posted by Damozel | General Peter Pace's first term as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will be his last. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates decided to let him go rather than face "a backward-looking and very contentious process." (BBC News) How very, um, politic! And unexpectedly cautious. It seems that the White House is, at least for the present, all about avoiding "divisive" discussions in Congress: Pace is regarded as "a close ally" of the former Defense Secretary. (BBC) Remember the former Defense Secretary? No? Here's a clue: I love my love with an R ...
Last week, Harry Reid criticized Pace for failing to provide a "candid assessment on the war,"---an unusual step, Democrats in general having avoided criticizing the military (Washington Post ). General Pace responded with admirable reticence. "Asked for comment on Reid's statement, a spokeswoman for Pace...said Pace "is focused on his duties as chairman and is not going to respond to press reports on who's saying what. He will let 40 years of service speak for itself." (Washington Post)
Meanwhile, at Fox News---ya'll know how I love Fox News---Colonel David Hunt, who is not even "a fan of General Pace...a consummate politician" is all up in the Bush Administration's collective grill for this "latest in a series of cowardly acts we have been treated to by the Bush administration." (Fox News )
Apparently Colonel Hunt is upset with the Bush Administration for this reversal in its usual policy of loyalty over success/competence, since he basically thinks that Pace has been a failure. So maybe this sudden lapse in the usual theme of loyalty at all costs isn't so politic, after all? Is this really the time for the Administration to antagonize the few people who still approve of Bush's performance?
Colonel Hunt:
"“We did not want to dwell on the past,” is what the secretary of defense said, which in Washington jargon means, “we are crapping-in-our-pants-afraid of being held accountable for our actions, so we are not going to put this nomination forward.”...
The president decided to run away. He did not stand and fight. It makes me want to yell, “Hey! Mr. President! We are in a war and your senior military guy, your numero uno Marine, needed some fire support and you did … NOT A DAMN THING? You turned your back on your guy? What is up with that?”...Fox News.
You've got to love a colonel who uses phrases like "What is up with that?" and who appears to rank loyalty above, say, competence---just as the president is often criticized for doing but evidently isn't (if you take Colonel Hunt at his word) doing this time. The colonel doesn't care for Pace and in fact comments that "four star General Pace [is] the equivalent of one of the leaders of the "gang that couldn't shoot straight.""
Pace was Rumsfeld’s deputy when the Department of Defense was saying things like, “It’s not an insurgency,” or “Go to war with the Army you have,” and, my all-time favorite, “The number of attacks are down, but the number of casualties are up.” .
Pace held the Joint Chief position for the 18 months we spent doing the wrong things in Iraq, because we did no planning for the moments after we were handed an amazing victory by our great Marines and soldiers.....He will correctly be identified with the failed policies that have lead to the chaos we witness everyday in both Iraq and Afghanistan. We have suffered the deaths and wounding of over 37,000 servicemen in Iraq so, I guess, it is more than appropriate that a few generals lose their jobs. Fox News
If I accept that Colonel Hunt is correct in allocating blame, I would have to agree that it is more than appropriate, so I'm not quite following the logic of Colonel Hunt's frustration and anger over Pace getting the push for---according to Colonel Hunt---"the wrong reasons." Fox News After all, W can't stand by every one of his guys who gets identified with failed policies. If he stood by everyone, he'd never get the chance to sit down. At this point, he sort of has to pick his battles.
General Pace sees his role in the Iraq war very differently. He refused to resign because he felt that doing so would be "a betrayal of his troops." But, he said, he rejected this because he did not want anyone under his command to "think - ever - that his chairman, whoever that person is, could have stayed in the battle and voluntarily walked off the battlefield." BBC News. He said:
The other piece for me personally was that some 40 years ago I left some guys on the battlefield in Vietnam who lost their lives following 2nd Lt. Pace," he said. "And I promised myself then that I will serve this country until I was no longer needed _ that it's not my decision. I need to be told that I'm done.
"I've been told I'm done.
"I will run through the finish line on 1 October, and when I run through the finish line I will have met the mission I set for myself," he said. The Washington Post,
The Secretary of Defense (Robert Gates) says that he concluded that "a divisive ordeal"---e.g., the confirmation process as anticipated by him and the White House---would not serve the interests either of the troops or of General Pace himself. The Washington Post. Pace says that Gates told him he would like to re-nominate him, but..... ""He went out and did exactly what he said on television, and exactly what he's been saying in his interviews, which is he went out and pulsed various members of Congress and he heard back from them the things that he said that he heard.""The Washington Post. Pace assured Gates that he was prepared to face a contentious process. The Washington Post. ""I can read the Constitution, which says the president gets to nominate and the Senate gets to confirm, or not, and neither one of those two things is going to happen, therefore I'm not staying."" The Washington Post.
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