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“I would love to see her appointed Secretary of Defense,” he added.
Flournoy, the former under-secretary for defense policy, also received the endorsement of a group of former senior defense officials, diplomats and arms control experts who hailed his support for international treaties and other efforts to reduce the number and role of nuclear weapons in planning for war. .
Flournoy “knows that a top priority for the Biden administration must be to restore US leadership on a variety of issues, including nuclear risk reduction,” they wrote in an open letter signed by the former secretary to Defense William Perry and Rose Gottemoeller, a former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and Assistant Secretary General of NATO.
“She has often expressed her strong support for the extension of the New START nuclear control agreement with Russia,” they added. “She raised important questions about the necessity and accessibility of current nuclear modernization plans. And she criticized the Trump administration for lowering the threshold for nuclear use.”
Flournoy, they wrote, “is in the best position to ensure that the Department of Defense, by momentum and inertia, does not overinvest in unnecessary or dangerous legacy systems – including nuclear weapons systems – ill-suited for face the pressing dangers of today and tomorrow. “
Flournoy has long been on Democrats’ shortlist for the top Pentagon post, which would make her the first woman to serve as civilian chief of the US military.
Many observers were surprised that she was not included in the deployment this week of other members of Biden’s national security and foreign policy team.
But Biden and Flournoy have been at odds in the past, particularly over the war in Afghanistan; Flournoy played a leading role in the influx of US military forces into the country in 2009 when then-Vice President Biden opposed a new troop engagement.
POLITICO first reported this week that the president-elect has yet to choose a Pentagon leader and that former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is also in contention.
“Michele is still at the top of the list, but they still want to keep looking – and that’s a change,” said a former senior national security official who was closely monitoring the transition. The meaning is: “Let’s not be in a hurry here.”
Flournoy, as well as some of her allies on the Pentagon Transition Team, have been criticized by some on the left for seeing her overly belligerent and at ease with the defense industry.
She co-founded a think tank, the centrist Center for a New American Security, which gets significant funding from Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, according to a study released last month by the Center for International. Politics.
Flournoy also launched a consulting firm, WestExec Advisors, which did not disclose its clients. And she also sits on the board of directors of Booz Allen Hamilton, a major Pentagon contractor.
This doesn’t make her unique; Johnson also sits on the board of directors of Lockheed Martin, America’s largest defense contractor. And some progressive groups are demanding that whoever chooses Biden for top Pentagon positions reveal any previous defense industry clients as part of a larger effort to reduce the influence of contractors in shaping politics.
Flournoy has sought to allay some of their concerns, including participating in a call with a number of progressive groups just before the election, in which she pledged to review arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which has fueled a humanitarian catastrophe in the civil war in Yemen.
Yet as Biden restricts himself to one choice, other progressive-minded national security veterans and military advocacy groups increasingly come to his defense.
Nearly a dozen military family advocacy groups approved it over the weekend, recommending a “quick confirmation process.”
“We appreciate his undisputed expertise on a wide variety of subjects in the Department of Defense, and we appreciate his deep commitment to US troops and their families,” the groups told POLITICO in a statement. “We especially appreciate that she is a member of the military family herself.”
Her supporters in the arms control community told Biden on Wednesday “We think Michele Flournoy is the best candidate for the job.”
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