The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the highest-ranking officer in the armed forces and the principal

military adviser to the president. Dempseys appointment comes one month after Obama nominated CIA Director Leon Panetta to move to the Pentagon to replace Gates as defense secretary. Gates, another Bush administration holdover, is scheduled to retire June 30. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, is slated to succeed Panetta as CIA chief. The new national security team is taking shape as Obama faces pivotal decisions in Afghanistan, where he has promised to begin withdrawing at least some troops in July amid waning public and congressional support for the conflict. At the same time, the new faces at the Pentagon will have to grapple with an expected freeze or at least an abrupt slowdown in the defense budget, which has roughly doubled over the past year to more than $550 billion, excluding the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Dempsey commanded the Armys 1st Armored Division during the height of the Iraqi insurgency, overseeing 20,000 soldiers based in Baghdad. He also spent two years in charge of the development of Iraqi army and police forces that were supposed to take over the battle against insurgents. Dempsey, who served two war tours as a commander in Iraq, was not believed to be Obamas first choice. For more than a year, the president had been leaning toward Marine Gen. James E. Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, one of his most trusted military advisers. But Obama informed Cartwright on May 21 that he wouldnt get the job because of opposition from Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and the outgoing chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, who butted heads with Cartwright over strategy for the war in Afghanistan