Belmont Club ~~The Rumsfeld-Myers Mission
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WASHINGTON, May 14, 2004 – Two new military commands will stand up in Iraq May 15, replacing the current coalition military organization.
Multinational Corps Iraq and Multinational Force Iraq will replace Combined Joint Task Force 7.
Coalition military spokesman Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, at a Baghdad news conference today, said the change addresses a concern that a combined joint task force headquarters was not sufficient to handle the military workload in Iraq efficiently.
"It's certainly more than a formality," he said. "It is trying to get the proper command structure for the days, weeks and months ahead."
Kimmitt explained that Multinational Corps Iraq will focus on the tactical fight -- the day-to-day military operations and the maneuvering of the six multinational divisions on the ground. Army Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz will command the corps. Meanwhile, Multinational Force Iraq will focus on more strategic aspects of the military presence in Iraq, such as talking with sheiks and political leaders, and on training, equipping and fielding Iraqi security forces.
Multinational Force Iraq "will certainly be involved in the tactical operations, but only to the extent that they have somewhat of an operational and strategic impact on this country," Kimmitt said. Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, current CJTF 7 commander who will head MNF Iraq, already has been working the strategic issues, and the new command structure will enable him to focus more of his time and energy in that direction, Kimmitt said.
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And note this from "Wretched" :
The most striking thing about this new command arrangement is that appears to be an end run around the Coalition Provisional Authority, a shifting of at least some political functions away from a State Department structure directly into one directly under the DOD. For those who saw the events in April as a defeat for Rummy and a discredit to the DOD policy, this evidence suggests that the President may see things the other way. At first glance it is a high level endorsement of the kinds of negotiations which have transpired at Fallujah at Najaf rather than their condemnation. This reading may not be borne out by subsequent clarifications. But it certainly looks that way.
I think the reorganization is due to the ineffectiveness of CentCom/Abizaid and CJTF7/Sanchez in their overall strategies and lack of control of Abu Ghraib. Their tactical control is being taken away without replacing them and making our leadership look confused and uncertain. We now will have a winning the war group and a winning the peace group, what was needed all along.