Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced yesterday that Marine Gen. Peter Pace will step down as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in September, a move that Gates said will avoid the contentious congressional hearings that would be needed to reconfirm the nation's top military officer. Pace will leave after just two years in the post, the shortest stint as chairman in more than four decades.
The surprise announcement yesterday at the Pentagon amounts to Pace being fired before a customary second two-year term. He has served as the top military adviser to President Bush and the defense secretary since 2005, leading a war effort that has frustrated the American public and appears no closer to a conclusion.
Gates said that his decision was rooted in political considerations and that he took guidance from members of Congress who warned that Pace could face a maelstrom on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers would dissect the military's failures in Iraq. Pace has been at the center of war planning and policy since the days immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when he started as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
Pace's departure -- along with the simultaneous retirement of Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, his vice chairman -- ends a nearly clean sweep of top military advisers linked to the tenure of former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Both military officers were close to Rumsfeld and have been criticized for not challenging him.
In office since Rumsfeld was ousted after the November elections, Gates has shown a desire to distance himself from Rumsfeld's Pentagon. Since he arrived, new commanders have moved into Iraq and U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, and the White House has added Army Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute to a unique position coordinating war policy. As he noted yesterday, Gates had planned to retain both Pace and Giambastiani but decided against that when it became clear that Pace would face a difficult reconfirmation hearing.
Gates said his decision had "absolutely nothing to do with" his view of either officer's performance.
"I think that the events of the last several months have simply created an environment in which I think there would be a confirmation process that would not be in the best interests of the country," Gates told reporters at the Pentagon during an afternoon news conference. "I am disappointed that circumstances make this kind of a decision necessary."
Gates said he has recommended that Bush nominate Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chief of naval operations, as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs for a term beginning Oct. 1. Mullen is the longest serving of the service-branch chiefs of staff, taking the top Navy position in July 2005. Gates also recommended that Marine Gen. James Cartwright, now head of Strategic Command, be nominated to replace Giambastiani.
I think what we're seeing here is another series of Bush administration house cleaning of the Pentagon, replacing former generals who were involved in the PNAC neocon invasion planning of Iraq, with a new set of generals who will end up harping the same Bush PR-strategy of continuing the war in Iraq until President Bush leaves office. And it is not just house cleaning to replace military generals with Bush "yes men." According to the WaPost:
Richard Kohn, a military historian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, predicted that the moves probably will not change the course of U.S. military affairs. "It's largely symbolic," Kohn said. Yet as a symbol, the ousting of the two top officers in the U.S. military establishment is striking, he said, "particularly as another reminder that Mr. Rumsfeld and his methods and style are now gone."
Gates contacted senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee in recent weeks and heard bipartisan warnings that hearings for Pace could go badly. Yesterday, senators soundly praised Pace for his 40 years of service, but many Democrats expressed a desire to move toward new leadership. Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he had solicited the opinions of a broad range of his colleagues in response to a request from Gates about a possible hearing this summer.
"I found that the views of many senators reflected my own, namely that a confirmation hearing on General Pace's reappointment would have been a backward-looking debate about the last four years," Levin said in a statement.
[....]
But congressional staffers said there was concern from both parties that Pace's confirmation hearing could evoke bitter debate about Iraq war policy. Some said Pace's recent comments to reporters at the Chicago Tribune about the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, in which he said homosexuality was immoral, would also be a distracting issue.
"It was apparent to people on both sides that this was going to get ugly, and not just over Iraq," said one staffer.
There is a couple of things in this WaPost story that really caught my eye. The first is how the WaPost is spinning this story of Pace's resignation as cleaning out former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's "people," and replacing them with Gates' "people." The subtle message here is that by replacing the top military commanders who worked for, and may have been loyal to, Rumsfed, with military commanders who are loyal to Gates, there is the perception that the Democratic Congress will continue the Bush administration's pro-war strategy in Iraq--but under a new military management. In other words, this becomes another Bush PR argument for continuing the Iraq war, since the war is now being run by Gates' military commanders rather than Rumsfeld's military commanders.
The second thing I noticed in this WaPost story is about Pace's renomination hearings. By replacing Pace with Mullen, the Bush administration would not have to endure a Senate confirmation hearing of Pace that will bring up a whole host of issues on the Iraq war--from the invasion planning, the reconstruction, intelligence failures, the insurgency, Abu Ghraib prison scandal, Gitmo, and so much more. By replacing Pace with Mullen, the Bush administration is hoping that the Congressional Democrats will concentrate on Mullen's service record, rather than asking Mullen about his military and policy views on the Iraq war. Again, it is a CYA PR-strategy by the Bush White House.
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