Names Being Floated For Next Navy Secretary

[livvy]

Names Being Floated For Next Navy Secretary

By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Dec 13, 2008 6:47:52 EST

Defense analysts and political observers in Washington agree the next Navy secretary will have a busy time running and reforming the Navy Department in the first years of the Obama administration. But what isn’t clear is who will likely get the job.

There are several possibilities: The names of naval analyst Bob Work; Rep. Joe Sestak, D.-Pa., a former Navy vice admiral; and even Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., have been bandied about as possible candidates. There are also some candidates in the defense industry. But the tricky part about handicapping Obama’s service secretaries is that he apparently isn’t using the same guidelines to staff his Defense Department as the rest of the federal government, one observer said.

“The Pentagon is one arena where we’re not seeing a lot of ‘change,’ the big thing he campaigned on,” said Mackenzie Eaglen, a senior national security analyst for the conservative Heritage Foundation.

She pointed out Obama’s decision to keep Defense Secretary Robert Gates, rather than appoint his own person to run the Defense Department. That doesn’t mean Navy Secretary Donald Winter also will stay on. Or, it could.

“I have no idea what I’m going to do,” Winter said after an appearance in November at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. When he was asked directly whether he would stay if asked, he said, “That’s a hypothetical question.”

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http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/12/navy_secnav_121308w/%2e