President Bush on Friday named Marine Gen. Peter Pace, who quietly helped shape the Pentagon’s role in the global war on terrorism, to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Pace, 59, would succeed Air Force Gen. Richard Myers. He was expected to win easy Senate confirmation.
The first Marine selected for the top military post, Pace also is only the second vice chairman to rise to chairman. Myers, due to retire Sept. 30 after four years on the job, was the first.
The president also said he was nominating Navy Adm. Edmund Giambastiani as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Giambastiani, 56, was Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s senior military assistant before being named commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command in 2002.
After stumbling over Giambastiani’s name several times, Bush said to laughter: “He shall be known as Admiral G.”
