Word: mckiernan
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...without muss or controversy - an Air Force secretary and chief of staff who didn't agree with him on the need to end production of the F-22 aircraft; the commandant of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, who presided over disgraceful conditions; even a well-respected general like David McKiernan, a conventional-warfare specialist unsuited for the asymmetrical struggle in Afghanistan. (See pictures of the battle against the Taliban...
...Washington A New Warlord in Afghanistan General David McKiernan is being replaced as the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan by three-star Army Lieut. General Stanley McChrystal. It's the first dismissal of a wartime general since that of Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War. The appointment of McChrystal, a former special-ops chief credited with orchestrating the capture of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, signifies a more pointed, aggressive military posture in Afghanistan...
...nudge and puff Zardari and Karzai into being statesmen who occasionally act in their own national interest, as Zardari seems to have done by deciding to fight the Taliban. That is why Secretary of Defense Robert Gates acted with such alacrity to replace a good general, David McKiernan, with another, Stanley McChrystal, better versed in the tactics used to fight terrorist insurgencies. That is why we are in Afghanistan and Pakistan: because our enemies - the people who killed 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001 - are festering there. It would be nice if, unlike Vietnam, our "friends" proved as competent...
...Gates has long demonstrated an impatience with wartime commanders who passively wait for the military hierarchy to give them what they need. He was stunned by the military's foot-dragging when he ordered additional armored vehicles and drone aircraft to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Even though McKiernan's dismissal had been in the works prior to Gates' trip to Afghanistan last week (Mullen warned McKiernan two weeks ago that it was coming), Gates was incensed by some of what he witnessed during that visit. Several troops complained that they lacked basic gear after arriving in Afghanistan...
...Nothing went wrong and there was nothing specific," Gates said of asking General David McKiernan, the outgoing commander, to step down just 11 months into a two-year post. "The focus here is simply on getting fresh thinking, fresh eyes on the problem." But McChrystal's role in the friendly-fire death of former NFL star Pat Tillman - as well as prisoner abuses allegedly committed on his watch at Baghdad's Camp Nama - mean his Senate confirmation might not go as smoothly (or swiftly) as Gates hopes. (Read Joe Klein's take on McKiernan's Afghan exit...