Dennis C. Blair will resign Friday as the nation's intelligence director after a tenure marred by the recent failures of U.S. spy agencies to detect terrorist plots and by political missteps that undermined his standing with the White House.

Blair, a retired U.S. Navy admiral, was pushed out 16 months after he became President Obama's surprise pick to be the nation's third director of national intelligence. His departure is likely to renew debate over whether the DNI position, a daunting job created amid sweeping intelligence reforms after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, is fundamentally flawed.

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