TOP GEEK TO HEAD ARMY

At first, they wanted him to be the Pentagon's geek-in-chief. Now, Donald Rumsfeld and company are about to nominate him as the new head of the Army, the Times reports.

Francis J. ("Fran") Harvey ran a division of Westinghouse for years before becoming vice chairman of nuclear waste disposal company Duratek. The firm is owned, in part, by the Carlyle Group -- the investment arm of Bush, Inc., basically.

Harvey, who's got a doctorate in metallurgy engineering and material science, was tapped last November to become the Pentagon's assistant secretary for networks and information integration. In other words, the Defense Department's CIO.

But his confirmation has been held up, a victim of the tug-of-war between the Sen. John McCain and the Pentagon over the shady deal to lease tankers from Boeing.

Harvey may not have much luck getting the top spot, either. "That's a big nominee to get through right now," a "Senate Republican aide" tells the Times. "And it's getting late for any nominations."

Harvey, according to a Federal Computer Week article, "is known more for his business aptitude than his information technology know-how." But it seems to me that with his ties to the Bushies, and his (aborted) stint as CIO, Harvey can be counted on to carry out Rumsfeld's plans to transform the Army into a lighter, quicker, "network-centric" force. These efforts have run into some resistance at the Pentagon, where top officers blame problems with the Iraq occupation on Rummy's need to test out his new-fangled, high-tech Army.