Published November 7, 2008

Obama gets down to team building

He offers Chief of Staff post to Rahm Emanuel; is also expected to quickly name members of economic team

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(WASHINGTON) President-elect Barack Obama barely had time to savour his victory before he began filling out his new administration and getting a sobering look at some of the daunting problems he will inherit when he takes office in just 10 weeks.

As president-elect, he began receiving highly classified briefings from top intelligence officials from yesterday.

Already, Russia was threatening to put missiles alongside US-ally Poland if President George Bush's plan for a missile defence shield in Europe is not repealed. In Afghanistan, US-backed President Hamid Karzai demanded that Mr Obama 'put an end to civilian casualties' by changing US tactics to avoid airstrikes in the hunt for militants.

Mr Obama on Tuesday night made history by being elected the first black US president. But times are bleak: the country is in the grips of its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s and is fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He got a quick start with the transition on Wednesday, calling on Rahm Emanuel, a fellow Illinois politician, to serve as White House Chief of Staff.

While several Democrats confirmed that Mr Emanuel had been offered the job, it was not clear if he had accepted. But rejection would amount to an unlikely public snub of the new president-elect swept towards power in an electoral college landslide.



Mr Obama's staff said that he would address the media by the end of the week, but Cabinet announcements were not planned that soon.

With hundreds of jobs to fill before his Jan 20 inauguration, Mr Obama and his transition team confronted a formidable task complicated by his anti-lobbyist campaign rhetoric.

In offering the post of White House Chief of Staff to Mr Emanuel, he turned to a fellow Chicago politician with a far different style from his own, a man known for his bluntness as well as his single-minded determination.

Mr Emanuel was a political and policy aide in Bill Clinton's White House. Leaving that, he turned to investment banking, then won a Chicago-area House seat six years ago. In Congress, he moved quickly into the Democratic leadership. As chairman of the Democratic campaign committee in 2006, he played an instrumental role in restoring his party to power after 12 years in the minority.

In light of the financial crisis, Mr Obama is expected to quickly name members of his economic team. Former Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers, who served in the Clinton administration, and Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, are among the names being mentioned for Treasury Secretary.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has pledged to work with Mr Obama to ensure a smooth transition. He has already set up desks and phone lines at the department where Mr Obama's incoming Treasury team can work between now and the inauguration.

Mr Obama's transition team is headed by John Podesta, who served as chief of staff under former president Bill Clinton; Pete Rouse, who has been Mr Obama's Chief of Staff in the Senate, and Valerie Jarrett, a friend of the president-elect and campaign adviser. -- AP