General Pace To Retire

[tomahawk6]

The Chairman JCS General Pace will be announcing his retirement today. Breaking news.
Admiral Mullen to replace Pace in September. General Cartwright to become Vice Chairman.

 

[Roy Harding]

And here's the MSM reportage:

Gen. Pace Retires As Joint Chiefs Chair

By LOLITA BALDOR
The Associated Press
Friday, June 8, 2007; 1:51 PM

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration sidelined Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Friday, announcing plans to replace him as the nation's top military officer rather than reappoint him and risk a Senate confirmation struggle focusing on the Iraq War.

"It would be a backward looking and very contentious process," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said at a Pentagon news conference where he announced he would recommend Adm. Mike Mullen to replace Pace.

More on link, here:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/08/AR2007060801537.html?referrer=email

 

[MarkOttawa]

This was unexpected; Congress seems the reason:

General Pace to Retire as Joint Chiefs Chairman
NY Times, June 8
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/08/washington/08cnd-military.html?hp

Gen. Peter Pace is being replaced as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a move that reflects a feeling among top civilian officials at the Pentagon and in the White House that the American military needs new leadership after years of being strained by the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the chief of naval operations, will replace General Peter Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

General Pace is to be succeeded by Adm. Michael G. Mullen, who has been chief of naval operations since the summer of 2005, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced today.

Mr. Gates said that re-nominating General Pace would be an intolerable “divisive ordeal” for the military and the general himself.

General Pace, who has been chairman for just less than two years, is known to have wanted to be nominated for a second term as chairman, and his re-nomination by President Bush had been rumored to be in the works.

Mr. Gates, who took over from Donald H. Rumsfeld last fall, said he had wanted since early in his term to nominate General Pace for another two-year term. But after talking with Republican and Democratic senators over the past several weeks, Mr. Gates said, he concluded that confirmation hearings would have focused “on the past, rather than the future, and further, that there was the very real prospect the process would be quite contentious.”

President Bush “reluctantly agreed because he has the highest regard for General Pace,” said Dana Perino, the deputy White House press secretary...

The secretary said the political figures he had conferred with were unanimous in their respect for General Pace — and unanimous in their feeling that a change in Pentagon leadership was needed...

In his time as chairman, General Pace rarely showed any sign of disagreement with civilian leaders. In public, at least, he backed Secretary Rumsfeld’s preference for holding down trooop levels in Iraq, until that policy was re-examined by the White House late in 2006. In March, he caused a stir when he said he believed homosexual conduct to be immoral; soon afterward, he said he should not have said that.

General Pace was the first officer from the Marine Corps to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs [emphasis added]. Before that, he was the first from the Marines to serve as vice chairman.

Mr. Gates said he valued General Pace’s “candor and willingness to speak his mind,” that he would work closely with the general until his retirement on Sept. 30 and that he anticipated “a continuing friendship” after that.

But there was nothing cheerful about the brief Pentagon announcement, which was attended by neither General Pace nor his presumed successor. The announcement came while President Bush was in Europe.

Asked what Admiral Mullen would bring to the post, Mr. Gates replied in part that the admiral is “a very smart strategic thinker.”

The admiral has been overseeing the Navy’s expansion to a fleet of more than 300 ships by 2020. But Mr. Gates said one indicator of the admiral’s broad strategic vision is that he is most concerned about upgrading the Army. If confirmed, the admiral will be the first Navy man to be chairman since Adm. William J. Crowe, who served from 1985 to 1989 [emphasis added]...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Blackadder1916]

I found this to be an interesting piece on the new Chairman (and Vice Chairman).  Though the selection may be in large measure based on making the Senate confirmation as easy as possible, I wondered how valid was the premise in this article.  Surely any of the individuals (regardless of service) who make it to four star rank must have a world view and be capable of playing at that level.  Yes, there will be 'sour grapes' in those branches that don't get the top positions, but what stuck me the most was the inflated ego of some sailors.



Gates again turns to Navy for Joint Chiefs
The Defense secretary's pick causes unease especially with the Army, which is doing the bulk of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navy10jun10,0,5522637,full.story?coll=la-home-center

By Peter Spiegel, Times Staff Writer June 10, 2007

WASHINGTON — In choosing to recommend an admiral as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has for the second time given a high-profile job to someone from the Navy — a service that has, for the most part, worked only on the fringes of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The choice of Adm. Michael G. Mullen comes just five months after Gates surprised many in the military, including some members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by picking an admiral to become the new head of Central Command. Adm. William J. Fallon is the first Navy officer to head the Pentagon headquarters responsible for the Middle East, which now oversees the two major wars.

Pentagon watchers said the choice of the so-called sea services — including the Marine Corps, whose Gen. James E. Cartwright was chosen as the Joint Chiefs' new vice chairman — for the military's most difficult assignments was a testimony to the Navy's growing reputation as the most intellectually rigorous of the services.

"There's no obvious reason a Navy guy would be put in charge of Centcom, or why we would have two sea service people replacing two other sea service people at the top of the Joint Chiefs," said Loren B. Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based military think tank. "But the reality is that they seem to be able to work with big ideas and big political leaders better than the other services."

The decision has caused some consternation within the other services, particularly the Army, which is doing the bulk of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. There also have been grumblings within the Air Force, whose only current regional command is in North America.

One command coveted by the Air Force was the headquarters of what is generally regarded as the second-most difficult regional command: the Pacific. For that position, Gates once again turned to the Navy, tapping Adm. Timothy J. Keating.

Although four-star Army generals are the ground commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan, some Army advocates say that the service has been unfairly shortchanged because it was disparaged by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld as a hidebound organization unable to adjust to modern, expeditionary warfare.

Asked what accounted for the lack of Army officers in high-profile interservice, or "joint," commands, retired Army Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey said simply: "Rumsfeld bias."

Rumsfeld and his civilian aides "set in motion for five years a series of decisions that discredited Army leadership," McCaffrey said. "It strikes me as extremely unusual that the principal load-bearing institution of national defense is the U.S. Army; Rumsfeld thought it was irrelevant at best."

One example of a respected Army officer who has failed to be appointed to a top command, current and former Army officials said, is Gen. Richard A. Cody, a decorated Apache helicopter pilot who led the first attack on Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War.

Cody, the Army's vice chief of staff who has won widespread credit within the Pentagon for publicly acknowledging Army failures in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal, was expected to be promoted to any number of recent command jobs. But Army officials said his independence and his repeated insistence that the Army should be enlarged antagonized Rumsfeld, costing Cody a command assignment.

The rise of Naval officers under Gates, some analysts said, is also a reflection of the growing administrative power of the Pentagon's No. 2 civilian, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England, who spent two years as Navy secretary early in the Bush administration. Because Gates has focused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in his brief tenure, England has been left to handle many of the department's internal operations.

Navy officers say their worldview is uniquely fitted for the current environment, in which threats are global and understanding foreign cultures is critical. Because Navy officers must constantly patrol the world's seas and regularly interact with international governments in ports abroad, they say, the Navy has developed a culture that is more open to a broader view of American power.

Gates cited that vision at a news conference Friday in which he announced Mullen's selection. He recounted a round of phone calls made to the service chiefs by his top military aide, who had just returned to Washington after a tour in Iraq.

"He asked Adm. Mullen what was the thing he was most concerned about. The chief of naval operations said: the Army," Gates recalled. "He has a broad view of what the needs and requirements of the services are, and of the nation, and I think he brings also a tremendous strategic sense."

One Navy officer, who asked not to be named when discussing interservice rivalries, said a broader worldview is bred into sailors early in their careers, adding that even relatively junior Navy officers can find themselves commanding a ship alone on the open seas and be forced to make quick decisions without the aid of superiors.

The Navy officer said that even senior Army officers, such as a colonel commanding a 3,500-soldier brigade, are constrained by other brigades on the battlefield and are trained to be part of a larger war effort, which occasionally inhibits their ability to see the bigger picture.

McCaffrey disputed the view that the Army is narrowly focused on big set-piece warfare to the exclusion of broader global concerns, noting that the service has dealt with worldwide threats in the past.

"Iraq looks more like the Philippines in 1901 than some new form of warfare," McCaffrey said. "We've been doing counterinsurgency, humanitarian operations, peacekeeping for generations, and doing pretty well."

 

[tomahawk6]

Its kind of funny because I have always viewed the Navy has being too parochial. The Navy like the Air Force are entranced by technology gold platted ships and planes. They couldnt design a cheap aircraft or ship to save their life. The Army on the other hand is a manpower intensive organization. What the Navy spends to build a destroyer would almost run an Army division for a year.

I wasnt happy with the decision to make Pace Chairman. He knew his way around the puzzle palace but that doesnt make you a great Chairman. Selecting Mullen as Chairman is not exactly an out of the box decision. As CNO he is responsible for cost overruns in the LCS program and LPH program to name just two. If it had to be an Admiral maybe Keating would have been a much better choice or an officer with special operations experience. Many of the Army Generals selected by Rumsfeld are not very inspiring. LTG Honore would have been a great selection as he is charismatic and thinks very fast on his feet.

 

[MarkOttawa]

General Retreat
Secretary of Defense Levin picks a new war leader.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010196

There's a rumor going around that Robert Gates is the Secretary of Defense. We'd like to request official confirmation, because based on recent evidence the man running the Pentagon is Democratic Senator Carl Levin of Michigan. For that matter, is George W. Bush still President?

We can't help but wonder after the Bush Administration's refusal last week to renominate Marine General Peter Pace to a second two-year term as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mr. Gates had earlier sent the names of General Pace and his deputy, Admiral Edmund Giambastiani, to the White House for approval as his choices for the nation's top two non-civilian military posts. Mr. Bush had agreed.

But then on Friday, Mr. Gates, or some impersonator, declared at a Pentagon press conference that he had decided not to renominate the two men because he wanted to avoid a "quite contentious" debate on Capitol Hill over Iraq. Mind you, said Mr. Gates, his decision had "absolutely nothing to do with my view of General Pace's performance or that of General [sic] Giambastiani whatsoever."

It's just that General Pace was Vice Chairman for four years and has been Chairman for two more, and was one of Mr. Bush's main Iraq war generals. So Mr. Gates, the ostensible leader of our fighting men and women, concluded that he didn't want to do any political fighting of his own for General Pace. The veteran of combat in Hue City, and the first Marine to hold the Chairman's job, will now be the shortest-serving Chairman in more than 40 years...

Mr. Gates seems to think he can succeed as the anti-Rumsfeld by appeasing the likes of Mr. Levin, but his kowtow only makes Mr. Bush look weaker as a Commander in Chief who can't even select his own war generals. Mr. Levin was quick to brag about his latest conquest, confirming for reporters that he had told Mr. Gates that General Pace's nomination would have resulted in a fight. The Democrat will now return Mr. Gates's favor by holding Senate hearings on the Administration's detainee and interrogation policy. Mr. Levin is seeking thousands of documents to further embarrass Mr. Bush, and we're told Mr. Gates is urging the White House counsel's office to accommodate the Democrat.

The irony is that Mr. Pace is less responsible for our Iraq troubles than is General George Casey, who Mr. Gates was happy to support for Army Chief of Staff this year despite similar Democratic threats. As lead U.S. commander in Iraq in 2006, General Casey always had one eye on a U.S. exit and failed to counter the spread of sectarian warfare. He also opposed the current "surge" in Baghdad, while General Pace, whatever his private advice, has been a loyal public supporter of Mr. Bush.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Blackadder1916]

Pace says he declined to voluntarily retire
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/06/ap_pacerefusal_070615/
By Robert Burns - The Associated Press Posted : Friday Jun 15, 2007 13:40:01 EDT
 
WASHINGTON — In his first public comments on the Bush administration’s surprise decision to replace him as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace disclosed that he had turned down an offer to voluntarily retire rather than be forced out.

To quit in wartime, he said, would be letting down the troops.

Pace, responding to a question from the audience after he spoke at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Va., on Thursday evening, said he first heard that his expected nomination for a second two-year term was in jeopardy in mid-May. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on June 8 announced Pace was being replaced.

“One thing that was discussed was whether or not I should just voluntarily retire and take the issue off the table,” Pace said, according to a transcript released Friday by his office at the Pentagon.

“I said I could not do that for one very fundamental reason,” which is that no soldier or Marine in Iraq should “think — ever — that his chairman, whoever that person is, could have stayed in the battle and voluntarily walked off the battlefield.

“That is unacceptable as a leadership thing, in my mind,” he added.

Pace, whose current term ends Oct. 1, said he intended to remain on the job until then. Navy Adm. Michael Mullen has been announced as President Bush’s choice to succeed Pace, who is the first Marine ever to hold the military’s top post.

The decision to drop Pace has fed the political debate in Washington over the Iraq war. On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid caused a stir when he said Pace had failed in his job of providing Congress a candid assessment on the war. Democrats typically have shied from stinging comments about military officers, instead focusing criticism on Bush and administration policies in Iraq.

Asked for comment on Reid’s statement, a spokeswoman for Pace, Marine Col. Katie Haddock, said Pace “is focused on his duties as chairman and is not going to respond to press reports on who’s saying what. He will let 40 years of service speak for itself.”

A Vietnam veteran, Pace indicated in his Norfolk comments that his experience in that war colored his decision not to quit voluntarily.

“The other piece for me personally was that some 40 years ago, I left some guys on the battlefield in Vietnam who lost their lives following 2nd Lt. Pace,” he said. “And I promised myself then that I will serve this country until I was no longer needed — that it’s not my decision. I need to be told that I’m done.

“I’ve been told I’m done.

“I will run through the finish line on 1 October, and when I run through the finish line I will have met the mission I set for myself,” he said.

Pace was vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs during the run-up to the Iraq war and during the early years of a conflict that has dragged on far longer than the administration foresaw. In October 2005, he succeeded Air Force Gen. Richard Myers as Joint Chiefs chairman, and until recently had largely been spared the war-related criticism that senior civilian officials attracted.

The decision to sideline Pace came as a surprise, since Gates had previously indicated privately that he intended to recommend that the president re-nominate him. In his remarks in Norfolk, Pace confirmed that Gates had told him he preferred to keep him as chairman but in mid-May began to see signs of opposition on Capitol Hill.

When he announced the decision last Friday, Gates said that after consulting with members of the Senate, he concluded that sticking with Pace would risk a Senate confirmation struggle focusing on the Iraq War.

“It would be a backward-looking and very contentious process,” Gates said. At the same time, he made clear he had made his decision with reluctance, saying he wished it had not been necessary.

“I am no stranger to contentious confirmations, and I do not shrink from them,” Gates said. “However, 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 his remarks in Norfolk, Pace said Gates had accurately portrayed what transpired.

“He brought me in the office and sat me down and said ‘Pete, this is what’s happening. I want to re-nominate you. I want you to know that this is what I’m beginning to hear, this is what I’m going to go do, this is how I’m going to go do it.”’

“He went out and did exactly what he said on television, and exactly what he’s been saying in his interviews, which is he went out and pulsed various members of Congress and he heard back from them the things that he said that he heard,” Pace said.

At that point, Pace said, he assured Gates that he was willing to go through even a contentious confirmation process.

“I also told him that what he needed to do, in my opinion, was what was best for the institution, and whatever he and the president decided was going to be best for the institution was what Pete Pace was going to do,” he said. “Oh and by the way, I can read the Constitution, which says the president gets to nominate and the Senate gets to confirm, or not, and neither one of those two things is going to happen, therefore I’m not staying.”

 

[Yrys]

another article, same subject :

Head of US military 'forced out'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6759115.stm

The US military's outgoing top commander, Gen Peter Pace, says he opposed the decision to replace him
at the end of his first term. Gen Pace said he did not resign voluntarily as he felt this would be "unacceptable"
for him as a leader. "I've been told I'm done," he said. His term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is to end in October.

Washington said last week it would not seek another term to avoid a "divisive" confirmation process in Congress. The
Bush administration has faced several challenges on Iraq in recent months from Congress, which is now controlled
by the Democrats.

Gen Pace has been involved in all the controversial decisions surrounding the US military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He is regarded as a close ally of former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who resigned last year amid criticism
of his handling of the Iraq war.

Senate criticism

Gen Pace told an audience at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia, that he felt resigning during a war
would be a betrayal of his troops. "One thing that was discussed was whether or not I should just voluntarily
retire and take the issue off the table," he said. But, he said, he rejected this because he did not want anyone
under his command to "think - ever - that his chairman, whoever that person is, could have stayed in the battle
and voluntarily walked off the battlefield."

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates last week said he had intended to seek another two-year term for Gen Pace
but chose to avoid a "a backward-looking and very contentious process". He recommended Adm Michael Mullen,
the current chief of naval operations, as his replacement. He said Adm Mullen had the "vision, strategic insight
and integrity to lead America's armed forces".

On Thursday, Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took the unusual step of openly criticising Gen Pace.
Senator Reid said he had told Gen Pace "he had not done a very good job of speaking out for some obvious things
that weren't going right in Iraq".

 

[Yrys]

Top Middle East military commander resigns

Adm. Fallon had run Central Command, called ‘difficult to replace’

WASHINGTON - Adm. William Fallon is stepping down as head of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees military matters in the Middle East,
Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Tuesday.

Gates said that Adm. William J. Fallon had asked for permission to retire and that Gates agreed. Gates said the decision, effective March 31, was entirely
Fallon’s and that Gates believed it was “the right thing to do.” Fallon was the subject of an article published last week in Esquire magazine that portrayed him
as opposed to President Bush’s Iran policy. It described Fallon as a lone voice against taking military action to stop the Iranian nuclear program.Fallon, who
is traveling in Iraq, issued a statement through his U.S. headquarters in Tampa, Fla.

'Distraction' cited

“Recent press reports suggesting a disconnect between my views and the president’s policy objectives have become a distraction at a critical time and hamper
efforts in the Centcom region,” Fallon said. “And although I don’t believe there have ever been any differences about the objectives of our policy in the Central
Command area of responsibility, the simple perception that there is makes it difficult for me to effectively serve America’s interests there,” Fallon added.

Gates described as “ridiculous” any notion that Fallon’s departure signals the United States is planning to go to war with Iran. And he said “there is a misperception”
that Fallon disagrees with the administration’s approach to Iran. “I don’t think there were differences at all,” Gates added.

Fallon has had a 41-year Navy career. He took the Central Command post on March 16, 2007, succeeding Army Gen. John Abizaid, who retired. Fallon previously served
as commander of U.S. Pacific Command. Gates said that until a permanent replacement is nominated and confirmed by the Senate, Fallon’s place will be taken by his top
deputy, Army Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey.

'Cumulative kind of thing'
The secretary called Fallon a very able military strategist and said his advice will be missed at the Pentagon.

“I think this is a cumulative kind of thing,” said Gates, speaking of the circumstances leading up to Fallon’s decision. “It isn’t the result of any one article or any one issue.”

“As I say, the notion that this decision portends anything in terms of change in Iran policy is, to quote myself, ‘ridiculous,’” he said.

Article on link


Another article : Loose lips at the Pentagon

 

[MarkOttawa]

From the Esquire article (it seems to me that Admiral Fallon may have not been completely on board regarding Iraq too, if the reporting is accurate):
http://www.esquire.com/features/fox-fallon-4

...
The rollback of Al Qaeda seems to be both real and continuing, save for the border region of Pakistan. And to gain greater flexibility to plan for the region, Fallon says that he is determined to draw down in Iraq. One of the reasons Fallon says he banished the term "long war" from Centcom's vocabulary is that he believes real victory in this struggle will be defined in economic terms first, and so the emphasis on war struck him as "too narrow." But the term also signaled a long haul that Fallon simply finds unacceptable. He wants troop levels in Iraq down now, and he wants the Afghan National Army running the show throughout most of Afghanistan by the end of this year [emphasis added]. Fallon says he wants to move the pile dramatically in the time he's got remaining, however long that may be. And he gets frustrated. "I grind my teeth at the pace of change."

Freeing the United States from being tied down in Iraq means a stronger effort in Afghanistan [emphasis added], more focus on Pakistan, and more time spent creating networks of relationships in Central Asia...

See also p. 3 of the piece for the Admiral in Afstan.
http://www.esquire.com/features/fox-fallon-3

Mark
Ottawa