Washington: Lloyd Austin, 67, of African American descent, has been elected Secretary of Defense by President-elect Joe Biden, according to U.S. media reports.
The decision will be officially announced on Friday. Biden announced Monday that he had made a decision on the matter.
Lloyd Austin was the commander of the U.S. Central Command, which led the U.S. military to Baghdad in 2003. He served in the military for four decades.
Lloyd graduated from the West Point Military Academy and has worked in a variety of fields, including guiding platoons, operating logistics groups, overseeing recruitment, and senior Pentagon jobs.
He was the Assistant Division Commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, which marched from Kuwait to Baghdad during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
From late 2003 to 2005, Lloyd led the Combined Joint Task Force 180 in Afghanistan. In 2010, Lloyd was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Army in Iraq.
Two years later he was appointed commander of the Central Command, which is in charge of Pentagon missions in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Retired from the Army in 2016.
Lloyd needs special approval from the Senate, as there is a federal law that allows him to become head of the Pentagon seven years after retiring from the military. The law has been relaxed twice before.