Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute
Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Adviser, Iraq and Afghanistan (since May 2007)
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(Brendan Smialowski
Getty Images)
As the National Security Council's unofficial "war czar," Lute has played a key role in shaping the Obama administration's Afghanistan strategy. And the team can claim at least one key win with the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after a U.S. special forces raid on his Abbottabad, Pakistan compound in May 2011.
It's a role he has experience with - Lute joined President George W. Bush's team to oversee war policy in 2007, and completed a review of the Afghanistan war for Bush in 2008.
- Career History: Deputy Director of Operations, European Command (January 2003-May 2007); Commander, Multi-national Brigade East in Kosovo (2002-2003); AssistantDivision Commander, First Infantry Division (Schweinfurt, Germany); executive assistant, chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; Commander, Second Cavalry Regiment (XVIIIAirborne Corps), at Fort Polk, La. (1998-2000); Joint Staff in the Directorate for Strategic Plans andPolicy (J-5); War College Fellowship at the Atlantic Council; 1st Squadron, 7th Cavalry at Fort Hood, Texas (1992-1994); Second Armored Cavalry Regiment (Bindlach, Germany), C troop commander
- Alma Mater: United States Military Academy, West Point (1975); master's, Harvard University
- Spouse: Jane Lute
Under Lute's watch as National Security Council, the world's most-wanted terrorist, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. special forces after years of painstaking intelligence work. That work involved months of covert surveillance of the suspicious compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan where bin Laden turned out to be living with some members of his family, although the terrorist leader was never positively identified before the U.S. raid occurred.
On May 1, 2011, President Obama ordered the risky operation on the compound that U.S. intelligence officials had been monitoring for months. Inside the compound, they found and killed bin-Laden, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the target of a massive and frustrating 10-year manhunt.
Lute is married to Jane Lute, the deputy secretary of the Homeland Security Department. He was appointed to his current job by former President George W. Bush.
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