US Military disturbed by rapid turnover of Top Brass Overseas

[buglerbilly]

Military disturbed by rapid turnover at top in Afghan, Iraq wars

By Greg Jaffe
Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Since 2001, a dozen commanders have cycled through the top jobs in Iraq, Afghanistan and the U.S. Central Command, which oversees both wars. Three of those commanders -- including the recently dismissed Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal -- have been fired or resigned under pressure.

History has judged many others harshly, and only two, Gen. David H. Petraeus and Gen. Ray Odierno, are widely praised as having mastered the complex mixture of skills that running America's wars demands.

For the military, this record of mediocrity raises a vexing question: What is wrong with the system that produces top generals?

Much of what top commanders do in such places as Afghanistan and Iraq bears little relation to the military skills that helped them rise through the ranks, military officials said. Today's wars demand that top commanders act like modern viceroys, overseeing military operations and major economic development efforts. They play dominant roles in the internal politics of the countries where their troops fight.

When support for these long wars inevitably flags back home, the White House often depends on its generals to sell the administration's approach to lawmakers and a skeptical American public. To the military's extreme discomfort, its generals often act like shadow cabinet secretaries.

"What we ask of these generals is a very unusual skill set," said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who has advised both Petraeus and McChrystal. "It is a hard thing for anyone to do, much less than someone who comes to it so late in life."

Repeated disappointment

Over nine years of war, top commanders have fallen victim to their own ignorance of Washington politics and the press. Adm. William J. Fallon, once commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, resigned after he made offhand remarks trashing the Bush administration's Iran policy.

Other commanders, including Gen. Tommy Franks and Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, spent most of their careers studying conventional battles and couldn't grasp the protracted wars or the shadowy enemies that they were fighting. "A year from now, Iraq will be a different country," Franks wrote in his 2004 autobiography. "Our steady progress in Afghanistan is one factor that gives me confidence that Iraq will be able to provide for its own security in the years ahead."

A few top commanders started out well enough, but they found themselves exhausted and out of new ideas by the end of their tours. With sectarian violence spinning out of control in the spring of 2006, Gen. George. W. Casey scribbled the words "must act" in the margins of an intelligence report that warned of even worse killing in the weeks to come. Yet he did little to change the military's approach in the months that followed. After more than 30 months in command, he was forced out to make way for Petraeus and a new approach.

Explanations for the shortage of good generals abound. Some young officers blame the Pentagon's insistence on sticking with its peacetime promotion policies. Military personnel rules prevent the top brass from reaching down into the ranks and plucking out high-performers who have proved themselves especially adept at counterinsurgency or have amassed significant knowledge about Afghanistan and Iraq. "In all previous wars, promotions were accelerated for officers who were effective," a senior Army official said.

Instead of speeding promotions, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld slowed them down so that officers wouldn't cycle through complex jobs so quickly. As a result, there are many three-star generals with limited counterinsurgency experience and a large pool of colonels and one-stars who have done multiple tours of Iraq and Afghanistan. The lower-ranking officers are years away from even being considered for senior slots in the wars.

Other experts maintain the military must cast a wider net in its search for creative commanders who can balance the military and political demands of their job. One day after McChrystal was dismissed, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described how hard it is to find just the right general to lead U.S. troops in battle. "One of the most difficult things we do is pick people," Mullen said. "We spend an extraordinary amount of time on it." He offered the same observation a year earlier in explaining the move to sack McChrystal's predecessor, Gen. David D. McKiernan.

Rarely, though, does the exhaustive search lead to anyone outside the narrow confines of the U.S. Army. Eleven of the 12 top war commanders since 2001 have been Army generals. "The Army has had an absolute hammer lock on all the senior jobs and their staffs," said Bing West, a former Marine who has written several books about the Iraq and Afghan wars.

Marines often point out that Gen. James N. Mattis, who won widespread praise as a two-star general in Iraq's Anbar province, has spent the past several years at U.S. Joint Forces Command, a sprawling bureaucracy that produces doctrine, conducts war games and oversees troop deployments. He is expected to retire this year.

Searching for a formula

The struggle to produce successful senior commanders has spurred a search in the Pentagon for the magic formula that will produce more warrior-diplomats. One school of thought holds that, given the breadth of skills required for today's high-command jobs, officers should be selected and groomed at an early stage of their careers, with tours in Washington, battlefield commands and time in civilian graduate schools.

Petraeus spent extensive time working for three top generals; two of his tours were in the Pentagon, where he worked directly for the both the Army chief of staff and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the late 1990s. His unusual career path generated grumbling among peers who thought that real officers should be in the field. Others complained that he seemed to be trying too hard to make top rank. But the experience is now seen as having given him the political savvy he has needed to be successful in the latter part of his career.

Currently, all of the armed services are hatching plans to send more of their high-performing young officers to graduate school. Air Force Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, for example, has posited that more pilots with PhDs will increase his service's "intellectual throw-weight." But the military remains deeply uncomfortable with idea of targeting a subset of officers for an elite education, with the aim of installing them in senior command slots decades later.

"Part of the Army's problem is its egalitarianism," said retired Col. Don Snider, who teaches leadership at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa.

There is also widespread skepticism that the military's slow-moving bureaucracy can come up with a system for routinely producing innovative officers with the political, bureaucratic and battlefield skills needed to lead at the highest levels.

"A lot of the service's efforts feel like groping in the dark," said Biddle, of the Council on Foreign Relations.

[buglerbilly]

McChrystal violated not just protocol but Obama tenets on media management

By Jason Horowitz
Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, June 28, 2010

For a cerebral president intent on projecting a united front of seriousness to the public, the story couldn't have been further off message. The general leading the grim war in Afghanistan presented himself not as a hardened warrior-scholar but as the military's most decorated consumer of Bud Light Lime.

When Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal opened his inner sanctum to a Rolling Stone reporter, he violated more than just the military chain of command. The general broke core tenets of President Obama's code of conduct: When it comes to the media, keep your guard up, your mouth shut and control of the situation.

Instead, McChrystal and his merry band of Team America comrades sank their ship with astonishingly loose lips, revealed that the "lively debate" in the administration's foreign policy upper echelon may be a euphemism for jagged division and showed that high rank may be evidence of valor but not worldliness.

There's a long track record of powerful generals using reporters to stroke their outsize egos, then getting burned when the coverage doesn't work out as they had planned.

In the mid-19th century, Gen. Zachary Taylor took advantage of the burgeoning newspaper industry to herald his exploits. Emboldened by the coverage, he not only took strategic liberties in the war with Mexico, but also demonstrated disdain for President James K. Polk (D). When Polk marginalized him, an enraged Taylor ran for president in 1848 as a Whig and won.

Gen. George S. Patton's running off at the mouth to reporters caused constant headaches for Franklin D. Roosevelt. When Patton smacked around shell-shocked troops in the presence of reporters, they huddled and agreed not to publish that information so as not to hurt the war effort. They did, however, spread the word through private Army channels. Ultimately, radio reporter Drew Pearson broke the story and helped cause Patton's downfall.

"Douglas MacArthur used his media connections effectively when he was essentially the emperor of Japan," said Brian Linn, a military historian at Texas A&M University. MacArthur would get angry when the Army's Stars and Stripes newspaper didn't feature him prominently enough and would excise the names of his subordinates from military statements to emphasize his role. The ego that the media helped feed led to an act of insubordination that prompted President Harry S. Truman to relieve the general of his duty.

"Since the dawn of the modern information era," said Robert Citino, a professor at the Military History Center at the University of North Texas, "the media and generalship have gone hand in hand."

McChrystal seemed at first to have followed in the footsteps of Gen. David H. Petraeus, who has demonstrated a clear understanding of how Washington and the media work and how to cultivate an image that increases your political leverage. (An interview Petraeus gave to Reuters this week was headlined "The Warrior-Scholar Versus the Taliban," and the positive story about the "rising star" included a quote from Petraeus referencing his Princeton pedigree, his jumping out of airplanes and his decision-making capabilities, all in one sentence.)

Then came McChrystal's trip to Paris that coincided with the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull, which closed down Europe's airspace, prompting a bus trip to Berlin and a nearly week-long stay at the Ritz-Carlton. Then came the tourist-trap boozing and insubordinate smack talk.

McChrystal allowed Rolling Stone's Michael Hastings to join his team all the way, and the reporter witnessed a general far away from Washington and the Obama ethic. Washington rules -- don't leave fingerprints on attacks against your political enemies, don't confide in reporters who don't depend on you for their beats, drink a single malt scotch and not a case of citrus-flavored lager -- didn't apply.

The president has all but guaranteed that this won't happen again by turning to Petraeus.

"Petraeus is a savvy person," said John McManus, a military historian at Missouri University of Science and Technology. "He is able to use the media to cultivate the image that he wants."

[buglerbilly]

Odierno to Use Combat Lessons to Develop Joint Doctrine

(Source: U.S Army; issued June 25, 2010)

WASHINGTON --- President Barack Obama's nominee for the top U.S. Joint Forces Command post said today he will utilize the lessons he has learned during three combat command tours in Iraq if he is confirmed to lead the nation's joint force provider.

During his confirmation hearing at the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Raymond T. Odierno explained the approach he would take at the Norfolk, Va.-based command.

Odierno, commander of U.S. Forces Iraq, also has served as commander Multinational Corps Iraq and was the commander of the 4th Infantry Division during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

"My first priority will be to support all of our combatant commanders and prepare our U.S. joint interagency team to meet the needs of this evolutionary and complex environment in which we must continue to operate, and not only operate, but succeed," the general said. "I will never forget my responsibilities to ensure our Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, as well as our dedicated families, are prepared and ready to take on all of the challenges ahead."

Odierno took time to brief the committee on the situation in Iraq, saying he is encouraged by the progress there. Iraq held national elections in March and sat its new parliament earlier this month. The process of forming a new government proceeds slowly, Odierno said, but is proceeding.

"We are working closely with Iraqi partners to enable a process that yields an inclusive governing body that is representative of the diversity of the nation and the results of the elections," he said.

Terrorists continue to launch sporadic attacks in Iraq, but the overall decline in attacks continues. The number of civilian casualties also continues to decline, as well as the number of high-profile attacks.

All of this is happening as the number of U.S. personnel in Iraq is dropping and the mission is changing. Since June 30, 2009, the Iraqi security forces have assumed full responsibility for planning and executing security operations in their country.

"Working closely with the [U.S. Central Command] commander, secretary of defense and the president of the United States, we have developed a roadmap for the future of Iraq and our mission there," Odierno said.

Some 84,000 U.S. servicemembers are based in Iraq, down from 165,000 at the height of the surge in 2008. That number will drop to 50,000 by the end of August as part of the U.S.-Iraq security agreement. The American troops remaining will transition to an "advise and assist" role for Iraqi security forces. All U.S. troops will be out of the country by the end of 2011, according to the agreement.

"As we transition to a civilian-led presence, we will continue to conduct partnered counterterrorism operations and provide combat enablers to help the Iraqi security forces maintain pressure on the extremist networks," Odierno said. "But our primary mission will be to train, advise [and] assist the Iraqi security forces to protect the population against internal and external threats."

U.S. Forces Iraq will continue to support the U.S. embassy, the provincial reconstruction teams, the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations dedicated to building Iraqi governmental capacity, the general noted.

Odierno praised the efforts of U.S. servicemembers in all phases of warfare.

"In a complex and ever-changing operating environment, our servicemembers have displayed unparalleled adaptability and ingenuity to work through the toughest issues," the general said.

"If confirmed," he continued, "I'm committed to applying the lessons I've learned in almost five years as a division, corps, and force commander inside of Iraq. I will dedicate myself to ensure that, in my duties as the commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command, I plan to use that experience to develop our joint doctrine and capabilities, evolve our professional military education and support our servicemembers currently deployed around the world."

The armed services committee must vote on the nomination and, if approved, the full Senate must confirm the appointment. Odierno would replace Marine Corps Gen. James N. Mattis at the command.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

McChrystal to Retire From Army

June 29, 2010

Associated Press



WASHINGTON - Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who was fired last week as the top U.S. general in the stalemated Afghanistan war, told the Army on Monday that he will retire.

Army spokesman Col. Tom Collins said McChrystal, 55, notified the service of his plans, but he has not yet submitted formal retirement papers. It is not clear when he will leave the service, but the process usually take a few months.

In announcing McChrystal's ouster on Wednesday, President Barack Obama praised his long Army career but said his intemperate remarks in a magazine article that appeared last week could not be abided.

McChrystal apologized for the remarks in Rolling Stone magazine and flew to Washington last week to resign as commanding general of the war.

The Army has been McChrystal's only career.

McChrystal was promoted to the selective and coveted rank of four-star general last year. It is not clear whether McChrystal will be able to retain that rank in retirement. Under Army rules, generals need to serve three years as a four-star officer to retain that rank, with its prestige and retirement benefits.

The secretary of the Army can allow officers with as little as two years of service to keep their retirement rank, Collins said.

Three military and defense officials in Washington said Obama may use his power as commander in chief to allow McChrystal to keep all four stars. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because McChrystal has not yet submitted his paperwork.

McChrystal was the Pentagon's choice to run the war following a year of Taliban advances in 2008 and early 2009. He replaced Gen. David McKiernan, also a four-star Army general, after McKiernan was fired for failing to apply the counterinsurgency strategy McChrystal represented. McKiernan retired from the Army almost immediately.

The Senate Armed Service Committee will hold a confirmation hearing Tuesday for Gen. David Petraeus, nominated to succeed McChrystal as the top U.S. and NATO general in Kabul.

© Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved

[buglerbilly]

Petraeus Goes Before the Senate



Gen. David Petraeus, the newly nominated Afghan commander, goes before the Senate Armed Services Committee this morning in what is expected to be a breeze of a confirmation hearing. Regrettably, much of the questioning from senators will undoubtedly focus on the issue of timelines and July 2011 when U.S. forces are to begin withdrawing.

Hopefully one or two senators will ask some relevant questions such as: How Petraeus plans to knock the insurgency on its heels before next summer? Also, what exactly is his campaign plan and will it differ from that of former commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal? How will Petraeus measure success over the next year, and which metrics, (e.g. body counts, IED attacks), will he use to show whether or not ISAF has reversed insurgent momentum?

The current ISAF campaign plan, which was provided to CSIS’s Anthony Cordesman, (worth a close read by the way), shows a military command struggling to define success against a maddeningly resilient insurgent enemy and somehow re-craft the public narrative of the war to prevent public abandonment of the whole effort.

In the wake of the failed Marja offensive, McChrystal and the ISAF staff realized that they must redefine expectations to realize “strategic patience” through at least 2015, the ISAF brief shows. The briefing says ISAF has “bet the war on”:


• Credible success in Kandahar in 2010-11

• Salvaging Marja and showing progress in Helmand

• Beginning to reverse insurgent momentum in most of the country by mid-2011, not merely halting it.

• Make significant progress towards a credible transfer of security responsibility to the Afghan security forces.

• Having Pakistan as a credible partner.

ISAF’s current campaign metrics are too limited in timeframe and don’t adequately recognize the ability of the insurgents to endure and adapt, the brief says. It acknowledges:

• There is no way to anticipate how well insurgent structure evolves, mutate and adapt over time.

• Insurgents clearly recognize, however, tat they are fighting a war of political attrition against a weak, corrupt and incapable Karzai government and limited U.S. and ISAF patience.

• Maoist experience in China only one of many cases where insurgents rode out long series of defeats to win.

• “Clear, hold, and build” can become 5-plus year campaigns of shadow networks, reinfiltration, shifts in area, stay behinds.

Lots of questions on the way ahead for the U.S. and ISAF; we’ll be tuning in to the hearing this morning to see if Petraeus provides any answers.

– Greg Grant

Read more: http://defensetech.org/2010/06/29/petraeus-goes-before-the-senate/#more-7956#ixzz0sFi7stGK
Defense.org

[buglerbilly]

White House: McChrystal to retire with 4 stars

The Associated Press

Posted : Wednesday Jun 30, 2010 8:12:57 EDT

WASHINGTON — Gen. Stanley McChrystal, fired from his job as commander of the Afghanistan war after more than three decades in the Army, will be allowed to retire at the rank of four stars.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that the White House will do what it can to ensure McChrystal keeps that rank. McChrystal had been a four-star general for just over a year when President Barack Obama demanded his resignation as Afghan war commander because of scornful remarks made to Rolling Stone magazine.

Under Army rules, McChrystal would have had to serve three years as a four-star officer to retain that rank, with its higher prestige and deeper retirement benefits.

The Army has been 55-year-old McChrystal’s only career. He is being replaced by Gen. David Petraeus, who was his boss at U.S. Central Command.

At his confirmation hearing Tuesday, Petraeus used his opening remarks to pay tribute to his former colleague. Petraeus said McChrystal’s leadership has contributed directly to success in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We now see some areas of progress amidst the tough fight ongoing in Afghanistan,” Petraeus said. “Considerable credit for that must go to Stan McChrystal.”

[buglerbilly]

------------------
News Alert: Gen. David Petraeus confirmed by U.S. Senate to be the new Afghan war commander

12:22 PM EDT Wednesday, June 30, 2010
--------------------

The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday to confirm David Petraeus as the new commander of the troubled war in Afghanistan, pinning U.S. hopes on a four-star Army general who helped turn around the conflict in Iraq.

President Barack Obama tapped Petraeus after last week firing the previous commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, for disparaging civilian leaders in an explosive magazine article.

For more information, visit washingtonpost.com:
http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/MEPMRJ/DMUWP/8MOXJV/Q0E6ZC/G3EGW/9A/t

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Gen. H.R. McMaster Tapped to Go to Kabul

Posted by Paul McLeary at 6/30/2010 10:06 AM CDT



On Tuesday, our pals at Danger Room broke the news that Gen. H.R. McMaster, who served as part of Gen Petraeus’ “brain trust” in Baghdad during the “surge” years, has been tapped to head to Kabul with Petraeus to take over the war in Afghanistan. I had the opportunity to sit down with McMaster back in February just after the release of the Army Capstone Concept planning document was released, which McMaster spearheaded. Titled Operational Adaptability: Operating Under Conditions of Uncertainty and Complexity in an Era of Persistent Conflict—2016-2028, the document’s premise is that combatant commanders will fight for information as tenaciously as for ground, while “integrating their efforts with a broad range of partners in complex environments and among diverse populations.” Sounds a bit like the battlespace in Afghanistan, no?

We kicked our conversation off with a bit about the COIN vs. traditional combat arms debate, and McMaster warned that “there is a real danger in over-categorizing war. You may go into a humanitarian assistance effort of significant scale such as that in Haiti and encounter spoiling groups, organized resistance groups and militia-type organizations, and then obviously you’re going to have to fight those organizations. If you over-categorize conflict and say you want to optimize for a certain end of the spectrum, what you do is create opportunities for the enemy who can then evade that narrow set of capabilities. So I think the important thing is to call warfare warfare, understand the broad range of threats that the armed forces will have to deal with and then prepare for that range of threats … combined-arms capability, the ability to fight, is the price of admission to any operation, so I think what we have to do in the Army is to figure out how to make the [counterinsurgency versus conventional war] debate a false choice. We have to do both."

And all this will be done in a joint operating environment, with military and civilian and multinational agencies sharing the battlespace?

We wanted to emphasize the continuous interaction with an adaptive adversary, the need to have those qualities of operational adaptability. So while you’re acting, you’re continuously evaluating the responses and reactions of the enemy, adapting your actions, innovating further to seize and retain that initiative and to continue to make progress toward achieving policy goals and objectives. The environment in which we do that is a multinational environment, it’s an interdepartmental environment, it’s a joint environment, so you begin to see all the skill sets leaders need to have to conduct these kinds of operations. This whole idea that you can conduct operations in the joint world consistent with this shock-and-awe thing*—rapid, decisive operations—is utterly unrealistic.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in Africa, a big part of the Army’s mission is to train indigenous militaries and police. Where is Army doctrine heading when it comes to making this mission a core competency?

In the Capstone Concept, we say we need to exert a psychological and technical influence. It is not adequate just to build capable security forces—we’re not an NGO (non-governmental organization). We have to ensure that those security forces are employed in a way that is consistent with our interests and with the interests of the people there. We have to build capable security forces, but also security forces that earn the trust and confidence of the population. So we must understand the Army’s role in not just building battalions or the police, but understanding that we have to do it in a way that is consistent with political strategy and what we want to achieve overall. In security force assistance, what we really want to focus on is that we have to make sure we develop the institutional capacity of the relevant ministries and subordinate organizations so that whatever we do, the indigenous forces can sustain. that [local forces are] under effective leadership. The first thing in any endeavor like this is effective leadership.

[I]Can the Army draw down in Iraq, escalate in Afghanistan and still run training missions in places like Africa simultaneously?

Actually, the Army has always taken this on. We did this from the Revolutionary War to the frontier wars, post-Civil War reconstruction, the Philippines insurrection—the Army has always had those capabilities. In fact we have a statutory responsibility to provide military governance until we can transition. So what we wanted to do [in the Capstone document] is make sure that we acknowledge that the Army not only has always had to do these sorts of operations, but that we’re going to do them in the future, and we’re going to have to prepare our force to conduct the full range of operations.

Photo credit: U.S. ARMY

[buglerbilly]

Marine Gen. Picked to Lead U.S. Central Command

By GINA CAVALLARO

Published: 8 Jul 2010 15:46

U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James N. Mattis has been recommended by the Defense Department to lead U.S. Central Command.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirmed his choice July 8, during a news briefing with military reporters at the Pentagon.

"The post General Mattis is taking is a critical one at a critical time," Gates said, adding that he considers it "essential to have a confirmed, full-time commander in place at CENTCOM as quickly as possible, as we confront the challenges posed by the ongoing operations in Afghanistan, our troop withdrawal in Iraq, and Iran's nuclear program, as well as the threat represented by militant and terrorist groups throughout the region."

Deputy commanding general Marine Lt. Gen. John Allen, who is currently CENTCOM acting commander, will remain in his position as deputy commander, marking the first time that Marines occupy the command's top two spots.

Mattis and Allen were named on the heels of the Senate's June 30 confirmation of Army Gen. David Petraeus as the new Afghanistan war commander, ending his tenure as CENTCOM chief.

Mattis, who will soon hand his post as commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command to Army Gen. Raymond Odierno, was expected to retire following that transfer of authority.

Instead, he will replace Petraeus, who was reassigned by the White House in the wake of Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal's resignation as the Afghanistan war commander. McChrystal resigned following controversial remarks he and his staff made in a Rolling Stone magazine article.

CENTCOM is a unified combatant command with responsibility for maintaining relationships, supporting development and assisting with security in more than 20 countries in the Middle East and Central Asia.

The last Marine to head CENTCOM, a four-star command, was Gen. Anthony Zinni, who held the position from 1997 to 2000.

Before his tenure at Joint Forces Command, Mattis led NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Transformation from 2007-09. He has also commanded 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and U.S. Marine Forces Central Command.

[buglerbilly]

Gates Sends Mattis to CentCom

By Greg Grant and Colin Clark Thursday, July 8th, 2010 3:21 pm



Marine Gen. James Mattis, currently commander of Joint Forces Command, will replace Gen. David Petraeus as the next commander of Central Command. Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the announcement at an afternoon Pentagon press conference. the move suyprised some observers, who believed Mattis had shown himself to be too outspoken as JFCom leader.

If confirmed by the Senate, the blunt-speaking Mattis will bring considerable regional experience to his new post. He served as a battalion commander during 1991’s Desert Storm, commanded Marine forces in Afghanistan in 2001 and commanded the Marines in Iraq during the invasion in 2003 and during the bloody fight for Fallujah during 2004.

Mattis’ intellect and knowledge are truly impressive, something Gates acknowledged in his announcement today when he said he had selected Mattis to lead the “red team” that war gamed scenarios that informed the recent QDR. He called Mattis one of the military’s most “innovative and iconoclastic thinkers.” He is also known as a military leader who speaks his mind with great vigor and directness. That was thought, in part, to be why he was not picked as the next Marine Commandant even though he was known to be one of Gates’ favorite generals.

“The post General Mattis is taking is a critical one at a critical time. The United States has vital, long-standing interests and commitments in Central Asia and the gulf region going back decades, interests and commitments that transcend multiple presidencies of both political parties,” Gates said. With the turbulent state of affairs in the region, from Iran and Iraq, Turkey to Afghanistan, senior military officials had worried at the prospect of the nation’s hottest combatant command going without a Senate-confirmed leader for any length of time. Gates, gave voice to those sentiments, telling reporters: “I consider it essential to have a confirmed full time commander in CentCom as quickly as possible.”

Read more: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2010/07/08/mattis-to-centcom/#idc-container#ixzz0t8Jl5rda

[buglerbilly]

Army Says Farewell To General McChrystal

By Spencer Ackerman July 23, 2010 | 7:43 pm



Stanley McChrystal stepped onto Fort McNair in southwest Washington D.C. on Friday as a four-star general of the U.S. Army, distinguished as a special operator and a counterinsurgent commander but brought down as an indiscreet subject of a magazine profile. He left Fort McNair this afternoon as a civilian, moving on to an uncertain future.

Obviously, McChrystal didn’t expect to be here today. After Michael Hastings quoted McChrystal and anonymous members of his entourage saying disrespectful things about the Obama administration in Rolling Stone, President Obama abruptly relieved him of his command. It was an ignominious end to a 34-year military career that many in the special-operations and counterinsurgency communities celebrate — though blighted occasionally by the Pat Tillman cover-up and suspicions about his knowledge of prisoner abuse in Iraq — and several couldn’t believe unwound as rapidly as it did.

His tenure in command of the Afghanistan war hasn’t had time to show definitive results — either successes or failures — making him the rare commander not to be dismissed for his wartime performance. Accordingly, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Washington, Said Tayeb Jawad, relayed from Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, that McChrystal “laid the foundation for our final triumph.” Not much more could be said.

But McChrystal, who showed up to the ceremony in his combat uniform, said he didn’t want to let his remarks grow awkward. He actively joked about his situation, warning those in attendance who were inclined to contradict his war stories that he had files and photos on some of them, “and I know a Rolling Stone reporter.” He kept joking about issuing a Tactical Directive to his wife, Annie, about his famously spartan lifestyle of early morning physical training and eating one meal a day. Alas, she represents an “insurgency of one woman,” McChrystal continued, hamming it up, but the enemy is “uninterested in reconciliation.” He turned to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and said that subduing her would take “at least 40,000 troops.”


But he grew more serious and reflective. McChrystal’s voice caught once while delivering his remarks: when he honored the comradeship of his fellow warriors, “the greatest honor in my career.” While he was perceived to be disrespectful to the Obama administration in his Rolling Stone profile, he paid his tribute to the “civilian and military leaders of our nation… beginning with President Obama.” When it came to Afghanistan — after Jawad awarded him the country’s highest medal — McChrystal said his tenure in command convinced him “the Afghans have the courage, the strength, and the resiliency” to prove “equal to the task.”

Gates honored McChrystal as a “consummate Ranger,” honoring reputation as a scholar and as a warrior. “No single American has inflicted more fear and more loss of life on our country’s enemies than Stan McChrystal,” Gates said. In Iraq, when McChrystal led the Joint Special Operations Command, “night by night, intercept by intercept, cell by cell, [he] first confronted and then crushed al-Qaeda in Iraq, a campagin well underway before the surge ,when violence seemed unstoppable.” His performance made McChrystal Gates’s choice to lead the Afghanistan war when President Obama decided on his new strategy last year.

General George Casey, the chief of staff of the Army, noted that McChrystal’s official Army record shows nearly 34 years of dwell time between deployments — an indication of just how secretive McChrystal’s career has been. According to Casey, when McChrystal led JSOC to a successful manhunt for al-Qaeda in Iraq’s leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, McChrystal had Zarqawi’s corpse brought to his headquarters for personal inspection.

It’s not clear what the 56-year old McChrystal will do next. Marc Ambinder reports he’s already declined a lucrative offer to join the Beltway consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. Riffing off an anecdote relayed in the magazine piece that led him to the podium on Friday about using an Italian high-end clothier as a shorthand for putting on airs, McChrystal joked about becoming a “spokesman for Gucci, but they haven’t called.”

McChrystal ended his remarks, and his Army career, by quoting the Spartan king Leonidas and Winston Churchill to express his commitment to the spirit of service. ”Caution and cynicism is safe, but soldiers don’t want to follow cautious cynics,” McChrystal said. “I’d do somethings in my career differently, but not many. I believed in people, and I still believe in them. I trusted, and I still trust. I cared, and I still care. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/07/army-says-farewell-to-general-mcchrystal/#more-28378#ixzz0ua5BG3pN

[buglerbilly]

Hoss Leaves, Schwartz Replaces



By Colin Clark Monday, August 9th, 2010 11:19 am

The rumor mill is racing with reports that Gen. Hoss Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will soon leave his post and be replaced by Gen. Norton Schwartz, Air Force chief of staff.

Schwartz’s ascension has Air Force sources beaming. It has been some time since an Air Force officer has been blessed with promotion to the innermost command circle. “I’m happy [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates is expressing some confidence in my poor, beleaguered Air Force. (Remember, the AF has had more that its share of recent firings, including AFSec Wynne and CSAF Moseley,) one retired officer said in an e-mail.

Schwartz is seen by many Air Force officers as a complete creation of Gates and the pilot coterie may be quite happy to see him go. But he has also earned grudging admiration for his unrelenting efforts to remake the service’s culture and get his people to focus on their joint contributions and to earn respect by flying drones, not just fighters. Schwartz’s service as head of Transportation Command and his deep commitment to jointness will serve him well in the vice’s seat.

Gen. Kevin “Chilli” Chilton, head of Strategic Command, is said to be in line as the next Air Force chief of staff. Chilton is universally respected in the service for his brains and willingness to exercise them in pursuit of whatever mission he is pursuing.

Read more: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2010/08/09/hoss-leaves-schwartz-replaces/#ixzz0w87V7Fyp

[buglerbilly]

Pentagon push to phase out top brass causing much consternation


Portraits of leadership line the Pentagon's walls
About a half-dozen painters are regularly hired for Pentagon portraits commemorating notable military service.

By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 13, 2010

Of all the spending cuts and budget battles the Pentagon is confronting, none is causing more angst than Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates's vow to start getting rid of generals and admirals.

By almost any measure, the military is more top-heavy an institution than it has been for decades. Today, there are 40 four-star generals and admirals -- one more than in 1971, during the Vietnam War, even though the number of active-duty troops has shrunk by almost half.

The number of active-duty generals and admirals of all rank, meanwhile, has increased by about 13 percent since 1996.

It is, as Gates puts it, "brass creep."

But the defense secretary's pledge Monday to cut about 5 percent of the brass is nothing short of seismic for many at the Pentagon. The cuts would be the largest in the upper ranks since a similar squeeze at the end of the Cold War, when the collapse of the Soviet Union prompted the military to downsize.

The defense secretary has said he also wants to make similar trims in the civilian leadership, noting that the number of people assigned to his office has grown by nearly 1,000 over the past decade.

"Our headquarters and support bureaucracies -- military and civilian alike -- have swelled to cumbersome and top-heavy proportions," Gates said in a speech Thursday to the Marines' Memorial Association in San Francisco, adding that the top layers have "grown accustomed to operating with little consideration for cost."

The push has caused some squealing at the Pentagon, as one- and two-star generals and admirals privately fret that they could be forced to retire early. Up-and-coming colonels and captains worry that fewer plum posts will be available.

Gates has acknowledged that he faces stiff resistance. "Every flag officer will think I'm after him or her," he told reporters in May, when he first suggested that the brass might need to go on a diet. "But we have to be willing to look at everything."

On Monday, Gates named the first casualty by announcing plans to dismantle the Joint Forces Command, a unit based in Norfolk that coordinates military doctrine among the armed services and is traditionally headed by a four-star commander. He has told aides that they have until Nov. 1 to come up with a list of at least 50 other brass jobs that will get the ax. Officials said that most of the positions probably will be eliminated by attrition.

Among the likely targets are officers in Europe. U.S military and NATO forces in Europe are jointly led by a four-star commander. In a vestige of World War II, however, the Army, Navy and Air Force have four-star officers overseeing their individual forces in Europe as well.

"The ranks of the major commands there have remained intact since the Cold War," Gen. James E. Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Monday. "So is that appropriate? Should we go back and adjust it? Not only the rank structure, but the size of the headquarters and what they do."

Analysts said the brass squeeze won't result in significant savings. Terminating a single general's billet might save about $200,000 a year in salary and benefits, barely a rounding error in the Pentagon's base budget this year of $535 billion.

But they said the effort is necessary as part of Gates's broader drive to stave off budget-cutting lawmakers who argue that defense spending should no longer be exempt as Congress grapples with record deficits.

"He's pretty clearly trying to send a message that the Pentagon is going to get leaner, and that includes the people at the top," said Todd S. Harrison, a military spending expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank.

"If he had done nothing, if he had not trimmed the number of generals, then he would have been more vulnerable to the argument that the Department of Defense is fat and bloated and can take a cut."

Another reason, Gates said, is that the military's decision-making process has become bogged down.

By way of illustration, Gates recounted the beleaguered history of a deployment request that landed on his desk to send a single dog-handling team to Afghanistan. The paperwork first had to be approved by five four-star commanders: the chief of U.S. Central Command, the commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan; the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Army chief of staff; and the supreme allied commander for Europe.

Analysts said there are some legitimate reasons why the number of brass has increased disproportionately to the size of the armed forces. Some commanders have been activated temporarily from the reserves to take part in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The military has also placed more emphasis on joint operations involving all the armed services, resulting in more high-level commands.

Raymond F. DuBois, a defense official during the George W. Bush administration, said he would advise Gates to take a methodical approach by targeting 20 percent of all four-star commanders and reclassifying their jobs as three-star generals and admirals. Then he would take 20 percent of the three-star officers and take them down to two stars, and keep doing the same until the ranks are flattened out. "Start with the top, don't start with the bottom," he said.

But DuBois added that he would be reluctant to cut many one-star jobs, which he said are necessary to keep as career incentives for ambitious colonels and captains.

"In a military that needs to retain its best and brightest," said DuBois, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, "it is an enormously important retention factor."

[buglerbilly]

McChrystal to Teach Leadership at Yale

August 16, 2010

Associated Press

I wonder IF he's going to include "how to keep your mouth shut at inappropriate times"..........???

WASHINGTON - Yale University says it has hired retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal to teach a graduate level seminar on leadership on its New Haven, Conn., campus.

McChrystal is the former commander of the Afghanistan war. He was fired in July by President Barack Obama because of disparaging comments he and his aides made about their civilian bosses.

Yale announced Monday that McChrystal's seminar will "examine how dramatic changes in globalization have increased the complexity of modern leadership." McChrystal said in a statement accompanying the release that he was looking forward to sharing his "experiences and insights as a career military officer."

© Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[buglerbilly]

Major Shake-Up Soon for Top Officers

April 27, 2011

Stars and Stripes|by Kevin Baron

WASHINGTON -- Within weeks, roughly a dozen of the U.S. military’s most popular and highest-ranking officers will begin rotating out of some of the highest-profile jobs in the armed forces.

Those due for change this year include the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the vice chairman, several service chiefs, NATO’s supreme allied commander Europe and other combatant commanders, as well as the Afghanistan War’s commanding general and his top two deputies.

In the Pentagon, the musical chairs hinge on President Obama’s selection of the next chairman. Adm. Mike Mullen is set to retire Oct. 1, after serving a second two-year term. Since last fall, the leading candidate to replace him has been the vice chairman, Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, although he has not been asked.

Cartwright’s term officially ends in August, but several military sources close to the selection process say the top candidates have received no indication of the timing of the president’s decisions, due this summer.

If Obama calls Cartwright to the chairman’s seat, the rest of the picture becomes fairly clear, according to senior military and civilian defense sources who spoke to Stars and Stripes on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the selection process or because they were not authorized to discuss pending personnel decisions.

Former Iraq War commander Gen. Ray Odierno is the top candidate to succeed Cartwright as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the No. 2 ranking military officer. NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Adm. James Stavridis is the top candidate for chief of naval operations, the Navy’s seat on the Joint Chiefs, succeeding retiring Adm. Gary Roughead.

If Cartwright is passed over, the tea leaves get cloudy.

Cartwright as chairman?

Cartwright gained public notoriety last fall when Bob Woodward reported he was “Obama’s favorite general” in the book “Obama’s Wars,” which has been spotted under the arms of many senior Pentagon officials. But other Pentagon and White House leaders have sneered at the attention, even seeming less enamored with Cartwright this year, according to several officials.

In February, news broke that the Defense Department Inspector General had investigated Cartwright last year for alleged misconduct on a March 2009 trip to Tbilisi, Georgia. Cartwright spent “several hours alone” with a drunken female subordinate in his room talking on a bench at the foot of his bed, where she was found slumped over asleep the next morning, witnesses told the Defense Department.

According to a mostly redacted report made available to the public, the inspector general recommended Cartwright be punished for his “failure to correct,” and behavior “not consistent with standards for executing leadership responsibilities,” over what they found to be the second public drunken incident by the subordinate, who has remained unnamed.

Cartwright rejected the inspector general’s findings and said he was counseling a distraught and intoxicated staffer appropriately and privately through a personal emotional crisis. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus found the charges were not substantiated.

One military official close to the investigation said many believe word of the report was leaked to reporters specifically because of Cartwright’s candidacy for the chairmanship.

That Cartwright never served in Iraq or Afghanistan and has never deployed in combat has not been loudly protested among senior ranks, two officials said.

Odierno in Cartwright role?

If Cartwright can make it through, many believe his likely replacement would be Odierno, the celebrated former Iraq War commander.

“No one can tell with any certainty what move is next, but I’m as certain of anything that Odierno will be vice,” said a defense official with intimate knowledge of the selection process.

Odierno returned from Baghdad in September to take over Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., which Defense Secretary Robert Gates promptly ordered shuttered by the end of this summer. Odierno is well-known in Washington from serving as former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s senior military adviser and is respected on Capitol Hill.

If Cartwright is passed over, Stavridis could be in line for chairman or vice chairman, three military officials said.

In that scenario, Odierno would be considered to take the NATO command, two military officials agreed. A strong candidate for vice chairman would be Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz. One defense official said other NATO candidates being discussed include Gen. Lloyd Austin, the Iraq War commander, and Gen. Carter Ham, who became U.S. Africa Command commander in March. Vice CNO Adm. Jonathan Greenert, a submariner, then could step up to CNO.

Odierno also is being considered for chairman, two officials said, but he is a long shot because he assumed his first combatant command less than a year ago. One senior military official has said not to be surprised to hear Gen. Martin Dempsey, the new Army chief, floated as an outside alternate.

What about Petraeus?

That leaves the administration with one key placement: Gen. David Petraeus. According to anonymous administration sources Wednesday, President Obama plans this week to name CIA Director Leon Panetta to replace Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Petraeus, now running the war in Afghanistan, would take the CIA chief's job.

“There is a lot of chatter and a lot of speculation out there right now about what General Petraeus may do in the future. And all of it is premature and thus we aren’t commenting,” his spokesman, Col. Erik Gunhus, said.

Petraeus is expected to leave his Kabul-based command of International Security Forces Afghanistan, and has confirmed discussions to make him director of the CIA. But in the Pentagon, talk of him as the next chairman has all but disappeared, leaving many wondering whether he is worn down and ready to leave the military.

“Anyone who thinks Gen. Petraeus is exhausted hasn’t run with him at 6,000 ft. altitude here or gone on a battlefield circulation with him lately!” one alliance officer from Kabul who knows Petraeus well said in an email. “And I can tell you that Gen. Petraeus is not eager to leave Afghanistan; as a matter of fact, it’s well-known that he pledged to see this through another fighting season if that was necessary.”

But several military sources say Petraeus’ replacement likely will be Marine Lt. Gen. John Allen, Central Command’s deputy commander.

That move would bypass Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, the ISAF training commander. Caldwell wrote an opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune in February that one defense official said took the Joint Chiefs by surprise and was considered bad form by some because he celebrated the “unnoticed” work of his own command. Caldwell has served in that post since October 2009 and is due for a rotation.

Meanwhile, Gates announced that the war’s operational commander, Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, will be promoted and replaced by Lt. Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, commander of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., and former commander of Afghanistan’s eastern regional operations.

With the clock ticking, Pentagon officials are left waiting and wondering their fates. Some blame three unexpected major events in delaying the administration’s decisions: the Japan earthquake and tsunami, the Libya bombing campaign and the budget showdown.

Sources close to some candidates say they’ve yet to see any significant behind-the-scenes vetting. But many of those officials expect announcements to begin coming down soon, to give the administration and Congress adequate time to line up confirmation hearings this summer.

Unless he gets the call, Cartwright faces retirement in just more than 90 days.