President Bush on Feb. 26 formally nominated Texan S. Ward Casscells to replace William Winkenwerder as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs. Casscells, with degrees from Harvard and Yale, has served as Chief of Cardiology at the University of Texas at Houston and Memorial Hermann Hospital, among other positions. Winkenwerder has served at the Pentagon’s top doctor since October 2001. The President also has nominated Claude M. Kicklighter of Georgia to fill the Inspector General slot vacated by Joseph Schmidt in September 2005. (Thomas Gimble is serving as acting IG.) Kicklighter, one-time VA chief of staff and State Department special advisor for stabilization and security operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been working as director of the Iraq-Afghanistan Transition Planning Group.
The Department of the Air Force has identified 50 programs that will make up the core of its contribution to the Pentagon’s joint all-domain command and control effort, branding them part of the “DAF Battle Network,” according to newly-released budget documents. The DAF Battle Network programs span multiple offices and agencies…