Like other armed service secretaries originally appointed by George W. Bush—including James
Roche and Thomas
White—Gordon England arrived at the Pentagon fresh from duties
as an executive of a major corporation, in this case the Pentagon contractor
General Dynamics. Gordon, along with his boss Donald
Rumsfeld, is a champion of military transformation. According to a Washington
Times article about his appointment, one of Gordon’s chief aims
as navy secretary is to develop “futuristic weapons to counter new
types of threats emerging in the post-Soviet world.” General Dynamics
specializes in the design of attack and ballistic missile submarines as well
as tanks. (3) (5)
In late March 2005, George W. Bush nominated England as deputy secretary
of defense to replace Paul
Wolfowitz, who was tagged by the president to head the World Bank. England
served as Navy secretary from 2001 to 2003, when he became acting deputy secretary
for homeland defense. He returned to his original Navy post in late 2003, after
his successor, Colin R. McMillan, committed suicide. (4) (9)
While at the Pentagon, one of England’s key tasks was to decide what
to do with Guantanamo detainees who were being held as enemy combatants. At
the end of this review process, 38 persons were released due to lack of evidence,
what England called “thin files.” These released detainees comprised
7% of the population at the detention center, and join 214 others who have
been released because of diplomatic pressure from other nations. The Pentagon
began its review after a June 2004 Supreme Court ruling that granted Guantanamo
prisoners the right to plead their cases in U.S. courts. (8)
England has an engineering background and has never served in the armed forces.
Like many other foreign policy officials in the Bush administration, he has
been criticized as a “chicken hawk.” (7) He is not a neoconservative
but rather a creature of the military-industrial complex. In 2001 England received
the Distinguished Service award from the Jewish
Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a policy institute closely
associated with the Likud party and the Israeli military, as well as with the
U.S. neoconservative camp and U.S. military contractors.
In his acceptance of the JINSA award, England said:
“To receive the Henry M. Jackson Distinguished Service Award has a
very special meaning particularly if you’re Secretary of the Navy because
he was such a strong proponent of national defense. I say that as Secretary
of the Navy because the U.S. Navy has long recognized Senator Jackson’s
service and patriotism by having a powerful, ballistic submarine proudly carry
his name. The USS Henry M. Jackson is today on station serving our nation.
“I particularly want to thank JINSA for its long support on behalf
of national defense since it was founded 25 years ago. The events of September
11th provide a useful perspective relative to this mission.
“Having achieved victory over the Axis power in WWII and following
the fall of the Berlin Wall, most people in the United States and around the
world concluded that having prevailed over the two evil empires of the 20th
century, the world was on the verge of a long period of peace and prosperity.
“Some historians and writers likened the fall of the Berlin Fall (sic)
to the beginning of Pax Romana, 200 years of world peace of the Roman Empire.
After 40 plus years peace in Israel also looked promising.
“This world view is slightly clouded by Saddam Hussein and Desert Storm
in the early 1990s. Once that conflict was over, the very quick and decisive
allied victory was considered a validation of previous conclusions.” (2) 
