The ANNOTICO Report
Marine Gen. Peter Pace has been nominated to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Navy Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr. as the new Vice Chairman.
Two Italian Americans will be the Top Two Military Leaders in the US.
I take pride in both their Accomplishments, but I am saddened
that they are having to carry out US Imperialist Expansion Policies, grinding
up the lives, bodies and minds of US troops, devastating Iraq, and
expending Trillions of US dollars, requiring Cut backs in Social Security,
Healthcare, Education, Infrastructure etc, etc. It is a Moral and
Economic Abomination.
Pace Closely Aligned With Rumsfeld
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
President Bush intends to name Marine Gen. Peter Pace
the next chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, officials said yesterday,
replacing Air Force
Gen. Richard B. Myers, whose term ends this autumn.
Announcement of the decision is due soon and probably
will include the
nomination of Navy Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr. as
the new vice
chairman, officials said.
The selection of the two officers for the Pentagon's top
military posts
would team Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld with
a pair of senior
officers with whom he is very familiar.
Pace, 59, has served as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff for 3
1/2 years, helping to manage the conflicts in Iraq and
Afghanistan and
furthering a reputation as a smooth political operator.
Giambastiani, 56, was Rumsfeld's senior military assistant
for a year
before becoming head of Joint Forces Command in 2002.
There, the admiral
has overseen work on a number of the "transformational"
military strategies
strongly favored by Rumsfeld.
Although the Pace-Giambastiani team would promise continuity
with
Rumsfeld's agenda, the close identification of the two
officers with the
defense secretary also risks furthering the recent image
of the Joint Staff
as having lost some of its voice in Pentagon deliberations.
Myers has struggled with criticism from some quarters
that he has failed to
stand up sufficiently to the strong-willed Rumsfeld.
Myers's supporters
dispute this perception, saying that on a number of important
policy
questions, the general has challenged the secretary but
has kept such
disputes largely behind the scenes.
As Myers's deputy, Pace also has been subject to grumbling
that he has
avoided disagreements with Rumsfeld. But his backers
say Pace has
demonstrated particular skill in dealing not only with
civilians at the
Pentagon but also at the White House, and in managing
difficult issues
involving long-term strategy and weapons acquisition
policies.
If confirmed by the Senate, Pace would become the first
Marine to hold the
chairman's job.
A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Pace was sent to
Vietnam as a fresh
lieutenant in the late 1960s and served as a platoon
leader, winning a
Bronze Star. In the early 1990s, he commanded Marines
in Somalia, returning
in 1993 after the failed raid that killed 18 Americans
to help preside over
an ignominius U.S. withdrawal. He went on to head U.S.
Southern Command,
which is responsible for operations in Latin America
and the Caribbean.
The leadership changes on the Joint Staff come at a time
of continued
speculation about Rumsfeld's own plans to step down.
Now in the fifth year
of his second tour as Pentagon leader, Rumsfeld already
holds records as
the youngest and oldest person to have held the job.
He has given no sign
of any intention to leave soon.
To beat Robert McNamara's record of longest serving defense
secretary,
Rumsfeld would need to stay until March 2008.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp-dyn/articles/A2642-2005Apr19.html
President Bush, left and Marine Gen. Peter Pace stand
in the East Room
Friday.
CNN.com
Friday, April 22, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush on Friday named Marine
Gen. Peter Pace,
who quietly helped shape the Pentagon's role in the global
war on
terrorism, to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff.
Pace, 59, would succeed Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers.
He was expected to
win easy Senate confirmation.
The first Marine selected for the nation's top uniformed
military post,
Pace also is only the second to rise from vice chairman.
Myers, due to
retire September 30 after four years on the job, was
the first.
"He knows the job well," Bush said in announcing Pace's
nomination in an
East Room ceremony at the White House.
After nearly four years in the No. 2 job -- a period in
which the war on
terror has been the military's dominant focus -- Pace
has remained a
relatively unknown figure to the public.
Privately, he is said to get along well with Defense Secretary
Donald H.
Rumsfeld, who moved Pace into the vice chairman's spot
on October 1, 2001,
after Pace had served only one year as commander of U.S.
Southern Command.
Aides say Rumsfeld has viewed Myers and Pace as virtually
interchangeable
in their role as military advisers. In a reflection of
his confidence in
Pace, Rumsfeld on a number of occasions has had Pace
at his side for
Pentagon news conferences when Myers was traveling abroad.
A secretary of defense and a Joint Chiefs chairman work
closely together,
by necessity, but their relationship can sometimes be
difficult. By law,
the chairman is required to give his unvarnished advice
on matters
affecting the armed forces, but the defense secretary
is the boss. That can
sometimes make it appear publicly that the chairman is
deferential and
lacking in independence.
Pace touched on this point briefly during a Pentagon news
conference in
March in which Rumsfeld noted that his recommendations
on filling senior
Pentagon positions are ultimately decided by the president.
"All I would add," Pace said, "is no matter how thin the
veneer, your
military is 100 percent civilian controlled."
The Joint Chiefs chairman, who normally serves two two-year
terms, is the
senior military adviser to the president as well as the
secretary of
defense. He commands no troops and is not in the chain
of command that runs
from the president to the secretary of defense to commanders
in the field.
Pace, Born in New York City and raised in Teaneck, New
Jersey, Pace
graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and earned a master's
degree in
business administration from George Washington University.
After basic training in 1968, he was sent to Vietnam as
a rifle platoon
leader. He later served in Korea and was a commander
for two years during
the Somalia intervention that ended in a U.S. withdrawal.
Earlier in his career Pace's assignments included an unusual
combination of
staff and command jobs. After his return from Vietnam
in 1969 he served as
head infantry writer at the Marine Corps Institute in
Washington, then
security detachment commander at the Camp David, Maryland,
presidential
retreat.
He also served as a presidential social aide at the White
House and later
was commanding officer of the Marine Corps recruiting
station in Buffalo,
New York. After he reached the rank of brigadier general
in 1992 he became
president of Marine Corps University. It was during that
assignment that he
was sent to Somalia as deputy commander of Marine forces.
He reached
four-star rank in 2000.
Pace and his wife, Lynne, have a daughter, Tiffany Marie, and a son, Peter.