Defense Secretary to Meet with Transition Agency Review Team Thursday

By Ann Scott Tyson
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is scheduled to meet Thursday with President-elect Barack Obama's Pentagon agency review transition team leaders, John White and Michele Flournoy, a Pentagon spokesman said today. The team began working at the Pentagon on Monday.

"We are totally committed to ensuring the transition of leadership in this department is as smooth and seamless as can be. The troops on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan deserve it and our nation's security demands it," said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell at a press briefing.

The Obama-Biden transition office also fleshed out its national security working groups today, appointing James B. Steinberg, dean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs and a former deputy national security adviser to President Clinton, and Dr. Susan E. Rice, until recently a senior foreign policy adviser to the Obama for America campaign, as Policy Working Group leaders for the presidential transition.