Senate Bars Entry to Disputed Recruit for Obama Seat

The controversy over Barack Obama's vacant Senate place took a twist yesterday when the man controversially appointed to replace him tried and failed to take his seat amid chaotic scenes on Capitol Hill.

Roland Burris, appointed last week by the scandal-hit Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich, managed to get through the front doors of the Senate and up three flights of marble stairs. But he was denied entry to the chamber.

Back outside, Burris, said: "My credentials were not in order, I will not be accepted, I will not be seated." According to aides, he was planning to consult his lawyers about his next move.

Burris, who flew from Chicago on Monday, had threatened to turn up at yesterday's swearing-in ceremony for new senators on the opening day of the new Congress, even though senior Democrats had warned they would not accept him.

Both Obama and the leader of Democrats in the Senate, Harry Reid, oppose Burris because he was appointed by Blagojevich, who last month was arrested by the FBI for allegedly trying to sell Obama's seat.

The episode is proving an embarrassment for the Democrats in Congress and a distraction for Obama in the run-up to his inauguration on 20 January. And there is little sign of an early resolution.

Burris and his supporters say Blagojevich was legally entitled to make the appointment and that the Senate authorities have no right to bar him.

The row has racial overtones since Democrats are denying a place in the 100-member chamber to a man who would be, with the departure of Obama, the only African-American. Burris, who is 71 and realises this could be his last chance of high office, burst through the Senate front doors in a media scrum just before 10.30 am, 90 minutes before the swearing-in ceremony. After officials tried to restore order, he was taken to see the Senate authorities on the third floor, within about 100 metres of the Senate chamber - as close as he was to get - where he was told he could not take his seat.

Blagojevich's appointment needs to be signed off by the Illinois secretary of state, Jesse White, who is refusing to do so.

Burris said later: "I am not seeking to have any type of confrontation. I will now consult with my attorneys and we will determine what our next step will be."

He is still hoping he can do a deal with Reid. The Democrats appear to have offered him a compromise in which he could take the seat until the next election, at which point he would stand down, but Burris wants to stay in the job beyond that. He is scheduled today to meet Reid, who has said there may be room for manoeuvre.

A legal challenge is an option. An attorney for Burris, Timothy Wright, said: "We were not allowed to proceed to the floor for purposes of taking oath. All of which we think was improperly done and is against the law of this land."

The Democrats have a majority of 57 in the Senate, and if Obama's seat is eventually filled and Al Franken, who is facing a Republican legal challenge after winning a recount in Minnesota, is allowed to take his place, that will jump to 59, just one short of the majority of 60 needed to overcome any Republican obstructionist tactics.

Illinois lawmakers were scheduled to meet yesterday to try to speed up impeachment against Blagojevich; if he were ousted quickly, his deputy would take over and a new appointment to the Senate in place of Burris would be made. But if the impeachment drags on, then so too could the Burris affair.

Burris's supporters have reportedly complained of a racial slant to the rejection. Bobby Rush, the former Black Panther who is now an Illinois lawmaker, supports Burris, and has described the Senate as "the last bastion of plantation politics". But there has been little support from other African-American leaders, in part because they see Blagojevich's appointment as a cynical attempt to exploit the race issue.

Barack Obama's choice of Leon Panetta to head the CIA met with skepticism from Democrats and Republicans in Congress yesterday because of his lack of intelligence experience.

A hostile response from Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat who is to head the Senate intelligence committee, was followed by similar comments by Democrats as well as Republicans.

Obama had planned to appoint an experienced intelligence officer, John Brennan, but he turned the job down. The president-elect then opted to go outside the CIA and fulfill his promise on the campaign trail to increase civilian involvement in intelligence services. Panetta, like Obama, is opposed to torture techniques such as waterboarding sanctioned by George Bush and his vice-president, Dick Cheney.

Feinstein complained she had not been consulted about the appointment, and made it clear she had reservations about the nomination of an intelligence outsider. "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.

Christopher Bond, the senior Republican on the intelligence committee, said: "In a post-9/11 world, intelligence experience would seem to be a prerequisite for the job of CIA director. I will be looking hard at Panetta's intelligence expertise and qualifications."

The appointment needs Senate approval and the negative reaction suggests his confirmation could be problematic.

The CIA has had a troubled decade: it was blamed for failing to anticipate the 9/11 attacks and for faulty intelligence about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction. Former CIA agents said the White House subverted intelligence to suit political ends.

Panetta, though his experience is mainly in reducing budget deficits, was a member of the non-partisan Iraq Study Group, which more than two years ago recommended an early withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, which Bush ignored.

Panetta, 70, urged the president-elect to close Guantánamo and end torture. "Issuing executive orders on issues such as prohibiting torture or closing Guantánamo Bay would make clear that his administration will do things differently," he wrote last month in his regular column in the Monterey County Herald.

Panetta will not be the first outsider appointed to head the CIA. George Bush Sr was a congressman and diplomat before Gerald Ford made him director of central intelligence in 1976.