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Obama fills 3 more posts of national security team

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-12-24 09:48

WASHINGTON -- US President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday named three new members of his national security team, including two deputy secretaries of state and a deputy national security advisor.

James Steinberg, a deputy national security advisor under former President Bill Clinton, and Jacob J. Lew, the budget director under Clinton, were both nominated as deputy secretaries of state, according to a statement released by the Obama transition team.

Thomas E. Donilon, an assistant secretary of state under Clinton, was nominated as the deputy national security advisor.

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Meanwhile, Antony Blinken, staff director of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was named as National Security Advisor to Vice President-elect Joe Biden.

"The team that we have assembled is uniquely suited to meet the great global challenges facing us today. They join a strong team of leading experts and accomplished managers and I look forward to working with them in the years ahead," Obama said in the statement.

Steinberg, who received degrees from Harvard and Yale Law School, is a former aide to Clinton, and a top foreign-policy expert of the Democratic Party.

From December 1996 to August 2000, he served as deputy national security advisor to Clinton.

During that period he also served as the president's personal representative to the 1998 and 1999 G-8 summits.

Lew received degrees from Harvard and Georgetown University Law Center.

From 1998 to 2001, he served in Clinton's cabinet as the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and led the Administration's budget team, from the preparation of the president's budget through final negotiations with Congress.

The nomination of two former top Clinton aides as Secretary of State nominee Hillary Clinton's deputies was expected to boost Hillary's leadership in the State Department.

Donilon received degrees from the Catholic University of America and the University of Virginia School of Law.

He served as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Chief of Staff at the US State Department during the Clinton Administration.

Donilon oversaw the development and implementation of the Department's major policy initiatives and was deeply involved in a range of policy issues, including the Bosnia and Middle East peace negotiations, the expansion of NATO, and US-China relations.

Obama has already named all cabinet members and cabinet-level officials, and he has started choosing deputies to cabinet secretaries and other top officials.