NYT: Fresh Slate at the Pentagon Lies Ahead for Obama

[Pirate Smile]

Fresh Slate at the Pentagon Lies Ahead for Obama

WASHINGTON – With critical decisions ahead on the war in Afghanistan, President Obama is about to receive an unusual opportunity to reshape the Pentagon’s leadership, naming a new defense secretary as well as several top generals and admirals in the next several months.
It is a rare confluence of tenure calendars and personal calculations, coming midway through Mr. Obama’s first term and on the heels of an election that challenged his domestic policies. His choices could have lasting consequences for his national security agenda, perhaps strengthening his hand over a military with which he has often clashed, and likely lasting beyond the next election, whether he wins or loses.

That is all the more reason that Mr. Obama’s choices are certain to face scrutiny in a narrowly divided Senate whose Republican leadership has declared itself intent on defeating him.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said he plans to retire next year, while the terms of four members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are scheduled to end: Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman; Gen. James E. Cartwright, the vice chairman; the Army chief, Gen. George W. Casey Jr.; and the chief of naval operations, Adm. Gary Roughead.

Andrew J. Bacevich, a retired Army officer who is professor of history and international relations at Boston University, said this round of replacements, coming after two years of difficult and sometimes intense wrangling over how to carry on the war in Afghanistan, “is particularly important, and is likely to prove particularly difficult.”
“The challenge facing the president will be to identify leaders who will provide him with disinterested advice, informed by a concern for the national interest and, in doing so, to avoid either the appearance or the reality of politicizing the senior leadership,” he said. “It seems pretty clear that the process of deciding to escalate and to prolong the war in Afghanistan suggests there is a real imbalance in the existing civil-military relationship.”

-snip-
But speculation for the top Pentagon job in recent days has included two respected veterans on military matters, both with bipartisan credentials and hands-on experience: John J. Hamre, a deputy defense secretary in the Clinton administration who now leads the Center for Strategic and International Studies while running the Defense Policy Board, an advisory panel to Mr. Gates; and Ike Skelton, the Missouri congressman who lost his seat last week, and with it the chairmanship of the House Armed Services Committee.

Another name certain to be on Mr. Obama’s list for consideration is Michele A. Flournoy, currently the Pentagon’s under secretary for policy and one of the foremost national security specialists of the up-and-coming generation – regardless of gender. Even so, her appointment would allow Mr. Obama to claim another first in naming a woman to become an American defense secretary, something he also could accomplish by moving Hillary Rodham Clinton into the job from secretary of state.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/08/us/08forces.html?_r=1&hp

[dsc]

1. Ike Skelton is unacceptable unless DADT has already been repealed by the lame duck Congress

Skelton has a horrific record on gay rights.