Former general Lloyd Austin elected as Defence Secretary
US President, Joe Biden elected Lloyd Austin as the first Black defence secretary. Austin played a major role in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and rose to head the US Central Command. In 2008, Austin was commander in Baghdad of the Multinational Corps-Iraq when Barack Obama was elected President and he returned to lead the US troops from 2010 through 2011.
In 2012, Austin also served as the ‘First Black Vice Chief of Staff of the Army’. A year later he took over the command of US Central Command, where he planned and began implementing a US military strategy for rolling back ISIL (ISIS) fighters in Syria and Iraq.
As a retired four stars Army general, he is likely to face opposition from some in Congress and in the defence establishment who believe in drawing a clear line between military leadership of the Pentagon and civilian. Among many previous defence secretaries who have served briefly in the military only two , George C Marshall and James Mattis, have been career officers. Marshall also served as secretary of state.
A veteran of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 67-year-old beat out the favourite for the job, Michele Flournoy, former under-secretary of defence. Flournoy would have been the first woman to serve as defence secretary. Biden has also nominated Jeh Johnson, a former Pentagon general counsel and former secretary of Homeland Defence.
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