Reports: Top US intelligence official to resign (Roundup)

May 20, 2010, 23:19 GMT

Washington - Admiral Dennis Blair was to resign unexpectedly as the top US intelligence official, US broadcasters CNN and ABC reported Thursday.

Blair is the US Director of National Intelligence (DNI), an overarching post created in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Blair is tasked with coordinating the country's 16 different intelligence agencies.

There were no immediate reasons for the sudden resignation, which came after a meeting in the White House Thursday afternoon between Blair and Obama, according to sources cited by CNN. A formal announcement was expected as soon as Friday, ABC reported.

Blair and the US intelligence community have come under fire after failing to uncover terrorist plots to down a plane headed to Detroit in December and an attempt earlier this month to detonate a car bomb in New York's Times Square.

Blair, a retired admiral who was appointed in January 2009, is the third person to run the office of DNI. He has admitted that coordinating the US intelligence community and getting agencies to share information has remained a challenge.

Blair has often been at odds with Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Leon Panetta.

The resignation also comes days after a US Senate committee issued a scathing report of 'systemic failures' in the run-up to the failed plot on December 25, in which a Nigerian man tried and failed to detonate a bomb on a flight as it was approaching landing in Detroit.

Blair acknowledged in a statement after the Senate report that 'institutional and technological barriers remain that prevent seamless sharing of information.'