FIlling In The National Security Cabinet

Thjree nuggets:

1. Former Clinton-era deputy National Security Adviser James B. Steinberg is on track to be nominated as deputy secretary of state, as has been widely reported.

2. Mark Lippert, a senior national security adviser to Obama during the campaign, will be chief-of-staff at the National Security Council. In that role, he's likely to be a constant presence by Obama's side. Lippert, an intelligence officer who served in the Iraq war, was the first foreign policy adviser that Sen. Obama hired.

3. People close to the transition insist that ex-Rep. Tom Roemer is in line to get a top Obama intelligence job -- maybe as chair of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, maybe as director of the National Security Agency, maybe as Director of National Intelligence; he's testifying today on WMD threats to the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs committee. Given the sensitivity of this situation, you'd assume that, if Roemer was in line for an Obama administration job, his testimony would be subject to intense vetting beforehand. No word at this point whether he ran his remarks by Obama''s team.