US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has sacked the top commander in Afghanistan to make way for “new thinking” in the seven-year war that has struggled to halt a widening Taliban insurgency.
Gates, explaining on Monday his decision to replace General David McKiernan after less than a year on the job as the US and NATO commander, said “that our mission there requires new thinking and new approaches from our military leaders.”
He said he had tapped Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal, a former commander of special operations forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, to replace McKiernan.
PHOTO: AP
“Today, we have a new policy set by our new president. We have a new strategy, a new mission and a new ambassador,” Gates told a news conference. “I believe that new military leadership also is needed.”
The change comes as US President Barack Obama escalates the war against a spreading Taliban insurgency, approving deployments that will double the size of the US force in Afghanistan before he took office in January to 68,000 by the fall.
White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama agreed with the decision to replace McKiernan but “was grateful for and impressed by the leadership that General McKiernan demonstrated,” adding that the general had repeatedly pressed for a boost in troop numbers in Afghanistan.
The new commander will inherit growing instability in neighboring Pakistan and a public outcry among Afghans over rising civilian casualties from US air strikes.
As part of the overhaul of the US command, Gates said that he had named his military adviser, Lieutenant General David Rodriguez, to serve under McChrystal in a newly created position. Rodriguez previously oversaw operations in eastern Afghanistan.
The new Afghan war strategy places a heavy emphasis on special forces, the secretive side of counter-insurgency warfare that McChrystal specializes in, having served as a top special operations commander from 2003 to last year.
McKiernan’s career has been devoted to conventional warfare, including overseeing the US-led ground attack in Iraq in 2003.
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