Obama poised to name Hillary Clinton to State post

CHICAGO (Reuters) - President-Elect Barack Obama was poised to name his national security team on Monday, with former political rival Hillary Clinton in line to be picked as secretary of state.

As part of a deal with Obama to clear the way for his wife to get the post, former President Bill Clinton agreed to make public the names of more than 200,000 donors to his foundation, the New York Times reported in Sunday's editions.

A person close to Clinton, the New York senator who waged a sometimes heated battle with Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, said on Sunday that "she will be in Chicago tomorrow to be named secretary of state."

Others expected to be picked for key posts include: current Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a Republican who would stay in the new Democratic administration; retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones as White House national security adviser, and Susan Rice, an Obama foreign policy adviser, as U.N. ambassador.

The Obama national security team will face the tasks of extricating U.S. forces from Iraq, tackling a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, and rebuilding the U.S. image abroad after eight years with President George W. Bush in office.

The appointments come amid other global security challenges such as the attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai that killed nearly 200 people and threatened to undermine India's improving ties with fellow nuclear-armed neighbor Pakistan.

Obama's office said in a statement on Sunday that Obama would announce members of his national security team at a news conference at 10:40 a.m. EST (1540 GMT) on Monday. Vice President-elect Joe Biden will also attend the session where other officials in the next administration might also be named.

U.S. media also reported Obama will name former Justice Department official Eric Holder as attorney general and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as homeland security chief.

Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, the senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, praised Hillary Clinton's pending nomination, but made clear that her husband's activities might come under scrutiny.

BILL CLINTON FACES QUESTIONS

"I would vote in favor of Senator Clinton, knowing what we have here," about her husband's disclosures on his foundation, Lugar told ABC's "This Week."

"I suspect, however, that I'm not alone in suggesting that there will be questions raised, and probably legitimate questions," Lugar added.

The New York Times, citing Democratic sources, reported that Bill Clinton had decided to make public his contributor list to avoid an appearance of conflict of interest with his wife's duties as the top U.S. diplomat.

Clinton turned over names of all 208,000 individuals and organizations that have given money since 1997, the Times said, and his foundation will release them publicly by year's end.

Future donors also will be disclosed as long as Hillary Clinton serves in Obama's cabinet, the newspaper reported.

The former president has also agreed to submit his speeches and business dealings in advance to State Department ethics officials for their review, as well as to the White House counsel's office if need be, the Times reported.

A member of Obama's transition team confirmed the conditions of the agreement as reported by the Times.

"I think this arrangement sets up a framework of transparency and disclosure. And I think that's a significant and important aspect of the confirmation process," Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, another member of the Foreign Relations panel, said on the ABC program.

Lugar hailed Clinton, Lugar, Jones and Rice as "excellent selections. I think it will be a strong team."

Reed and other senators praised Gates, who has been credited with revamping U.S. military operations in Iraq after Donald Rumsfeld's tumultuous tenure at the Pentagon.

"He led us through some difficult times in Iraq. And if Iraq had become a failed state, we would be talking about a lot more on this show than just Pakistan and India. We'd be talking about a region in chaos," South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham told "Fox News Sunday."

Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill said of Gates: "Even though there may have been times I disagreed with him and maybe Barack Obama disagreed with him, this is a man who clearly holds the highest level of the military accountable for mistakes, which has been very impressive to all of us."

(Writing by Will Dunham; additional reporting by Glenn Somerville and Steve Holland; editing by David Wiessler)