ANALYSIS:The sacking of a US general is 'a very important command change' in Afghanistan
THE OBAMA administration has defended the firing of the top US commander in Afghanistan as necessary to the implementation of a new strategy in the region.
The US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, told the senate foreign relations committee yesterday that sacking Gen David McKiernan was “a very important command change”.
Gen McKiernan, who commanded US troops in Afghanistan for less than a year, is the first wartime commander to be dismissed by the US civilian leadership since 1951, when President Harry Truman fired Gen Douglas MacArthur during the Korean war.
Announcing his decision to replace Gen McKiernan, defence secretary Robert Gates said “fresh eyes” were needed to turn around the military campaign in Afghanistan.
“Nothing went wrong, and there was nothing specific,” Mr Gates said. “With agreement on a new strategy, and a new mission . . . in Afghanistan, that if there were to be a change, this is the right time to make the change, at a time when we are at the beginning of the implementation of a new strategy.”
Gen McKiernan is being replaced by Lt Gen Stanley McChrystal, a former special operations commander who impressed superiors by his use of intelligence in Iraq. Gen McChrystal led US special forces who killed a number of al-Qaeda figures in Iraq, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The general’s promotion comes despite a Pentagon investigation finding in 2007 that he was responsible for issuing false information about the accidental death in Afghanistan three years earlier of Cpl Pat Tillmann. The army initially suggested that Cpl Tillmann, a professional football player whose decision to join the military after 9/11 received wide publicity, had been killed by enemy fire. He was in fact a victim of so-called friendly fire.
Mr Holbrooke told the senate committee yesterday that the US military campaign in Afghanistan could not succeed if Pakistan’s western areas remain a sanctuary for the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
“We are in Afghanistan and Pakistan because of 9/11, because al-Qaeda and its allies are camped out in western Pakistan and have pledged and promised and predicted and threatened to do it again to us and other countries. If it were not for this fact, we would not be sitting here today,” he said. Mr Holbrooke expressed support for a senate Bill, introduced by Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry and Indiana Republican Dick Lugar, that authorises $7.5 billion in non-military aid to Pakistan over the next five years to foster economic growth and development, and another $7.5 billion for the following five years. “Even as we help Pakistan’s government to respond to an acute crisis, we also need to mend a broken relationship with the Pakistani people. For decades, America sought Pakistani co-operation through military aid, while paying scant attention to the wishes of the population itself,” Mr Kerry said.