Roemer set to be US ambassador to India

It was only a web posting by a magazine on foreign policy. But it is almost certain that weeks after the United States named Peter Burleigh as an ‘interim’ candidate, moderate Democrat Tim Roemer will be the one to get the job of the US Ambassador to New Delhi.

Burleigh, who has had a long innings in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and is seen as an important sounding board for Richard Holbrooke, President Barack Obama’s envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, may be in India for just three months, the time it will take for Roemer’s confirmation.

The 52-year old former Democrat Congressman from Indiana and an ex-member of the 9/11 Commission, Roemer is a Democrat pointsman on disarmament.

He was reportedly also offered several other jobs, including Vice President and Chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the party’s top think tank.

But although he got the backing of Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, and the fact that he comes from a “red state” — one that voted for President Bush — a section of Democrats was critical of this choice on the grounds that he tended to be too moderate a Democrat on critical issues.

However, while he was in Congress, Roemer was recognised for his successful leadership on bipartisan legislation to balance the budget, reform welfare, improve the affordability of higher education, and reform elementary and secondary education for schoolchildren.

He was appointed to the Intelligence Committee’s Task Force on Homeland Security and Terrorism and served on the bipartisan Joint Inquiry which issued a report on the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the so-called 9/11 Commission. He was the key author of the legislation in the House of Representatives to establish the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

Roemer, who represented Indiana’s Third District from 1991 to 2003, was among the one who had endorsed Obama in his early electoral campaign phase. It is said that his support was a prime reason for his victory in Indiana then.