Bush Taps Skeptic of Buildup as 'War Czar'

That was the reason given by other generals who turned down the job, including retired Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan. "I wish the guy luck," Sheehan said of Lute yesterday. "He's got his work cut out for him."

Critics said the appointment underscores Bush's failures. "Whatever the name of the position is, this proves the president is throwing in the towel when it comes to directing the military, and is giving up his constitutional role," said Jon Soltz, co-founder of the antiwar VoteVets.org. "The troops are now depending on Lt. Gen. Lute to do something the president wouldn't -- listen to commanders who are telling him we need more diplomacy, not escalation."

Lute, 54, a native of Michigan City, Ind., graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1975 and later earned a master's degree from Harvard University. He fought in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and then spent most of the next decade rotating between unit commands and high-profile Pentagon assignments. He commanded a multinational peacekeeping brigade in Kosovo for six months in 2002.

In June 2004, Lute was named operations director at the U.S. Central Command, which oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, then moved last September to serve the same role for the Joint Chiefs. He cites ancient Greek historian Thucydides as his favorite military scholar for helping him understand the connection between civil society and armed forces.

In an interview with Charlie Rose of PBS in January 2006, Lute said the military wanted "to see a smaller, lighter, less prominent U.S. force structure in Iraq," both to undercut the perception of occupation and to prevent what he called "dependency syndrome" -- the notion that U.S. forces will do what is necessary and therefore local forces do not need to step up.

Ultimately, he said, Iraqis need to forge a political solution. "Our purpose is not fundamentally to draw down U.S. forces, but rather to produce a durable, reasonable solution in Iraq," Lute said. "And that absolutely hinges on the ability of the Shia, apparently the simple majority Shia, to produce a compromise solution that is inclusive of the other two major parties, the Sunni and the Kurds."

Americans Against Escalation in Iraq instantly developed a newspaper ad yesterday that cites a similar quote Lute gave to the Financial Times in 2005, asserting that at some point "you simply have to back off and let the Iraqis step forward," and that undercutting the perception of occupation in Iraq is "very difficult" to do "when you have 150,000-plus, largely Western, foreign troops occupying the country."

Staff writer Thomas E. Ricks contributed to this report.