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November 13, 2005
Who is this Gordon England?
Weldon mentioned England in his press conference yesterday, saying that he had called Weldon and requested a meeting about Able Danger. After ninety minutes, England left shaking his head and saying "I don't know where I'm gonna go with this from here on." Anyway, how about that zinger buried in the second paragraph I pasted below. It's from near the end of the Newsweek cover story about the McCain amendment and torture:
Even McCain recognizes there could be rare instances when a president disobeys the law and orders a suspect tortured — say, if Al Qaeda had hidden a nuclear bomb in New York and a suspect involved in the plot had been captured. "You do what you have to do," McCain told NEWSWEEK. "But you take responsibility for it. Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in the Civil War, and FDR violated the Neutrality Acts before World War II."Taking responsibility would be a new concept for the Bush administration. No high-ranking officer has been prosecuted in connection with the abuses, and no Pentagon official has even been publicly reprimanded. There are a number of senior officials openly pushing for some clear legal standard on detainee interrogations. Lately, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been warning Bush that America's low image in the world requires positive steps to take a stand against prisoner abuse. She is backed by national-security adviser Stephen Hadley and Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England. But Rumsfeld's position is unclear (often the case with the blunt but slippery Defense secretary), and Cheney remains adamantly opposed to any check on executive power. His new chief of staff (replacing the recently indicted I. Lewis Libby), the hawkish David Addington, has strongly attacked a draft directive from DoD's England that would require detainees to be treated in accordance with language drawn from Article Three of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit torture and cruel — "humiliating and degrading" —treatment. "Addington is not happy about the draft," says a Pentagon official who requested anonymity because the discussions are still confidential. He added sarcastically that Addington "would like us to be able to pull fingernails with pliers."
From England's Defense Department profile:
The Department of Defense announced May 13, 2005, that the President has designated Secretary of the Navy Gordon England to be Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense, replacing Paul Wolfowitz whose resignation was effective May 13.On April 7, 2005, the President nominated Secretary England for appointment as Deputy Secretary Defense. That nomination is pending in the Senate.
Gordon England was confirmed as the 73rd Secretary of the Navy on 26 September 2003 and sworn in on 1 October. He becomes only the second person in history to serve twice as the leader of the Navy-Marine Corps Team and the first to serve in back-to-back terms. Prior to his return to the Navy Department he was the first Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. The Department of Homeland Security was established on January 24, 2003, to integrate 22 different agencies with a common mission to protect the American people.
Secretary England served as the 72nd Secretary of the Navy from May 24, 2001, until he joined the Homeland Security in January 2003. As Secretary of the Navy, Mr. England leads America's Navy and Marine Corps and is responsible for an annual budget in excess of $110 B and more than 800,000 personnel.
Prior to joining the administration of President George W. Bush, Mr. England served as executive vice president of General Dynamics Corporation from 1997 until 2001. In that position he was responsible for two major sectors of the corporation: Information Systems and International. Previously, he served as executive vice president of the Combat Systems Group, president of General Dynamics Fort Worth aircraft company (later Lockheed), president of General Dynamics Land Systems Company and as the principal of a mergers and acquisition consulting company.
Posted by Mike at November 13, 2005 05:59 PM
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