US President-elect Barack Obama plans to nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton as Secretary of State as early as next week, a new milestone for a former first lady and a convergence of two political forces who contested mightily for the presidency.Obama transition aides described a process on Thursday that appears on track to make Clinton the top diplomat in an Obama administration, just one week after the two first met in secrecy to discuss the idea. Obama plans to nominate her after next Thursday’s US Thanksgiving holiday, aides said.The nomination would be a remarkable union between the former first lady, who was an early favourite to win the presidency, and the first-term senator who upset her in the primary and cruised to a general election victory.Such a high-profile seat in the Cabinet for Clinton also would be another achievement for the most accomplished former first lady in US history, who has been the first presidential spouse to serve in the Senate and run for the White House herself.Retired Marine Gen James Jones emerged as a leading contender for White House National Security Adviser as Barack Obama worked on Thursday to assemble his foreign policy team.Democratic sources said Jones, the former top operational commander of NATO, was in the running for the job of National Security Adviser along with James Steinberg, who was deputy national security adviser in Bill Clinton’s administration.Jones is known to have been a strong critic of the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq war and is quoted as describing the war as a “debacle,” in Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward’s 2006 book State of Denial.Woodward also reported that Jones believed former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had “systematically emasculated” the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. Jones grew up largely in Paris, France, and graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.While refusing to confirm it, Jones has not disputed the quote, published while he was still serving at NATO.The national security job coordinates among the various foreign policy players in the administration, including the secretary of defence and the director of national intelligence. The person in that role would be Obama’s closest adviser on foreign policy on a day-to-day basis.As Obama was narrowing his choices for National Security Adviser, Arizona Gov Janet Napolitano was seen by many Democrats as a strong contender to head the Homeland Security Department, created after 9 Two Democratic sources said Napolitano was the leading candidate for the job. ABC News also reported that retired Adm Dennis Blair was the top candidate to be the director of national intelligence.
