Obama Settles On Ashton Carter As Defense Secretary, Officials Say

Ashton Carter

President Obama has settled on Ashton B. Carter to be the next defense secretary, senior administration officials said on Tuesday, but is not prepared to announce the move because the White House has not completed its vetting of him.

A former deputy defense secretary with a long history at the Pentagon — though no uniformed military service — Mr. Carter was on a short list of prospective defense secretaries from the moment that Chuck Hagel announced his resignation, under pressure, on Nov. 24.

Mr. Obama is not expected to formally announce Mr. Carter as his pick on Tuesday or Wednesday, but may do so by the end of the week, an administration official said.

Mr. Carter, a physicist, was the No. 2 civilian official at the Pentagon and a candidate to succeed Leon E. Panetta when he stepped down as defense secretary last year. Previously, he served as the Defense Department’s chief weapons buyer, tasked with scaling back or canceling outdated and inefficient weapons programs. He also was in charge of carrying out $500 billion in cuts that began in 2012 and will take more than a decade to complete.

Mr. Carter has degrees in physics and medieval history from Yale and a doctorate in theoretical physics from Oxford. He has spent the last two years in academia but is widely viewed as a competent manager who would little trouble in Senate confirmation hearings.

Several Republican congressional leaders were preparing statements on Tuesday in praise of Mr. Carter, even before the White House had formally notified anyone that he had been selected. “The assumption is that it’s him,” one congressional staff member said. “And he won’t have trouble getting confirmed.”

But in many ways, Mr. Carter was the last man left standing for the top Pentagon post, after a number of candidates withdrew from consideration.

Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, asked not to be considered, and Michèle A. Flournoy, a former Pentagon under secretary, did the same, citing family concerns. Jeh C. Johnson, the secretary of Homeland Security, who also has been mentioned as a candidate, said he was happy in hispresent job.

Selecting Mr. Johnson, who was the Pentagon’s chief lawyer during Mr.

Obama’s first administration and who spearheaded the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy concerning gay men and lesbians in the military, would have set up not one, but two, potentially bloody confirmation fights. Mr. Johnson is a controversial figure among Mr. Obama’s supporters on the left because he was one of the legal architects of the administration’s war policy.

And Republicans, who are angry about Mr. Obama’s executive action on immigration, could try to hold up a nominee to the top Homeland Security job until the immigration issue is resolved to their liking.

Mr. Carter was out of town on Tuesday and could not be reached for comment. A senior administration official said that the president could still go another route, but indicated that at the moment, Mr. Carter remains the most likely person to be nominated for defense chief.
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