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Geren confirmed as next Army secretary

The Senate on Friday approved the nomination of Pete Geren to become Army secretary.

Geren had been acting secretary and undersecretary of the Army since early March when then-Secretary Francis Harvey resigned amid the Walter Reed Army Medical Center controversy.

The voice vote was approved around midday with no objections.

Geren, who will be sworn in as the 20th secretary of the Army, is a former Democratic congressman from Texas who has served in various positions at the Defense Department.

During his confirmation hearing June 19 before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Geren was questioned heavily about the 15-month deployments for soldiers on rotation in Iraq and the effects on their families.

The policy of implementing ad hoc extensions as they had been doing, Geren said, had to change and they settled for the “best of two bad options.”

“Extensions were inevitable based on the needs of commanders,” Geren said, explaining that announcing the longer deployments ahead of time, with a guarantee of 12-month dwell time, makes it more predictable for everyone.

He added that the Army is also looking at “different utilization of the Guard and Reserve” and at the Air Force and Navy, which have each put troops into roles in Iraq that fall outside their conventional areas of service.

The Army secretary has statutory responsibility for Army manpower, personnel, reserve affairs, installations, environmental issues, weapons systems and equipment acquisition, communications and financial management.

Geren will oversee the Army’s annual budget and supplemental of $170 billion, and lead a work force of 1.2 million active-duty and reserve component soldiers, 230,000 civilian employees and 280,000 contracted service personnel.

He also has stewardship over 15 million acres of land, according to an Amy news release.