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Bush Making Changes in His Iraq Team
5.1.2007
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WASHINGTON, -
President Bush is planning to name a new ambassador
and will likely pick new military commanders for
Iraq as he prepares a new strategy for a worsening
war that has mired his administration.
The changes are part of a major realignment of
administration personnel as Bush seeks to adjust his
approach to Iraq, where nearly four years of a large
U.S. military presence has failed to bring stability
and an end to violence.
The current U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Ryan
Crocker, is expected to replace Zalmay Khalilzad in
Baghdad as U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Khalilzad is
expected to be nominated to be the next U.S.
ambassador to the United Nations, three senior U.S.
officials said on Thursday.
ABC News said Bush was expected to nominate Adm.
William Fallon, the top U.S. military commander in
the Pacific, to replace Gen. John Abizaid as the
head of U.S. Central Command, which is in charge of
U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And, Lt. Gen. David Petraeus was expected to become
the top ground commander in Iraq, replacing Gen.
George Casey, ABC said, citing unnamed officials. |
Admiral William J. Fallon (L) and Lt. Gen. David
Petraeus (R) in an undated composite image.
President Bush is planning to name a new ambassador
and military commanders for Iraq as he prepares to
make a fresh start on a worsening problem that has
mired his administration and threatens his legacy.
Photo: Reuters |
But there is little expectation that changing faces
will mean a radical shift in policy called for by
some opposition Democrats, who took control of the
U.S. Congress on Thursday after an election
dominated by the Iraq debate.
Bush is giving top consideration to a short-term
increase in U.S. troops to Baghdad but refused to
say on Thursday if it would be in the plan he will
announce next week. He has shown little inclination
to set a timetable to withdraw the 132,000 American
service-members now in Iraq.
"I'm in the process of making up my final decision
as to what to recommend, what recommendations to
accept," Bush said at the White House after talks
with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "One thing is
for certain, I will want to make sure that the
mission is clear and specific and can be
accomplished."
VIRTUALLY COMPLETE CHANGE
Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, who on Thursday
became first woman speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives, said November elections that
brought her party to power in the U.S. Congress
meant Americans wanted a change of direction.
"It is the responsibility of the president to
articulate a new plan for Iraq that makes it clear
to the Iraqis that they must defend their own
streets and their own security, a plan that promotes
stability in the region and a plan that allows us to
responsibly redeploy our troops," she said in her
inaugural speech.
Replacing Abizaid and Casey and giving Khalilzad a
new job would wrap up a virtually complete change of
top U.S. officials responsible for the prosecuting
the war and dealing directly with the
American-backed Iraqi government in Baghdad.
These expected changes follow the departure of
former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was
replaced with former CIA chief Robert Gates.
Khalilzad, who had also served as ambassador to
Afghanistan during Bush's first term, would replace
John Bolton, who left the U.N. post last week.
Michael Rubin, an adviser to the Coalition
Provisional Authority that administered Iraq after
the U.S. invasion in 2003, said replacing Khalilzad
was a positive move that "creates opportunities
which we can either seize or squander."
Khalilzad is a careful diplomat but his efforts to
draw Sunni Muslims into the Iraqi political process
have not been successful and his status as an
American Sunni Muslim gave some Iraqi Shi'ites an
excuse to accuse him -- erroneously -- of pro-Sunni
partisanship, said Rubin of the conservative
American Enterprise Institute.
Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign policy
at the American Enterprise Institute think tank,
said Petraeus is an experienced Iraq hand.
Reuters
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