U.S. President Barack Obama will accept the resignation of U.S. Director of National Intelligence Adm. (Ret.) Dennis Blair on Friday over recent major intelligence failures, the ABC channel said citing informed sources.
"For several weeks President Obama has been holding serious conversations about whether to ask Blair to step down and has interviewed candidates to replace him," the channel said on its website, citing informed sources.
"After a discussion this afternoon between the president and Blair on a secure phone line about the best way forward, Blair offered to resign and the president said he would accept," it said.
The resignation comes amid several high-profile intelligence failures which took place in the past few months, including the Fort Hood shooting spree by Major Nidal Hasan, which left 13 people killed and some 30 wounded.
The sources doubt that Blair has "the full and complete confidence of the president" after two failed attacks took place in the U.S. - the 2009 Christmas Day attempt to blow up a U.S. plane over Detroit and the April Times Square bombing.
WASHINGTON, May 21 (RIA Novosti)
