US finally gets new chief for Pentagon

Esper brings ballast to the department after Mattis' shock departure last year

WASHINGTON - Former soldier Mark Esper was sworn in as US secretary of defense on Tuesday after earning Senate confirmation, filling the country's longest Pentagon leadership vacuum as Washington faces mounting tensions with Iran and struggles to end the long-running Afghanistan war.

US President Donald Trump's second Defense Department chief takes over nearly seven months after the shock departure of former Marine Corps general Jim Mattis, who broke with Trump over policy on the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Two other men served as acting defense secretary this year to fill the void-including former Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan, who served a six-month temporary stint but resigned for family reasons in June and withdrew from consideration for the full-time top post.

Esper sailed through the confirmation process at lightning speed. He earned broad bipartisan support and was confirmed by a vote of 90 to 8.

Later on Tuesday, he was sworn in at an Oval Office ceremony attended by several Senate Republicans and Trump, who called it "a very important day" for the nation.

"There is no one more qualified to lead the Department of Defense," Trump said.

Esper's confirmation brought ballast to a Pentagon destabilized by the leadership revolving door since late December, and came as the world's strongest military power is engaged in conflicts in countries including Afghanistan and is being tested by Teheran.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in Congress, hailed Esper, who served a two-year stint as secretary of the US Army beginning in 2017, as "a thoroughly well prepared nominee" who has the respect of the national security community and can hit the ground running.

"The world is full of serious threats to America, to our allies and to our interests, not least among them obviously is Iran's insistence on continuing to ratchet up tensions in the Middle East," McConnell said in a Senate floor speech on Monday. "Having a Senate-confirmed secretary of defense, especially one of this quality, could not come a moment too soon."

Combat experience

Esper has significant Middle East experience. He fought in Iraq during the Gulf War in 1991, and was part of the US Army's famed 101st Airborne Division known as the "Screaming Eagles".

He is also close to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, with whom he studied at the prestigious West Point Military Academy. Both men graduated in 1986.

On the political front, he served as an adviser to several lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including Republican senator Chuck Hagel, who later became secretary of defense under former president Barack Obama.

But his links with the defense industry drew criticism during his confirmation process.

All eight senators who voted against Esper's nomination are Democrats. They include Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, who has sharply criticized Esper for declining to recuse himself from all matters involving his former employer Raytheon, for the duration of his time as defense secretary.

Carl Tobias, a professor of law at the University of Richmond, said he believes that in the months since Mattis left, the Pentagon's sway within the administration has weakened. "This seems to be the primary challenge that Esper confronts: regaining the power to set the Defense Department agenda and defend it by doing what is best for the nation and the world, not what advances the president's political agenda," Tobias said by e-mail.

Trump raised eyebrows recently with a series of imprudent comments. Afghanistan's leaders sought clarification from the White House after Trump said on Monday could easily and swiftly win a war in which "Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the Earth."

He also told reporters he was feeling less inclined to deal with Iran because "they behave very badly", and that Washington was "ready for the absolute worst" with the Islamic republic.

Agencies - Xinhua