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WASHINGTON: President-elect Joe Biden chose Lloyd Austin, who led U.S. troops to Baghdad in 2003 and rose to the head of the U.S. Central Command, as the first African-American secretary of defense, U.S. media reported Monday (7 December).
A veteran of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 67-year-old retired four-star army general beat the favorite for the job, former Under Secretary of Defense Michele Flournoy, amid pressure on Biden to nominate more minorities for cabinet positions.
CNN, Politico and the New York Times cited anonymous sources familiar with the decision, after Biden said early Monday that he had made his decision and would announce it on Friday.
Austin would require Senate confirmation to take office. It would also require a special exemption from the Senate due to federal law that requires military officers to wait seven years after retirement before serving as head of the Pentagon.
The rule is based on the view that only a civilian should serve as secretary of defense.
The waiver has happened twice, most recently for General Jim Mattis in 2017, President Donald Trump’s first secretary of defense.
But members of the Senate reluctantly agreed, with several saying at the time that they would not want to do so again.
MIDDLE EAST COMMANDER
Austin spent four decades in the military, graduating from West Point Military Academy and pursuing a career with a wide range of assignments, from leading platoons to leading logistics teams and overseeing recruitment, to senior positions in the Pentagon.
In March 2003, he was the assistant division commander of the 3rd Infantry Division when he marched from Kuwait to Baghdad in the US invasion of Iraq.
From late 2003 to 2005, he was in Afghanistan commanding Combined Joint Task Force 180, the main US-led operation that seeks to stabilize the security situation in the country.
In 2010, he was appointed commanding general of US forces in Iraq and two years later became commander of the Central Command, in charge of all Pentagon operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
That put him in charge of the fight against the Islamic State, as it captured large swaths of Iraq and Syria.
During that period, he reportedly gained the trust of Biden, who was vice president at the time.
FEW AFRICAN AMERICANS IN COMMAND JOBS
Austin would take responsibility for the 1.2 million active duty service members, about 16 percent of whom are black.
But blacks serve disproportionately in the lower ranks, and few have reached high command positions.
The problem became clearer over the past year when African American men and women voiced support for the national Black Lives Matter movement against racism and police abuse.
Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he held numerous listening sessions so that white soldiers understood what their black colleagues were feeling.
Austin faces several challenges: The first is the rule that the position should only be filled by civilians.
“It shouldn’t be considered for the same reason Sec. Mattis shouldn’t have been,” Congressman Justin Amash said in a tweet.
“The law prohibits recently retired members of the Armed Forces from serving in this civilian capacity. Biden would be the second president in a row to violate this rule.”
Second, there are Austin’s ties to the defense industry. After retiring in 2016, he joined the board of directors of Raytheon Technologies, one of the Pentagon’s largest contractors, with billion-dollar arms supply contracts pending review.
He was also involved with a consultant, WestExec Advisors, who is already the source for several high-level members of the Biden administration, including elected secretary of state Antony Blinken and Avril Haines, nominated for director of national intelligence.
Flournoy was one of the founders of the firm.
Women in the defense and national security community expressed disappointment that Flournoy, who had stellar qualifications for the job and would have been the first female defense secretary, was ignored.
“Nothing but respect for Lloyd Austin, but choosing another 4-star who retired so recently that he needs a waiver from Congress sends a terrible message,” said Rosa Brooks, a former Georgetown University law professor in the Department of Defense.
