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.
Never forgot that - Red Nancy meets with Bush and tells him, 'You have 48 hours to fire Rummy or the impeachment starts', and Rumsfeld is gone in 24 hours.
I fully expected the Commander-in-Chaos to have arranged for riots on the Berkeley campus by now. Except, hah, McChrystal has pre-empted Hussein's foul plans and nipped them in the bud.
MacArthur, McChrystal.....I think I'll have a Big Mac in their honor for dinner tonight!
Leni
From yesterday:
“McCHRYSTAL: MORE FORCES OR ‘MISSION FAILURE’”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2344592/posts
Ping
Apparently, Obama and company have forgotten all the cries they leveled towards President Bush, “LISTEN TO YOUR GENERALS!”
This is a matter of HONOR.
He can not in loyalty to his men/women. Lead them knowing that they are in jeopardy. (not enough troops)
Thank God he is showing his LOYALTY to the Troops, and holds his HONOR as a mark of Character.
Actually, I agree with your entire post. Eisenhower appears to be the exception, not the rule.
Too many generals and flag officers are used to having their asses kissed all the time, and are subsequently ill suited for leadership as civilians. Joe Sestak and Wesley Clark are more recent examples.
The answer is very simple.
OBAMA IS A LIAR!!!!!!!!!!!
It is immoral to keep troops in the field without providing everything they need to accomplish the mission for which you have asked them to risk their very lives. IMMORAL!
A leader can not vote present on this matter.
He will vote present anyway and throw his handpicked commander and the brave soldiers under the bus. Obama is a coward.
This is a no win situation. POTUS seen as caving to his Generals is a really bad thing not because the Generals are wrong but he is seen as an incompetent commander in how he has handled this. Or, he denies his choice of commander’s request and the commander on the ground quits which again makes him look like an ass-hat.
Nice job Barry.
Except job market will keep a lot of them in for awhile possibly. Tough choice risk your life for Zero or no job prospects because of Zero.
And the threat of war to increase.
Kudos for McChrystal...he is doing this to keep our troops safe.
Spent 5 years as an engineering on a nuclear submarine, grew up with dad career army. I took from you post since he had only been in 3 months to give him time. My point was he clearly knew the situation before taking the job.
You just about always get results reflecting your personal competence and understanding.
You gotta be shi++in' us. This is one of the dumbest things I have ever read.
Sometimes, you can achieve more with a strategic retreat, or in this case, an honorable resignation. A resignation would speak volumes.
:) thanks
His posts on this subject aren’t worth the bandwith to respond.
President Bush checkmates Iran by putting our military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now this clueless twit wants to give back Afghanistan, take pressure off Iran, just when they are near developing nuclear capability, and appease Russia by taking missile defense of Poland off the table.
And disagreeing with him is racist? These people are going to get us all killed.
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