President-elect Donald Trump Names Gen. James Mattis as Pick for Defense Secretary
Congress will need to pass special law to allow retired officer to take Pentagon’s top post
“We are going to appoint ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis as our secretary of defense,” Mr. Trump said
.. Gen. Mattis rose through the ranks of the Marine Corps over 43 years to become the U.S. military’s top commander in the Middle East.
.. Since retiring in 2013, Gen. Mattis has become a vocal critic of what he calls Washington’s “strategy-free” approach to warfare and threats. He has urged the U.S. to engage in the Middle East more directly and without preset limits on the use of force, echoing critics of President Barack Obama’s administration who say it has taken an overly incremental and fair-weather approach.
.. The selection of Gen. Mattis adds to Mr. Trump’s reliance on former military officers for his national-security team. The president-elect chose retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as his national security adviser and is considering Navy Adm. Michael Rogers to become director of national intelligence. He has also spoken to another retired Marine Corps general, John Kelly, about a top administration post... Gen. Mattis has also served as a director at the eblood-testing startup, Theranos Inc., for the last three years as it battled regulatory sanctions and federal criminal and civil probes... In 2012, Gen. Mattis, then leading the military’s Central Command, pressed for the U.S. Army to procure Theranos lab equipment and deploy it in the battlefield