By Madhoosier
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces, General Peter Pace, the President of the United States top military advisor, resigns, while the U.S. is fighting three wars and CNN covers Paris Hilton being transported to a hearing with the Judge that sentenced her to jail for 45 days. You've got to be kidding me.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated the reason for Pace to step down (the papers to nominate him for another term had already been drawn up) was that the renomination hearings in Congress would have been too “contentious.” Congress had indicated that they'd question the conduct of the war (seems reasonable as the conduct of the war to date has been a catastrophic failure) but Secretary of Defense Gates wanted to look forward, not backward. How often has the Bush administration made this exact mistake? Pace’s term ends in September of 2007, which also happens to coincide with the reevaluation of President Bush’s surge policy in Iraq.
It has been widely reported that there would be no attack on Iran so long as Pace was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs as in this quote from a timesonline article from Feb. 25, 2007.
"But General Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said recently there was “zero chance” of a war with Iran. He played down claims by US intelligence that the Iranian government was responsible for supplying insurgents in Iraq, forcing Bush on the defensive.
Hillary Mann, the National Security Council’s main Iran expert until 2004, said Pace’s repudiation of the administration’s claims was a sign of grave discontent at the top.
“He is a very serious and a very loyal soldier,” she said. “It is extraordinary for him to have made these comments publicly, and it suggests there are serious problems between the White House, the National Security Council and the Pentagon.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1434540.eceIt should be noted that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of the Armed forces serves at the pleasure of the Commander in Chief, President Bush. It is also of note that this announcement happened while Bush was overseas for the G-8 conference and virtually out of reach from the press.
It was also announced that General Pace was to be replaced by Admiral Mullen, another Navy man like Admiral Fallon, Commander of CentCom. the theater that includes Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.
It has long been questioned why Admiral Fallon, whose area of expertise was air warfare, would be placed in command of two ground wars. One would wonder why now a Navy man is nominated for Chairman of the Joint Chief while America is fighting two ground wars and the Global war on Terrorism. Did al Qaeda get a Navy?
Barbara Starr, CNN's Pentagon correspondent did note during CNN’s limited coverage of the story that Admiral Mullen was an expert on the Middle East and “kept a close watch on Iran.”
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