

Staff writers Karen DeYoung, Joby Warrick and Philip Rucker and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.