WASHINGTON, March 19 (UPI) -- President Bush has named senior Justice Department national security official Ken Wainstein to be his new homeland security adviser, replacing Fran Townsend.

He also named his pick to be director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center, saying he would nominate current deputy head and acting director Michael Leiter to the vacant post.

In a statement Wednesday announcing Wainstein's appointment, Bush called him "a proven leader and a dedicated public servant with nearly two decades of law enforcement experience."

Wainstein's career as a federal prosecutor began in 1989 when he left Washington, where he had clerked for Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson of the U.S. District Court, and became an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York.

In 1992 he returned to work in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, where he specialized in the prosecution of federal racketeering cases against violent street gangs, according to the Justice Department. He became interim U.S. attorney for the district in April 2001 but later that year was selected to run the Justice Department's Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, overseeing all 94 offices nationwide.