Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/white-house-war-czar-to-oversee-iraq-afghanistan-conflicts Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript President Bush chose Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute to fill a new position of war czar, whose primary function will be to oversee operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two officials from previous administrations examine what the new job will entail. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JUDY WOODRUFF: After a long search and many rejections, White House officials said they had filled a new job to manage and oversee the Iraq and Afghan wars. The man they tapped, Army Lieutenant General Douglas Lute. He has been serving as chief operations officer on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.He'll be coordinating policy among government agencies, including the Pentagon and the State Department. He'll report directly to President Bush and will serve under National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.At the White House, Press Secretary Tony Snow responded to questions about the job. TONY SNOW, White House Press Secretary: What you have now is somebody who's going to be able to coordinate with folks on the ground. Keep in mind, also, that he has experience both in Central Command and with the Joint Chiefs in operations and, therefore, has a very keen sense of precisely how operations unfold and, therefore, I think, has a very practical base of knowledge about how to get things done, and also where the bottlenecks are, including information.