Posted on 09/22/2009 7:47:30 AM PDT by CWW
McChrystal to resign if not given resources for Afghanistan
By Bill RoggioSeptember 21, 2009 4:17 PM
Within 24 hours of the leak of the Afghanistan assessment to The Washington Post, General Stanley McChrystal's team fired its second shot across the bow of the Obama administration. According to McClatchy, military officers close to General McChrystal said he is prepared to resign if he isn't given sufficient resources (read "troops") to implement a change of direction in Afghanistan:
Adding to the frustration, according to officials in Kabul and Washington, are White House and Pentagon directives made over the last six weeks that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, not submit his request for as many as 45,000 additional troops because the administration isn't ready for it.
In the last two weeks, top administration leaders have suggested that more American troops will be sent to Afghanistan, and then called that suggestion "premature." Earlier this month, Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that "time is not on our side"; on Thursday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates urged the public "to take a deep breath."
...
In Kabul, some members of McChrystal's staff said they don't understand why Obama called Afghanistan a "war of necessity" but still hasn't given them the resources they need to turn things around quickly.
Three officers at the Pentagon and in Kabul told McClatchy that the McChrystal they know would resign before he'd stand behind a faltering policy that he thought would endanger his forces or the strategy.
"Yes, he'll be a good soldier, but he will only go so far," a senior official in Kabul said. "He'll hold his ground. He's not going to bend to political pressure."
On Thursday, Gates danced around the question of when the administration would be ready to receive McChrystal's request, which was completed in late August. "We're working through the process by which we want that submitted," he said.
The entire process followed by the military in implementing a change of course in Afghanistan is far different, and bizarrely so, from the process it followed in changing strategy in Iraq.
For Afghanistan, the process to decide on a course change began in March of this year, when Bruce Reidel was tasked to assess the situation. This produced the much-heralded yet vague "AfPak" assessment. Then, in May, General David McKiernan was fired and replaced by General McChrystal, who took command in June. General McChrystal's assessment hit President Obama's desk at the end of August, almost three months after he took command. And yet now in the last half of September, the decision on additional forces has yet to be submitted to the administration.
Contrast this with Iraq in the fall of 2006. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was fired just one day after the elections in early November. The Keane-Kagan plan for Iraq was submitted to President Bush shortly afterward, and encompassed both the assessment of the situation and the recommended course of action, including the recommended number of troops to be deployed to deal with the situation. General David Petraeus replaced General George Casey in early February 2007, and hit the ground running; the surge strategy was in place, troops were being mustered to deploy to Iraq, and commanders on the ground were preparing for and executing the new orders. The first of the surge units began to arrive in Iraq only weeks later, in March.
Today, the military is perceiving that the administration is punting the question of a troop increase in Afghanistan, and the military is even questioning the administration's commitment to succeed in Afghanistan. The leaking of the assessment and the report that McChrystal would resign if he is not given what is needed to succeed constitute some very public pushback against the administration's waffling on Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, our general needs more than he’s got, and that has Obama in a Clinton/Aspin gridlock.
Liberals are clueless when it comes to war.
Exactly what he should do. Listening to your commanders on the ground instead of the Hippies in San Fran is what a President should do.
You’d be wrong to assume that. McChrystal has served in Afghanisatan. I’ve an acquaintence(former sp.ops.) who served under him and would follow him to the ends of the earth. In his opinion, McChrystal is unequivocally the most qualifed to turn the situation around. If he can’t do it, then likely it can’t be done. The general sees the games being played in Washington and has drawn a line in the sand.
any commander that has the available resources to assist his troops, and refuses to do so due to political interferences should not have stars on their shoulders...and if their refusal to offer assistance solely because of this results in the loss of life, they should be shot.....
All due respect. He sure has shot the ROE’s all to heck.
Thanks for the ping!
I'd bet my last buck that Obama went with Petraeus' recommendation.
From what I hear, McChrystal is an extremely capable general and is quite experienced with our operations in Afghanistan.
But things change rapidly in a place like Afghanistan and his assessment has obviously changed!
Obama 86’d the guy who was in charge before, because he did NOT like te general’s assessment - and brought in McChrystal ...
Obama then gave Mac like three months to develop his own assessment of what needs to be done ...
Funny - its the SAME assessment, basically, that the other guy gave Obama ...
Instead of getting rid of the generals - why doesn’t Obama suck it up, admit he doesn’t know SQUAT about strategy or tactics, and then let the generals do their jobs ???
How about the admirals that obeyed JFK’s orders to withhold Air Cover at the Bay of Pigs
Did this timeline last night on Obama because his now not wanting the Commander to even submit his request makes zero sense. As I said last night, I don’t think Obama wants to go after Islamic terrorists and kill them now with his new Rules of Engagement. The Commander in Afghanistan should have resigned when the new rules which ties our soldiers hands came down. In his speech to the Muslim world, he made sure he made it from a Muslim Country. Everything about his actions shout Muslim.
10 Apr 2009 bowed to Saudi King
May 11, 2009 — Gates picks McChrystal new Commander in Afghanistan
4 June 2009 — Cairo Speech
4 July 2009 — first article found on changing the rules of engagement (General McChrystal explained it to BBC news that they are now advising troops to break off from firefights with the Taliban, “If you are in a situation where you are under fire from the enemy... if there is any chance of creating civilian casualties or if you don’t know whether you will create civilian casualties, if you can withdraw from that situation without firing, then you must do so”)
6 Jul 2009 — first visit to Russia
7-9 Jul 2009 — dozens killed by drones — cannot find a later attack by US drones into Pakistan
13 Aug 2009 — military asked for more troops
17 Aug 2009 — visited Ghana — discovered this about Ghana:
According to official statistics, Muslims make up 16 percent of Ghana’s 22-million population. But the head of the Accra Higher Institute for Islamic Research, Sheikh Abdul-Qader Nibari, says the actual number is around 35 percent.
Ghana is a secular state where all religions are treated equally. Christianity is the main religion and there are also a variety of pagan creeds.
Muslims in Ghana occupy high-ranking posts, such as the Vice President Ali Mohamed and Minister of Labor Mustafa Ali, as well as a large number of officers in the Ghanaian police and army.
He is willing to put the troops in even more harms way.
He also says that coalition forces will change their operational culture, in part by spending “as little time as possible in armored vehicles or behind the walls of forward operating bases.” Strengthening Afghans’ sense of security will require troops to take greater risks, “ but the coalition “cannot succeed if it is unwilling to share risk, at least equally, with the people.
I did not experience WW II not having been born yet. One uncle was killed in the Navy when the destroyer USS Buck was torpedoed and sank off Salerno. I was an American history major.
Those who major in history must specialize in hindsight. Otherwise, we would be prophets rather than historians.
\ Because DDE was one of the last of the major commanders of WWII when he died, I allowed myself the luxury of a bit of emotion over his passing. Politically, however, he was a nonaggressive sorry mess and a menace within the GOP.
Bereft of soul??? DDE was a West Point educated soldier and then brought his record to the White House. We have a right to expect firm, clear-headed judgment from our generals and from our presidents and not emotional self-indulgence.
Neville Chamberlain wanted to keep Brit lads "safe at home" and allow Great Britain to continue to heal from the trauma WW I. We do not honor Chamberlain. Nor should we.
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