By Emelie Rutherford
Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.) plans to meet this Thursday with Arnold Punaro, a defense-industry executive with extensive military and congressional experience who is said to be the Obama administration’s leading pick for Army secretary.
McCain last week downplayed the suggestion he has concerns with the potential nomination of Punaro, a former SASC staff director with whom McCain did not always see eye-to- eye.
“I understand I had a request from Mr. Punaro to see me,” McCain told Defense Daily last Thursday, before the meeting was scheduled for this Thursday. “We just found out that he asked to see me….I’ll meet with anybody.”
Punaro could not be reached last week for comment.
Punaro worked for former SASC Democratic Chairman Sam Nunn from 1973 to 1997, serving as staff director of the SASC for eight years and of the minority side for five years, according to Punaro’s biography. He and McCain disagreed in the late 1980s over McCain mentor John Tower’s thwarted bid for defense secretary.
Punaro’s rumored nomination has spurred questions on Capitol Hill, though no lawmakers or aides indicated last week any concerted opposition to his possible nomination.
SASC members Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.) praised Punaro’s experience, and said he would be suited to replace current Army secretary Pete Geren. Geren, a former Democratic congressman who held the top Army civilian spot in the end of the Bush administration, has strong congressional support yet is said to not be under consideration for continued service by President Obama.
Punaro is an executive vice president at SAIC [SAI], where his duties include overseeing government affairs and Washington operations.
Some lawmakers sounded alarms earlier this year over Obama’s nomination of Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn, a former Raytheon [RTN] lobbyist who needed a waiver from Obama’s new ethics rules. Those restrictions ban government appointees for two years from working for agencies and on issue areas they lobbied, and from participating in matters related to their former employers.
It was not clear last week if Punaro would require a similar waiver.
Punaro also is a retired Marine Corps Reserve major general who has served as deputy commanding general of Marine Corps Combat Development Command (Mobilization) and chaired the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves. He currently serves on Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ Defense Business Board. A decorated Vietnam War veteran, he was mobilized in 2003 in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He, notably, served in 2008 as a task force member for then-Special Envoy for Middle East Security Jim Jones, the retired Marine Corps Commandant who now is President Obama’s national security adviser.
Inhofe, the No. 2 SASC Republican, told Defense Daily he is “very excited” about Punaro’s possible nomination.
“People say, ‘Hey, we’re talking about the secretary of the Army and he’s a Marine,'” Inhofe said. “That doesn’t bother me. He knows ground warfare as well as any Army person would.”
Inhofe said he doesn’t see any conflict of interest with Punaro becoming Army secretary after holding the lobbying-related job at SAIC.
“You get someone who has the background that he has, I’m convinced that they’re not gong to be persuaded to do the wrong thing just because of some knowledge he has in the back of his mind because of some past employment,” Inhofe said.
SAIC is teamed with Boeing [BA] in steering the Army’s massive-yet-troubled Future Combat Systems (FCS) modernization program. Inhofe has railed against Gates’ proposal to cut FCS’s eight ground vehicle efforts.
If Punaro is nominated, Inhofe said he would not block a confirmation vote to raise awareness about the senator’s FCS concerns. Alabama’s two Republican senators this month temporarily put holds on the Senate approval of Obama’s nominee for Pentagon acquisition czar over their concerns about the Air Force tanker replacement effort. “I think he’s very understanding of FCS,” Inhofe said about Punaro, adding the potential nominee’s working knowledge of such systems could be positive.
Webb, a former Navy secretary, said he has known Punaro for many years and has talked to him “in passing” about his potential nomination.
Other SASC members, including Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and senior member Jack Reed (D-R.I.), declined to speculate about Punaro’s possible nomination.