Why Recess-Appoint an Assistant Secretary? Why Now?

President Bush recess-appointed Peter Cyril Wyche Flory to be the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security on August 2, 2005. Yet Bush’s nominee to the Deputy Secretary of that department remains unconfirmed and un-appointed but is “acting” in the position. And, the nominee to be undersecretary for policy – the person Flory would report to (the one who would replace Douglas Feith) – remains unconfirmed, un-appointed, and isn’t even “acting.”

Why Flory? Why now?

Flory has worked closely with former Deputy Secretary of Defense appointee Paul Wolfowitz. He appeared before a Senate sub committee on Iranian proliferation in 2004 – along with John Bolton. In this role it was Flory’s responsibility to explain how Iranian nuclear capabilities might “alter the U.S. defense posture and military strategy in the region.”

During that sub committee meeting Flory said,” the exact nature and shape of what we do is going to depend on what happens, and it's going to depend, like our overall posture there is, on events in the region, how things go in Iraq, what the profile is of the development of the Iranian threat, what we see as the actual military threat at a given time.”

Yesterday, Iran resumed uranium production in Ishafan, ostensibly to produce much needed electricity not bombs. The move pissed off the U.S. government, who is now considering denying a visa to Iran's President for next month’s UN General meeting. It may affect “the exact nature and shape” of what the defense policy will become.

Understanding this, the International Atomic Energy Agency today “urged diplomats to exercise ‘maximum restraint’ as they try to avert a crisis between Iran and the U.S. over the Islamic Republic's resumption of uranium conversion activities.”

Interestingly, it seems that all involved have forgotten that on the same day that Flory was installed in his new post, the Washington Post reported that Iran was at least 10 years away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear bomb.

So why Flory? Why now?

Is it something to do with today's reports that Iranian explosives have supposedly been found in Iraq?

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Written in collaboration with Jennifer Hicks