The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff has been dumped to avoid bitter Senate hearings.
THE Bush Administration has decided not to reappoint General Peter Pace to a second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, making him the highest-ranking officer to be a political casualty of the fight over Iraq.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said the decision was reached to avoid bitter hearings in a Democrat-controlled Senate that is already confronting the White House over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I have decided that at this moment in our history, the nation, our men and women in uniform, and General Pace himself would not be well served by a divisive ordeal in selecting the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff," Mr Gates said.
The Defence Secretary stood alone at a Pentagon podium to make the announcement and spoke in sombre tones in describing how he had intended to recommend General Pace for a second two-year term as chairman, only to change his mind in the past few weeks after consulting senators from both parties.
Mr Gates said he would recommend that President George Bush appoint Admiral Michael Mullen, the chief of naval operations, to serve as the next chairman.
General Pace has served for six years at the highest ranks of the military, for four years as vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs and then two years as the first marine to be chairman.
The general, 61, had said he wanted to be reappointed, and associates said he was deeply disappointed.
When he steps down at the end of September, he will become the shortest-serving chairman since General Maxwell Taylor in 1964, during the early years of the Vietnam War.
The chairman is the senior-ranking member of the armed services and is the top military adviser to the president, the defence secretary and the National Security Council. He is not in command of US forces at war, but plays a central role in shaping strategy and policy and in relaying communications from the civilian leadership to commanders in the field.
But General Pace's reputation has been affected by the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the heavy tolls that the subsequent counter-insurgency fights have inflicted on the American military.
He has been criticised by some senior officers who see him as too deferential to civilian leadership, in particular former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and too inattentive to the impact of prolonged fighting on the armed forces.
Mr Bush is known for his loyalty to members of his senior council, including the generals who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he risked a confirmation battle earlier this year when he successfully nominated General George Casey, the top American commander in Iraq, to become Army Chief of Staff.
In the case of General Pace, however, Mr Bush "reluctantly agreed" not to nominate him for a second term as chairman, even though the President had "the highest regard for General Pace", said Dana Perino, deputy White House press secretary.
In a written statement, Mr Bush said: "I have relied on his unvarnished military judgement, and I value his candor, his integrity and his friendship."
A confirmation hearing for the next chairman would have come in September, just as the two top American ground commanders in Iraq are scheduled to issue their first official assessment of Mr Bush's strategy of escalating the US troop presence.
General Pace is a highly decorated combat veteran, and led a platoon during some of the most vicious urban combat in US military history, in Vietnam in 1968, during the Battle of Hue.
In the past week, however, there was speculation that he would not be renominated. The rumours began after General Pace was forced to defend his comments that homosexual conduct was immoral and akin to adultery — a statement far from the legal underpinnings of the military's ban on openly gay soldiers based on arguments for discipline and unit cohesion.
General Pace also stirred concern among colleagues that he had over-stepped the line defining civilian-military relations, after he wrote a letter urging leniency for Lewis Libby, the vice-presidential aide convicted of lying during a CIA leak investigation.
Source : www.theage.com.au
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