FACTBOX: U.S. spy chief must connect the dots

(Reuters) - U.S. spy chief Admiral Dennis Blair's job is to make sure the country's 16 intelligence agencies talk to each other and share information to prevent a repeat of the September 11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks on the United States.

Blair has found himself in the spotlight after President Barack Obama criticized the U.S. intelligence community this week for failing to piece together information they had to stop the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on December 25.

Here are some facts about Blair:

* Obama named Blair to the key post in January 2009, even before he himself had been inaugurated as president. As director of national intelligence, Blair oversees the entire U.S. intelligence apparatus and is responsible for delivering Obama's daily intelligence briefing.

* Blair has been embroiled in a turf war with CIA Director Leon Panetta. The Los Angeles Times reported this week that Obama's national security adviser, James Jones, had been forced to intervene and had written a memorandum which enforced the CIA's status as the lead spy service on covert missions, rejecting an attempt by Blair to assert more control over the agency.

* In an editorial in the Washington Post a week before the Christmas Day attack, Blair wrote, "Our nation is becoming safer every day because we are aware that information increases in power only when it is shared." Following the attack, Blair acknowledged in a statement that there was still work to be done to improve information sharing between the agencies.

* Blair is a four-star admiral and former top U.S. military commander in the Pacific region and spent 34 years in the Navy. His current position was created by the U.S. Congress in an effort to correct intelligence failures blamed in part for the September 11 attacks.

* During his Senate confirmation hearing, Blair declined to call waterboarding -- where a suspect is subjected to simulated drowning -- torture, but declared "there will be no waterboarding on my watch." In April, he said some valuable information had been gained from such techniques but added there was no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means.

(Editing by Mohammad Zargham)