Obama names acting Pentagon deputy chief
U.S. President Barack Obama has named Christine Fox, the former chief program and budget analyst with the Department of Defense, to serve as the agency’s acting deputy secretary, while the administration is searching for a permanent replacement for Ashton Carter, who is to leave the job of Deputy Secretary of Defense Wednesday.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced the decision Tuesday, saying Fox will take over as acting deputy secretary of defense starting Thursday.
The move was described by Marine Times, a military news outlet, as “unprecedented,” highlighting the pressure the Pentagon is facing as it readies itself for a fight in Congress over defense budget in the coming months.
Fox, who until recently served as the Pentagon’s director of cost assessment and program evaluation, “helped identify the challenges, choices, and opportunities for reform facing the department during this period of unprecedented budget uncertainty, ” and will be able to help shaping the Pentagon’s “priorities from day one because she knows the intricacies of the department’s budget, programs and global operations better than anyone,” said a statement issued by Hagel.
Fox left the Pentagon in June to become a senior adviser to the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, but remained an unpaid consultant to Carter, allowing her to keep current on defense issues.
03.12.2013
SOURCE: MEDIA
