Barack Obama's choice of a veteran political operator to run the Central Intelligence Agency is causing fresh wobbles in what had been, until this week, a sure-footed presidential transition.

Critics, both Republican and Democratic, are lining up to pour scorn on the nomination of Leon Panetta because the 71-year-old former White House chief of staff is not a fully-fledged member of America's fiercely defensive intelligence community.

Dianne Feinstein, who would oversee confirmation hearings for Mr Panetta as the Democratic chairwoman of Senate Intelligence Committee, led the attacks and indicated she had not been consulted about the decision.

“My position has consistently been that I believe the agency is best served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time,” she said.

John Rockefeller, another senior Democrat who Ms Feinstein is replacing as committee chairman, is also understood to disapprove of the nomination. Both are reported to have recommended deputy CIA director Steve Kappes - a former Moscow station chief who is credited with getting the Libyans to give up their nuclear programme - for the post.

Senator Kit Bond, the top Republican on the committee, said: “Job number one at the CIA is to track down and stop terrorists. In a post-9/11 world, intelligence experience would seem to be a prerequisite for the job of CIA director."

The President-elect had initially wanted to choose a CIA director with such expertise. But his first choice, John Brennan, was forced to withdraw amid an outcry from liberal activists over the role he had played in developing bitterly-contested interrogation and detention methods after 9/11.

Instead, Mr Obama appears to have bowed to such pressure by picking a man who understands politics rather espionage. The decision was leaked on Monday just 24 hours after Bill Richardson, the President-elect's nominee for commerce secretary, quit pending an investigation into alleged corruption in his state of New Mexico.

Mr Panetta's defenders say that as White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton, he would have attended daily intelligence briefings and that he has the skills needed to give the CIA real clout in the new administration.

Although he has little direct experience and did not serve on the House Intelligence Committee during his 16 years in Congress, allies point out to the examples of John McCone in the Kennedy administration and George Bush Snr in the Nixon administration who both became successful CIA directors even though they were outsiders.

As CIA director, Mr Panetta would report to retired Admiral Dennis Blair, who was picked by Mr Obama last month to serve as the director of national intelligence - a post designed to co-ordinate the work of 16 spy operations.

Adm Blair has a long record on national security matters, most recently being in charge of US military operations in the Pacific and has served a year at the CIA as the Pentagon's liaison officer.

But the Senate critics believe that after several years of disarray under politically-driven directors, the CIA had finally settled down under its current chief, General Michael Hayden.

"The agency will feel they are trading a silk purse for a pig's ear by getting rid of Hayden for Panetta," said Michael Scheuer, a former CIA officer who once led the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Such comments reflect a wider unease within the intelligence community that they will be held to account for operations which have been loudly denounced by human rights groups. Mr Obama's liberal supporters hope that he will end the era of harsh interrogations, extraordinary renditions — the transfer of prisoners to countries with a history of torture — and warrantless wiretapping.

In an article published last year, Mr Panetta said: “Those who support torture may believe that we can abuse captives in certain select circumstances and still be true to our values. But that is a false compromise. We cannot and we must not use torture under any circumstances. We are better than that.”

Times Recommends

• 'New York has lost its edge'
• Copenhagen will fail – and quite right too
• More than 17,000 new underwater species found