U.S. President Barack Obama is considering to ask Senator John Kerry to serve as new defense secretary, while nominating U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Susan Rice to be next secretary of state, in a major cabinet reshuffle following his successful reelection bid, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Kerry was originally believed to be the top contender to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has already made it clear that she will not serve under Obama's second term. But senior administration officials familiar with the reshuffle said Rice would almost certainly be nominated to replace Clinton, the Washington Post reported.

The latest report came amid an unfolding scandal involving Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief David Petraeus, who has resigned recently, citing an extramarital affair.

John Brennan, Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser, is a leading contender for the CIA job if he wants it, officials told the Post. If Brennan goes ahead with his plan to leave government, Michael Morell, CIA's acting director, is the prohibitive favorite.

Michael Vickers, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, also has been mentioned as a candidate for CIA director, the report said.

It remains unclear when incumbent Pentagon chief Leon Panetta will leave his post, though he had indicated earlier that he would not stay through Obama's second term.

Kerry, chairman of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee and a veteran Navy soldier who had fought in Vietnam, knows budget affairs well and has rich experience in the diplomacy that has increasingly become a part of the defense portfolio.

Other candidates for Pentagon chief include Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Michele Flournoy, former undersecretary for policy at the Pentagon.

Even if Rice is nominated to be secretary of state, her nomination is expected to be hitting major obstacles in the Senate, due to her role in dealing with the Sept. 11 terror attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

Days after the attack, Rice insisted that it was a spontaneous result of protests launched by angry Muslims to condemn a U.S.- made anti-Islamic movie. Some Republican lawmakers criticized this as an election-related attempt to portray the terror attack as a peaceful demonstration that turned violent, rather than admitting it as a terror attack.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said Sunday that Rice "would have an in-cred-ibly difficult time" winning Senate confirmation as secretary of state.

If Rice is appointed secretary of state, then Antony Blinken, Vice President Joe Biden's national security adviser, and Samantha Power, the National Security Council's senior director for multilateral affairs and human rights, are two leading candidates to fill her UN post, the Post reported. Endi

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