US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has sacked the top commander in Afghanistan to make way for "new thinking" in the seven-year-old war that has struggled to halt a widening Taliban insurgency. Gates, explaining 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. "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 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," noting that the general had repeatedly pressed for a boost in troop numbers in Afghanistan.
The new commander will inherit growing instability in neighbouring 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 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.
McKiernan's career, however, has been devoted to conventional warfare, including overseeing the US-led ground attack that toppled Iraq's Saddam Hussein in 2003. Gates and Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, viewed the decision as a logical step after the White House arrived at a new strategy, a defence official said.
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