SULAIMANI — U.S. President-elect Joe Biden has chosen retired General Lloyd Austin for defense secretary, news agencies reported on Monday.
AP cited a person familiar with the process as saying that Biden offered and the former commander of the U.S. Central Command accepted the post on Sunday.
If confirmed by the Senate, Austin would be the first black man to lead the Department of Defense, according to CNN.
Biden selected Austin over the longtime front-runner candidate, Michele Flourney, a former senior Pentagon official and Biden supporter who would have been the first woman to serve as defense secretary, AP reported.
As a career military officer, the 67-year-old Austin is likely to face opposition from some in Congress and in the defense establishment who believe in drawing a clear line between civilian military leadership of the Pentagon, AP said.
CNN cited a source as saying that Biden would likely announce the retired Army general as his nominee on Tuesday.
Biden has known Austin at least since the general’s years leading U.S. and coalition troops in Iraq while Biden was vice president. Austin was commander in Baghdad of the Multinational Corps-Iraq in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected president, and he returned to lead U.S. troops from 2010 through 2011.
Austin also served in 2012 as the first Black vice chief of staff of the Army, the service’s No. 2-ranking position. A year later he assumed command of U.S. Central Command, where he fashioned and began implementing a U.S. military strategy for rolling back the Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.
He retired from the Army in 2016, and he would need a congressional waiver of the legal requirement that a former member of the military be out of uniform at least seven years before serving as secretary of defense. That waiver has been granted only twice — most recently in the case of Mattis, the retired Marine general who served as President Donald Trump’s first Pentagon chief.
