By Josh Rogin, CQ Staff

President-elect Barack Obama has told congressional leaders he plans to nominate William Lynn to be deputy secretary of Defense, the House’s top Defense appropriator said Tuesday.

John P. Murtha , D-Pa., chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said he had been briefed on the selection by Obama’s transition staff and that he wholly endorsed Lynn to take over as the No. 2 official at the Pentagon. A congressional aide said the formal announcement was expected this week.

Lynn would be the latest in a string of high-level appointments of former Clinton-era officials by the incoming Obama administration. He last served as Pentagon comptroller under Defense Secretary William S. Cohen from 1997 to 2001 and previously worked for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy , Da?`Mass.

Currently, he works for defense contractor Raytheon Co. as senior vice president for government operations and strategy.

Lynn is well-suited for the post because of his experience in managing Pentagon bureaucracy, Murtha said. “This guy is an administrator, and that’s what we need right now,” he said.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates , who has agreed to stay on indefinitely during the Obama administration, has largely focused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The deputy Defense secretary is often tasked with running the day-to-day operations of the Pentagon, implementing policy throughout the building and mediating disputes.

Prior to Lynn’s selection, top contenders for the position included John Hamre, a former deputy defense secretary and current head of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Richard Danzig, a close Obama adviser who once served as secretary of the Navy.

Hamre took himself out of contention when he told CSIS staff in November that he had no intention of leaving that organization.

Danzig’s name had been widely circulated for Gates’ job before Gates was asked to stay on. Sources close to the transition team had speculated that Danzig would be given the No. 2 slot and then elevated to the top position when Gates departs.

Murtha criticized that approach. “We need a person who would not necessarily become the secretary of Defense. That undercuts the secretary of Defense,” he said.

The Obama transition team is also expected to announce shortly their appointees for Pentagon comptroller and undersecretary of Defense for policy. Pentagon transition team leader Michèle Flournoy, president of the Center for New American Security, has been reported as a leading candidate for the latter position.