CommunityEditor
03-20-2008, 08:40 PM
Contradicting the conclusions published last week in a controversial magazine article, the top U.S. ground commander in Iraq said today he has the support of soon-to-be-ex-U.S. Central Command chief Adm. William Fallon and that the two leaders have had a “very, very good” relationship.
“There was friction in the beginning,” Army Gen. David Petraeus told CNN. “He has a different job than I have. There can be understandable differences of your take, if you will, on a situation.
“But I think if you ask him, he would agree that over the last six months in particular, the relationship has been very good and that he, again, could not have been more supportive in the last set of recommendations that we’ve already made, that we will continue to make, in fact, tomorrow with the secretary of defense and then the following week with the president.”
The article that precipitated Fallon’s resignation, published in Esquire, portrayed him as strongly opposed to the Bush administration’s aggressive verbal stance toward Iran. Fallon said that story and others suggesting such a disconnect had “become a distraction at a critical time” and prompted him to ask to leave the job and retire effective March 31.
The article claimed Fallon was brought to Central Command to “provide a check on the eager-to-please” Petraeus, that he was opposed to a long-term surge of troops in Iraq because it crimped U.S. ability to deploy meaningful ground forces to other trouble spots and that he’d had serious clashes with Petraeus over Iraq strategy.
While there was initial friction between the two men, Petraeus told CNN, “Over the last six months or so, our relationship was really very, very good. ... I just made the latest recommendations [on Iraq] to the Joint Chiefs and, as one of the participants in there told me later, [Fallon] could not have been more supportive. And that has characterized the relationship.”
Late last summer, similar claims arose in news stories and blogs as Petraeus prepared to come to Washington to deliver a widely anticipated assessment of the war and the administration’s surge strategy. Fallon told Military Times there had been some lively arguments but vehemently denied the two had a dysfunctional relationship.
Without mentioning any names, Fallon did publicly question the hawkish tenor of comments from Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in an Al-Jazeera television interview broadcast Sept. 23. “This constant drum beat of conflict ... is not helpful and not useful,” Fallon said.
In his statement announcing his intention to step down, Fallon said he didn’t think there had been any substantive differences about “the objectives of our policy in the Central Command area of responsibility” ... but that “the simple perception that there is makes it difficult for me to effectively serve America’s interests there.”
In the CNN interview, Petraeus deflected a question about war with Iran. “That’s not a question that I would deal with at all,” he said.
But Petraeus expressed deep concern about what he called continued Iranian meddling in Iraq that contradicted public promises by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a recent state visit to Iraq to stop such activity.
“The [Iraqi] foreign minister actually captured, I think, the sentiment brilliantly,” Petraeus said, “when he said during that visit, ‘`We welcome the religious pilgrims, we welcome Iranian money, we welcome Iranian goods and services, but we don’t welcome Iranian bombs, nor those trained in Iran.’
“They are a very serious concern,” Petraeus said. “The so-called special groups in particular, these Quds Force-supported elements that have without question — this is not supposition, it is not intelligence, it is a fact — that they have been trained, equipped, funded and are even directed by the Iranian Quds Force. We have detained a number of them. And, in fact, in recent weeks, we have picked up a number of weapons caches that include the explosively formed projectiles, rockets and mortars that clearly have come from Iran.”
Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2008/03/military_petraeus_031908/
“There was friction in the beginning,” Army Gen. David Petraeus told CNN. “He has a different job than I have. There can be understandable differences of your take, if you will, on a situation.
“But I think if you ask him, he would agree that over the last six months in particular, the relationship has been very good and that he, again, could not have been more supportive in the last set of recommendations that we’ve already made, that we will continue to make, in fact, tomorrow with the secretary of defense and then the following week with the president.”
The article that precipitated Fallon’s resignation, published in Esquire, portrayed him as strongly opposed to the Bush administration’s aggressive verbal stance toward Iran. Fallon said that story and others suggesting such a disconnect had “become a distraction at a critical time” and prompted him to ask to leave the job and retire effective March 31.
The article claimed Fallon was brought to Central Command to “provide a check on the eager-to-please” Petraeus, that he was opposed to a long-term surge of troops in Iraq because it crimped U.S. ability to deploy meaningful ground forces to other trouble spots and that he’d had serious clashes with Petraeus over Iraq strategy.
While there was initial friction between the two men, Petraeus told CNN, “Over the last six months or so, our relationship was really very, very good. ... I just made the latest recommendations [on Iraq] to the Joint Chiefs and, as one of the participants in there told me later, [Fallon] could not have been more supportive. And that has characterized the relationship.”
Late last summer, similar claims arose in news stories and blogs as Petraeus prepared to come to Washington to deliver a widely anticipated assessment of the war and the administration’s surge strategy. Fallon told Military Times there had been some lively arguments but vehemently denied the two had a dysfunctional relationship.
Without mentioning any names, Fallon did publicly question the hawkish tenor of comments from Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in an Al-Jazeera television interview broadcast Sept. 23. “This constant drum beat of conflict ... is not helpful and not useful,” Fallon said.
In his statement announcing his intention to step down, Fallon said he didn’t think there had been any substantive differences about “the objectives of our policy in the Central Command area of responsibility” ... but that “the simple perception that there is makes it difficult for me to effectively serve America’s interests there.”
In the CNN interview, Petraeus deflected a question about war with Iran. “That’s not a question that I would deal with at all,” he said.
But Petraeus expressed deep concern about what he called continued Iranian meddling in Iraq that contradicted public promises by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a recent state visit to Iraq to stop such activity.
“The [Iraqi] foreign minister actually captured, I think, the sentiment brilliantly,” Petraeus said, “when he said during that visit, ‘`We welcome the religious pilgrims, we welcome Iranian money, we welcome Iranian goods and services, but we don’t welcome Iranian bombs, nor those trained in Iran.’
“They are a very serious concern,” Petraeus said. “The so-called special groups in particular, these Quds Force-supported elements that have without question — this is not supposition, it is not intelligence, it is a fact — that they have been trained, equipped, funded and are even directed by the Iranian Quds Force. We have detained a number of them. And, in fact, in recent weeks, we have picked up a number of weapons caches that include the explosively formed projectiles, rockets and mortars that clearly have come from Iran.”
Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2008/03/military_petraeus_031908/