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Roche army secretary northrop grumman { May 1 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/5765048.htmhttp://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/5765048.htm
Posted on Thu, May. 01, 2003
Rumsfeld to replace Army secretary
By JESSICA GUYNN
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - As part of his push to remake the military, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is expected to appoint James G. Roche as Army secretary, replacing Thomas White, who was fired last week, a senior Pentagon official said Thursday.
If approved by the White House and confirmed by the Senate, he would be the first secretary of two services who also served as an officer in a third.
Roche, a retired Navy officer, is currently secretary of the Air Force. He will have a clear directive: to change the culture of the Army. Rumsfeld sees current Army culture as a holdover from the Cold War era: too cautious, too big, too reliant on heavy armor and too slow to respond to the fast pace of international developments.
A 23-year retired Navy officer and a former executive with one of the nation's largest defense contractors, Northrop Grumman Corp., Roche fits the profile of the kind of leader Rumsfeld favors, a chief executive type with a track record of imposing big changes.
As commander of the USS Buchanan, a guided-missile destroyer, he turned it into the Navy's most improved combat unit in the Pacific in 1974. As president of Northrop's electronic sensors and systems business, which makes radar and avionics for stealth fighter jets, he helped the defense contractor recover from the business slump that followed the end of the Cold War.
Roche also has experience working the halls of Washington. He reported to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz at the State Department during the Reagan administration and later was Democratic staff director for the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"Jim has been very successful at helping to turn around situations which were considered problematic," the senior Pentagon official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "This will be a chance to start fresh after the end of this war and aggressively implement positive and lasting change within the service (the Army) for the benefit of all services."
Air Force spokesman William Bodie said the Air Force would not comment on the report because President Bush has not announced his nomination of a candidate for the job. Until then, "all is speculation or rumor."
Bodie also declined to comment on reports from two senior Pentagon officials who said that Barbara Barrett, a prominent lawyer, business leader and pilot, is a leading contender to replace Roche as Air Force secretary.
Barrett, who in 1994 became the first Republican woman to run for governor of Arizona, has served in the Reagan and the first Bush administrations. She recently was tapped by President Bush to advise his administration on its international public relations strategy as chairwoman of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.
Barrett, who is married to Intel Corp. chief executive Craig Barrett, also was the first woman deputy administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration.
White's departure and the coming retirements of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki and Vice Chief of Staff Gen. John Keane have afforded Rumsfeld a unique opportunity to install his own handpicked Army leaders.
Uncertainty over who will take over the Army's top military post continues. Gen. Tommy R. Franks, who commanded U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and who is supposed to retire from the Army in July, reportedly turned down the chief of staff job when Rumsfeld offered it. Shinseki steps down from the post in June.
Many senior Army officers are not fans of Rumsfeld's enthusiasm for air power and high-tech weaponry, fearing that it will come at the expense of ground troops. Rumsfeld's already-strained relationship with the Army worsened last year when he scrapped the Army's $11 billion Crusader artillery system.
But two decisive military victories have handed Rumsfeld growing power to - in his words - transform the military. The target of that transformation is the Army.
Rumsfeld believes the Army must evolve from Cold War design into a lighter and more agile force equipped with high-tech weaponry and innovative combat strategy, and capable of carrying out pre-emptive strikes against rogue states.
Whether he will take aim at the tanks and heavy artillery embraced by the Army or some of its pet projects such as the Comanche attack helicopter remains to be seen. Some Army officers fear Rumsfeld will renew attempts to cut two or more of the Army's 10 divisions.
Roche, said the senior Pentagon official, "recognizes the tremendous opportunities that would result from successfully implementing the kind of changes Rumsfeld sees for the Army in terms of overall integrated combat power that we saw glimmers of in Operation Iraqi Freedom. That kind of integration would be an extremely powerful capability for the United States in the 21st century."
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