Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Top Neocon: Flournoy is Great

I have already posted a piece discussing why war hawks would be in favor of Michele Flournoy getting to head the Department of Defense.

Top neocon war hawk Paul Wolfowitz has not disappointed me. He is out with a WSJ piece that shows Flournoy may have impressed senior military even more so than Paula Broadwell:
Now that Michele Flournoy is being mentioned as a serious candidate to succeed Leon Panetta as secretary of defense, it is important that she be judged on her merits—not because she'd be the first woman in that job, not simply because she was an effective defender of President Obama's policies during the recent campaign, and not because she isn't Chuck Hagel.

Having only a slight acquaintance with Ms. Flournoy, I can't judge her overall record or compare her with other candidates. But I do know that she made a critical contribution as undersecretary of defense for policy to what could be the Obama administration's most important achievement in Afghanistan, the substantial strengthening of that country's own security forces.

That achievement is not one that I've seen reported before. I only know of it because Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, who was previously my senior military assistant, told me about the support Ms. Flournoy provided him when he was in charge of training the Afghan army and police from 2009 to 2011. This story demonstrates some qualities that Democrats and Republicans alike should be looking for in a secretary of defense.
Or, as I noted, in my post:
A big spending war hawk, now this is the kind of dame that will fly through a Senate confirmation hearing.

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