-Caveat Lector- http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,415071,00.htm l Wrangle delays Bush decision on Pentagon job boss Special report: the US elections Martin Kettle in Washington Saturday December 23, 2000 George W Bush has been forced to delay the announcement of his new defence secretary after acrimonious behind-the-scenes battles between the Republican party's pragmatic and conservative wings over who should get the key Pentagon job. Earlier this week it had appeared that Mr Bush was likely to select a strong conservative, former Senator Dan Coats of Indiana, to a post which would include overseeing the introduction of the controversial missile defence shield programme. However, since Mr Bush met Mr Coats in Washington on Monday, the president-elect has come under increasing pressure to appoint Paul Wolfowitz, a favourite of the Republican foreign policy establishment and a former Asia expert in the Reagan era. As a result of the standoff between supporters of the rival candidates, Mr Bush is looking again at other options, including Donald Rice, who was secretary of the air force during the Gulf war in George Bush Sr's administration. Two other names who have come back into the frame as outsiders for the Pentagon job are Richard Armitage, another Reagan and Bush Sr veteran, and the former Democratic senator Sam Nunn, who chaired the Senate armed services committee during the Gulf war. Pressure on Mr Bush to select Mr Coats has come from Republican conservatives who admired his campaign in the Senate in 1993 against Bill Clinton's policy allowing gays to serve in the US military, and from congressional Republican leaders such as Senator Trent Lott, who see him as a man committed to high spending on defence. Support for Mr Wolfowitz has come from the vice-president-elect, Dick Cheney, himself a former defence secretary. Mr Wolfowitz was senior foreign policy adviser to Mr Cheney when he was in charge of the Pentagon, and has been an important tutor to Mr Bush on international issues. Mr Bush is reported to have been disappointed with Mr Coats when the two men met this week, and to believe that Mr Wolfowitz may not have the administrative and political clout to control the Pentagon's perpetually warring factions. "I would characterise my search as deliberate," Mr Bush said when asked about the delay in making the appointment at an Austin press conference yesterday. "When I make my mind up, people will know that my decision is not not based upon politics or who's in favour in some political organisation or not, but it's going to be based upon what's right for the country." The battle for the Pentagon job suggests such claims must be taken with a pinch of salt. Mr Bush is having to perform an increasingly delicate balancing act as he constructs his administration. In Republican terms, he has appointed moderates to key positions in his foreign policy team so far, with Colin Powell as secretary of state and Condoleezza Rice as his principal White House adviser. Party conservatives want the Pentagon job to go to someone from their wing of the party. On the domestic front, Mr Bush's balancing act was in evidence yesterday when he went against predictions and appointed the former Missouri senator and rightwinger John Ashcroft as his attorney general, and the New Jersey governor and moderate Christine Todd Whitman as head of the Environmental Protection Agency. -- A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. - Edward Abbey <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
