Poindexter to quit Pentagon post amid controversy

WASHINGTON, July 31 (Reuters) - John Poindexter, the retired Navy admiral who spearheaded two sharply criticized Pentagon projects, intends to resign from his Defense Department post within weeks, a senior U.S. defense official said on Thursday.

"It's my understanding that he ... expects to, within a few weeks, offer his resignation," the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters.

Poindexter was involved with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's abandoned futures-trading market for predicting assassinations, terrorism and other events in the Middle East, and earlier with the so-called Total Information Awareness program that drew fire from civil rights groups.

The official indicated that Poindexter had become a lightning rod for criticism. Poindexter served as President Ronald Reagan's national security adviser in the 1980s and was convicted for his role in the Iran-contra scandal, a conviction that later was set aside.

"Everybody certainly recognizes Admiral Poindexter's background. And in the context of that background, it became in some ways very difficult for him to receive an objective reading of work that he was doing on behalf of finding terrorists," the official said.