Senate confirms Army secretary nominee; acting head to leave

The Senate easily confirmed Francis Harvey as Army secretary Tuesday, despite two hours of debate in which Senate Armed Services ranking member Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., questioned Harvey's qualifications.

Reed, fresh from a weekend trip to Iraq and Afghanistan, launched a litany of challenges at President Bush's choice for the top civilian job in the Army, asserting that while Harvey is a "consummate professional, the Army needs a leader, not necessarily a manager."

Reed, also a member of the Armed Services Committee, said any Army secretary must be an aggressive advocate willing to "speak truth to power" despite the potential for retribution.

Reed was referring to former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki and former Army Secretary Thomas White, who vacated their posts in 2003 after publicly voicing the need to send a larger force into Iraq than ultimately called for by top Pentagon leaders.

Reed, a staunch proponent of increasing the number of active-duty soldiers, questioned whether Harvey had the experience to ascertain the need for more troops as called for in the fiscal 2005 defense authorization bill.

But while adding more troops might ease the burden on active and reserve soldiers deployed overseas, Reed said Harvey must also determine how to pay for the larger force, preferably within the Army's already-strained annual budget rather than through emergency wartime supplemental funds as proposed in the 2005 bill.

In the end, the Senate voted for Harvey, 85-12, putting him in place to lead an overstretched, underfunded force through a massive military transformation while meeting the demands of lengthy overseas deployments in support of the war on terror.

Harvey has a Ph.D. in materials science from the University of Pennsylvania and has ties to the Carlyle Group, a Washington investment firm that claims several high-profile Republicans among its advisers.

Although Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., defended Harvey's qualifications, he joined Reed and Levin in commending the job done by Acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee, a retired colonel and the committee's former staff director. Warner said he had recommended Brownlee's appointment to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on more than one occasion.

During Tuesday's floor debate, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said Harvey would give the administration a civilian leader who knows about the high-stakes world of defense contracting.

"It's important we have somebody that understands industry," Inhofe said.

The Army secretary plays no role in combat operations, but manages policy and budget matters, including recruitment, troop mobilizations and the Army's roughly $100 billion annual budget.

Brownlee was expected to submit his resignation to Rumsfeld Wednesday, according to Army sources. Brownlee's departure is expected Dec. 3.

Army officials and congressional insiders say privately that Brownlee, a popular, respected figure on Capitol Hill, deserved the permanent appointment that went to Harvey.

"Why has the administration treated him so badly and why did we consider someone else for the position when we've had a perfectly good candidate under our noses the past 18 months?" asked one Army official at the Pentagon. The Army official added that Brownlee held the stand-in slot longer than anyone in the Army's history.

Brownlee, a decorated Army veteran and former Senate Armed Services Committee staff director, has been serving as acting Army secretary and the service's No. 2 civilian official since White quit in 2003.