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.
It was Feith who set up secret cell in the Pentagon to produce doctored intelligence that fitted the party line and justified the Iraq war.
By contrast, Flournoy is a centrist, a well known figure among all the Nato allies and has been involved in proliferation issues as well as strategic planning in the Pentagon during the Clinton administration. She has argued for “common sense pragmatism” in the formulation of defense policy and will be a firm opponent of torture and illegal acts of any kind.
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