Originally published on the CGS blog on May 16, 2007.
If confirmed, he’ll have closed to 189,000 troops under his purvue and she oversees close to 90,000 troops and police. A true power couple. I’m talking of course about General Douglas Lute, the White House nominee to head up operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and his wife, Assistant Secretary-General Jane Holl Lute, who is responsible for the personnel, finance, and logistical support necessary to mount and sustain the United Nations’ field-based peace operations.
Jane Holl Lute has probably done more than any other person to bring U.N. peacekeeping into the 21st Century. General Lute has been a skeptic on the administration’s Iraq surge, and I’m told understands the value of U.N. peacekeeping. Perhaps in his role of War Czar he will be able to convince others in the White House that racking up a billion dollar shortfall in peacekeeping dues to the U.N. by the end of this fiscal year doesn’t make much sense. More later.
