Air Force general withdraws nomination to head Pacific Command

The Defense Department announced late Wednesday that Air Force Gen. Gregory Martin, commander of the Air Force Materiel Command, has requested that his nomination to head the U.S Pacific Command be withdrawn.

Earlier in the day, during Martin's confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., suggested the general had something to hide after the Pentagon bungled the committee's request to review some of Martin's internal e-mails associated with a controversial Air Force plan to acquire Boeing KC-767 tankers.

McCain, Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., and ranking member Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., are in the process of poring over thousands of internal Pentagon and White House e-mails associated with the multibillion dollar Boeing contract.

Last week the Justice Department began probing e-mails between two high-ranking government officials directly involved in the troubled tanker acquisition.

At the hearing, McCain questioned why the Air Force failed to provide the specified e-mails.

"We tried to get as a priority Gen. Martin's e-mails because of the urgency of this nomination. We haven't gotten it," McCain said. "Obviously, there is something going on about non-responsive e-mails."