Obama to nominate Susan Rice as national security adviser

President Barack Obama is expected to nominate Susan Rice as his national security adviser, the Washington Post says. The appointment may come in the second half of 2013.

According to the paper, Ms. Rice stands out as the "far and away" favourite to replace Thomas Donilon. The announcement can come after the US takes the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council in July.

Earlier, Susan Rice was lined up to become the US state secretary, a high post it was forced out of by Republicans who shot down the vote her candidature over the deadly Benghazi assault on the American embassy that killed the US ambassador to Libya.

Her bid for the US state secretary position was derailed complaints over her handling of the Benghazi consulate attack, when Rice suggested during a number of TV interviews that the attack was caused by a rally over a US-made anti-Muslim film.

Rice then confessed the assessment was wrong and the consulate assault was in fact planned by an al-Qaeda linked military group. She removed herself from the running, writing to Obama asking him to no longer consider her in the face of a "lengthy, disruptive and costly" nomination, The Guardian reports.