Bush Expected to Name 1st Marine to Lead the Joint Chiefs of Staff

President Bush is expected to name Marine Gen. Peter Pace, a veteran of Vietnam, Somalia and the halls of the Pentagon, as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Department officials said Wednesday.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld recommended Pace, the Joint Chiefs vice chairman, for the post of chairman. If confirmed by the Senate, Pace, 59, would become the first Marine to serve as the military’s senior officer and the president’s chief uniformed defense advisor.

Pace would assume the chairman’s job in October, when Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers’ term expires. Bush intended to announce the selection soon, White House officials said Wednesday.

The promotion of Pace would be a sign that Bush is satisfied with the military advice he has received over the last four years, and that both he and Rumsfeld will continue to press an agenda of military “transformation” during the president’s second term.

Upon taking over at the Pentagon in 2001, Rumsfeld made transformation -- making the armed services lighter, faster and more easily deployed to global hot spots -- his top priority as Defense secretary. Yet the two wars that followed the Sept. 11 attacks have consumed much of the time and energy of Pentagon planners for the last three years.

Now, with Iraqi elections behind them and U.S. troops shifting their focus to intensive training of Iraqi troops, Pentagon officials hope they can once again turn to building a fighting force capable of defeating 21st century threats such as terrorist networks and smaller states with dangerous weapons.

Bush also was expected to nominate Navy Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, a former Rumsfeld aide, to take over for Pace as vice chairman.

The prominence of military issues during Bush’s first term allowed Pace to develop a close relationship with the president. Pace also has been the Pentagon’s senior officer in charge of several Rumsfeld initiatives, such as relocating U.S. forces from Cold War garrisons closer to global flashpoints.

Myers and Pace have drawn criticism within military circles, especially from officers who believe the two generals too often have sided with Rumsfeld and his top civilian aides against other senior generals.

In particular, some within the Pentagon say Myers and Pace should have pressed Rumsfeld for a larger invasion force for the Iraq war in 2003. More ground troops, critics have said, might have thwarted the insurgency that continues to cause U.S. deaths.

The elevation of Pace to the military’s top post would mark another success for Marine officers in a military hierarchy traditionally dominated by the Army, Navy and Air Force.

Marines have fared well under Rumsfeld. In 2003, Rumsfeld installed Gen. James L. Jones as the first Marine to serve as NATO’s supreme allied commander.

A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Pace graduated from the Naval Academy and went on to command a Marine rifle platoon in Vietnam.

He rose quickly through the ranks, and before coming to the Joint Chiefs he oversaw U.S. Southern Command, which has military authority for Latin America.

*

Times staff writer Peter Wallsten in Washington contributed to this report.