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Obama Fires Top General Without Even a Phone Call Daniel Halper January 25, 2013 10:26 AM President Barack Obama fired General James Mattis, the head of Central Command, without even calling the general to let him know he was being replaced. "I am told that General Mattis was travelling and in a meeting when an aide passed him a note telling him that the Pentagon had announced his replacement as head of Central Command. It was news to him -- he hadn't received a phone call or a heads-up from anyone at the Pentagon or the White House," Thomas E....

The attentive reader of ''Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq'' will quickly run out of yellow ink highlighting all the misjudgments and missteps that, according to the book, have characterized the U.S. invasion and occupation. The book is a haunting catalog of prescient warnings against invading, inaccurate predictions by Bush administration officials and a few generals, and chronic mistakes in battling an unanticipated insurgency. Thomas E. Ricks could have filled 300 pages simply by compiling lists of examples. That, however, would not have made for the highly readable and disturbing book he has written. ''Fiasco'' is enlivened by on-the-record,...

"...some senior U.S. military officers are now convinced that the war is likely to last months and will require considerably more combat power than is now on hand there and in Kuwait, senior defense officials said today....." Snip "The combination of wretched weather, long and insecure supply lines, and an enemy that has refused to be supine in the face of American combat power has led to a broad reassessment by some top generals of U.S. military expectations and timelines." Snip "More forces are coming...But it will probably take the better part of a month for that tank-heavy division to...