Pace says he refused to quit voluntarily

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[Sub-Driver]

Pace says he refused to quit voluntarily

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer 11 minutes ago

In his first public comments on the Bush administration's surprise decision to replace him as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace disclosed that he had turned down an offer to voluntarily retire rather than be forced out.

To quit in wartime, he said, would be letting down the troops.

Pace, responding to a question from the audience after he spoke at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Va., on Thursday evening, said he first heard that his expected nomination for a second two-year term was in jeopardy in mid-May. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on June 8 announced Pace was being replaced.

"One thing that was discussed was whether or not I should just voluntarily retire and take the issue off the table," Pace said, according to a transcript released Friday by his office at the Pentagon.

"I said I could not do that for one very fundamental reason," which is that no soldier or Marine in Iraq should "think — ever — that his chairman, whoever that person is, could have stayed in the battle and voluntarily walked off the battlefield.

"That is unacceptable as a leadership thing, in my mind," he added.

Pace, whose current term ends Oct. 1, said he intended to remain on the job until then. Navy Adm. Michael Mullen has been announced as Bush's choice to succeed Pace, who is the first Marine ever to hold the military's top post.

A Vietnam veteran, Pace has served in uniform for 40 years. That experience colored his decision to refuse to quit voluntarily.

[sirchtruth]

The Republican Moderates have ruined the party and Bush is the main culprit.

Get rid of them all in the primaries!!

[JamesP81]

Goodness. The hysterics is appalling. Please kindly tell me how forcing this good men to listen to traitors bloviate nonstop (and HIGHLY LIKELY not returned to his rightful position, you know us being in the minority and Communists in the majority? you still remember right?) while leaving our combat forces leaderless is going to benefit this nation or its servicemen?

Excuse me, but what we need as a nation isn't folks who quietly step out of the way to avoid confrontation. We need folks to boldly call the bastards in Washington on their treachery, no matter the cost.

This was the wrong call on the part of Bush. We need men like Pace who are unafraid to tell the truth, no matter what the pols say.

[JamesP81]

Everyone who ever thinks that Government is the answer to msot of our problems shall suffer a pox on their house.

Sadly, those of us who don't have this view shall suffer the pox with them.

Most folks would say, should we ever gain the political upper hand, we should magnanimous in victory.

That only works when the people you're dealing with can be made to understand without the use of a fist.

The next, if ever, we get a chance to rub the pols noses in it, we should do it to the maximum extent. Their humiliation and defeat should be public and complete and merciless. Because that's apparently the only way they're going to learn.

[mattdono]

It’s hard to believe that I had my children out campaigning for this: shamnesty and weak-kneedness.

Funny, the approach in Afghanistan right after 9/11 seems centuries ago and if there is a “quagmire”, it’s been brought on by the kow-towing to the media, the liberals, and folks in Europe. I guess 5 years makes a big difference.

Bush, 2002: Talk tough. Walk tough.
Bush, 2007: Talk tough. Talk tough more. Show no sack.

I can’t believe that I was spat on (twice) while I was campaigning for Bush on election day in 2004.

[sirchtruth]

My opinion of the President now is almost exactly opposite of what it was a few months ago.

The thing I think some of us didn't realize is how really moderate Bush is. There's no question he's totally flipped when the repubs lost the legislative branch.

Moderate Repubs and Bush are about to find out they are going to go down in history as big time losers!

29% is a farce!

[JamesP81]

It’ll be just as ugly for Mullen, I predict. Wait until he’s lectured ad nauseam by the likes of Carl Levin about gays in the military, the horrors of Abu Ghraib, missteps in Iraq, etc.

That's what folks don't get; we have to draw a line somewhere and fight. The enemy will just continue to take and take and take until we stop him.

I think it would've been good for the American people to see a Marine, a real man with real honor tell the TRUTH in the Senate, no holds barred.

[JamesP81]

There are fewer in that category than you think. Any conservative who sits out an election to send a message is a moron and a democrat by default since their non-vote becomes one more vote the dems don’t have to counter.

This argument made some sense when the Republicans were a better choice than the dems. That state of affairs no longer holds.

[silverleaf]

Pace didnt get FIRED.

He wasn’t reappointed for a second term as JCS. The JCS chairman is appointed for a TWO YEAR term.

Good God what a bunch of hysterical ignorant Bush bashers this place has become, Exactly as AP intended when it picked up the Pace interview (which never should have been granted) and spun the story.

I stand by my military training that active duty personnel especially generals don’t give press interviews about the decisions of their superiors regarding their hiring and firing and nonselection for jobs. If Pace did not criticize the POTUS, he put himself in position to be exploited by the press as if he did. Maybe he ought to re-read the memoirs of Patton and McArthur.

I suspect Gates has good reason for wanting his own man as JCS, and a Navy Admiral to boot, in the JCS job - given the defense issues that lie ahead in the next two years.

It is also entirely the NORM for a JCS chairman with 40 years of military service to be asked if he wanted to retire. Any job after this is a step down. Of course his “career” is over. No 4 star wants to go to work next week for a new boss in his old job.

Signed,
a moron triple dipshit

[JamesP81]

You are thrice a dipshit

Now that's funny. I don't care who you are.

[JamesP81]

Can't wait to see how many different ways we can BASH Bush's character, his decision making and maybe even blame him for an upcoming Hurricane or two.

What character is that? I'm sorry, but just because he made good judicial picks doesn't excuse his actions on this issue, or several others.

I am a social conservative, but social issues are not the only ones we should care about.

[silverleaf]

When the “red chinese” come to our shores (or the Iranians go nuclear) US military leadership will be well-served to have a competent Navy admiral as chairman of the JCS...

oh wait, that’s what SecDef Gates is appointing for the next two years

[Ace's Dad]

Gates:

"It would be a backward-looking and very contentious process." (to extend GEN Pace)

This is revealing; "backward-looking" means they have written of Iraq and want to "move-ahead." Move-ahead to what?

[Ace's Dad]

I suspect Gates has good reason for wanting his own man as JCS, and a Navy Admiral to boot, in the JCS job - given the defense issues that lie ahead in the next two years.

Then he should have said so, not, in effect, bash Pace as being controversial...

[ichabod1]

I’d sure like to see more guys with nuts up there in the senate. I used to think Santorum had’em, but I don’t know anymore. Either way he’s not there anymore.

[ichabod1]

Why in the HELL does the CJCS have to be reconfirmed every two years anyway? Why does he have to be confirmed in the first place? This makes me so mad. Why do GENERALS have to be approved by the perfumed prancing princes? Now it looks like they’re going to arrogate veto power over US attornies.

[ichabod1]

Oh, I’ll sit out the next one too if they persist in the crimmigration foolishness.

[ichabod1]

We need a big time purge of the political class. If only there was a way.

[varon]

Bush is the one who should be getting his “walking papers”!!!

[SevenMinusOne]

This isn't GWB call - As POTUS you cannot micromanage your cabinet on how they want to run things -

This was SecDef Gates call......I don't agree with it (nor did I agree with Gates being the man to replace SecDef Rumsfeld).

But make not mistake. Our CinC most certainly has a set. He has brass balls in terms of standing by what he believes in....come hell or high water (no matter who agrees with him or not). I respect that in him.

[fr_freak]

Pace didnt get FIRED.

He wasn’t reappointed for a second term as JCS. The JCS chairman is appointed for a TWO YEAR term.

I'm sure you're correct, although its pretty much just semantics, but you are the one who said any general, meaning Pace, presumably, who talked about his career or questioned his superiors in public should be fired. Yes, you said "fired". I'm not sure why you said he deserved to be fired, if it is your opinion that this was not a firing.

As far as the Bush-bashing goes, it may be getting a little out of hand, but Bush has brought this on himself. It's not just the questionable judgement with the immigration bill or allowing the hanging of people out to dry (Libby, Border Patrol, US Marines). I think what has driven many over the edge is the apparent complete contempt with which he now holds the very people who put him in office. Not only does he ignore the wave of protest from conservatives regarding the amnesty bill, but he derides us in public, saying we don't want to do what's right for America and calling Minutemen and their supporters "vigilantes", all the while cozying up to the very people we put him in office to counter. That's a betrayal of the first order. In the same way that a general shouldn't insult his boss in public, an elected official has no business insulting his boss in public. Bush's boss is the portion of the electorate that put him in office.