FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW YORK If confirmed, flagship Lisa Franchetti will be the first woman to lead the United States Navy and the first on the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Her choice was communicated yesterday by the White House. Franchetti, 58, of Italian descent but born in Rochester, New York, studied journalism before joining the Navy. She was commander of naval forces in Korea, aircraft carrier battle groups, she led the US Sixth Fleet based in Naples, naval strike and support forces for NATO, she was deputy commander of US naval forcesin Europe and then in Africa.
«He will bring 38 years of experience serving the nation as an officer, including his current job as deputy chief of Naval Operations – President Biden said yesterday in announcing the appointment – Throughout his career Franchetti has demonstrated great skills in both the operational and regulatory fields. She is the second woman to attain the rank of four-star admiral in the US Navy and, when she is confirmed, she will make history again.” But Franchetti will likely join a growing number of high-level officials — including the new Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces, Air Force General CQ Brown — who have been nominated but not yet confirmed by the Senate, as Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville blocked their passage in protest at the Pentagon’s reproductive rights policies. The Pentagon rules provide, among other things, for the payment of a portion of travel expenses for families in the armed forces who must travel to be able to have an abortion if it is prohibited by the rules of the state in which they live. Biden called Tuberville’s position “not only wrong but dangerous”.
The Biden administration has aimed for diversity in appointments for the Pentagon, which has the first black secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, and the first woman as secretary of the army, Christine Wormuth.