Bush nominates pair for DOD posts

About four months to the day since Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked Congress to authorize an assistant secretary of Defense for homeland defense, President Bush last week nominated former Pennsylvania congressman Paul McHale, who served as a Democrat, to fill that position.

Bush also nominated Christopher Henry, corporate vice president for strategic assessment and development at Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), to be deputy undersecretary of Defense for policy.

In early September 2002, Rumsfeld sent a letter to Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), then chairman of the Armed Services Committee, requesting congressional approval for the establishment of an assistant secretary of Defense for homeland defense, according to Rosanne Hynes, technical director in the DOD's Office of the Special Assistant for Homeland Security.

"This is something that has been discussed for quite some time," and the Bush administration has talked to lawmakers about it, Hynes said after participating in a panel last Sept. 10 at the Homeland Security and National Defense Symposium in Atlantic City, N.J.

McHale is vice president of the Allentown, Pa., civil law firm Tallman, Hudders and Sorrentino. Before that, he was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 until 1999, where he served on the House Armed Services Committee and the Science Committee.

McHale also served in the Marine Corps in operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm and remains a colonel in the reserves. He is a graduate of Lehigh University, and earned his law degree from Georgetown University.

Before joining SAIC, Henry was a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where he led the information-based warfare initiative. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and the National Defense University.

Neither nominee was available for comment for this report.