Staffing the Pentagon

Michele Flournoy is expected to be nominated today  by President-Elect Barack Obama as the first female Under Secretary for Policy in the Pentagon.

Her appointment will be greeted on both sides of the Atlantic with a huge sigh of relief. The policy position became hugely controversial in the Bush years when Douglas Feith occupied the post and  argued strongly for the invasion of Iraq as a manifestation of the preeminence of Pentagon power.