Obama to name Hillary as secretary of state

NEW YORK â€" President-Elect Barack Obama was set to name his national security team on Monday, with former political rival Hillary Clinton listed as 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.
Media reports said Mrs. 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 Defence Secretary Robert Gates, a Republican who would stay in the new Democratic administration; retired Marine Corps General James Jones as White House national security adviser, and Susan Rice, an Obama foreign policy adviser, as U.N. ambassador.
Obama is scheduled to formally take over as president on January 20.
The Obama national security team will face the tasks of extricating U.S. forces from Iraq, tackling a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, easing tensions in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent, 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 Vice President-elect Joe Biden will also attend the session where other officials in the next administration might also be named.
US media also reported Obama will name former Justice Department official Eric Holder as attorney general and Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano as homeland security chief.
Indiana Senator 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.
"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."