{"id":333,"date":"2007-09-10T11:11:34","date_gmt":"2007-09-10T15:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=333"},"modified":"2007-09-10T11:13:46","modified_gmt":"2007-09-10T15:13:46","slug":"fallon-his-sword","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=333","title":{"rendered":"Fallon His Sword"},"content":{"rendered":"

he Washington Post rolled out a<\/title>The <em>Washington Post<\/em> rolled out a big headline about new fissures within the Bush administration: “<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/09\/08\/AR2007090801846_pf.html\">Among Top Officials, ‘Surge’ Has Sparked Dissent, Infighting<\/a>.”<\/p>\n<p>Echoes of the early days, perhaps, when Right Arabists like Scowcroft, Baker, and Powell battled Cheney, Rumsfeld and their Right Zionist allies for control of Bush administration foreign policy.<\/p>\n<p>But for those who focus on the significance of factionalism, rifts, schisms, splits, rivalry and fissures the echoes turn out to be rather faint.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the article–with a byline that appears to include the entire <em>WaPo<\/em> staff–provides a broad review of Iraq policy in the second Bush term.<\/p>\n<p>One portion of the article does explain the headline and presents relatively weak evidence of a new “clash” that would ostensibly pit CENTCOM commander Admiral William J. Fallon, the Joint Chiefs, and Defense Secretary Gates against a small number of “surge” enthusiasts that include Bush, presidential counselor and PR guru Ed Gillespie and, presumably, General Petraeus.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[A] clash over the U.S. venture in Iraq… has been building since \tFallon, chief of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees Middle East \toperations, sent a rear admiral to Baghdad this summer to gather \tinformation. Soon afterward, officials said, Fallon began developing plans \tto redefine the U.S. mission and <strong>radically draw down troops<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>One of those plans, according to a Centcom officer, involved slashing U.S. \tcombat forces in Iraq by three-quarters by 2010. In an interview, <strong>Fallon \tdisputed that description<\/strong> but declined to offer details. Nonetheless, \this efforts offended Petraeus’s team, which saw them as unwelcome intrusion \ton their own long-term planning. The profoundly different views of the U.S. \trole in Iraq only exacerbated the schism between the two men.<\/p>\n<p>“Bad relations?” said a senior civilian official with a laugh. “That’s the \tunderstatement of the century. . . . If you think Armageddon was a riot, \tthat’s one way of looking at it”…<\/p>\n<p>[R]ather than heed calls for withdrawal, [Bush] opted for a final gambit \tto eke out victory, overruling some of his commanders and the Joint Chiefs \tof Staff and ushering in a new team led by Fallon, Petraeus, Crocker and a \tnew defense secretary, Robert M. Gates….<\/p>\n<p>As <strong>Petraeus<\/strong> settled into his new command, he <strong>decided to press \tfor 8,000 additional support troops<\/strong> beyond the 21,500 combat forces the \tpresident had committed. Just a week earlier, Gates had told Congress that \tonly 2,000 or 3,000 more might be needed. As he reviewed a briefing sheet in \tpreparation for more testimony, <strong>Gates was annoyed<\/strong> to see a larger \trequest buried on the page. He fumed that “this is going to make us look \tlike idiots,” said a defense official. <strong>But Gates got Petraeus the troops<\/strong>….<\/p>\n<p>Fallon, who took command of Centcom in March, worried that Iraq was \tundermining the military’s ability to confront other threats, such as Iran. \t“When he took over, the reality hit him that he had to deal with \tAfghanistan, the Horn of Africa and <strong>a whole bunch of other stuff besides \tIraq<\/strong>,” said a top military officer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fallon was also derisive of Iraqi leaders’ intentions and competence, and \tdubious about the surge<\/strong>. “He’s been saying from Day One, ‘This isn’t \tworking,’ ” said a senior administration official. And Fallon signaled his \tdeparture from Bush by ordering subordinates to avoid the term “long war” — \ta phrase the president used to describe the fight against terrorism.<\/p>\n<p>To Bush aides, <strong>Gates did not seem fully on board with the president’s \tstrategy, either<\/strong>. As a member of the congressionally chartered Iraq \tStudy Group before his selection to head the Pentagon, Gates embraced \tproposals to scale back the U.S. presence in Iraq. Now that he was in the \tCabinet, he kept his own counsel.<\/p>\n<p>But he <strong>consulted regularly with former national security adviser Brent \tScowcroft<\/strong>, a noted critic of the Iraq war; told Army audiences privately \tthat a troop decrease was inevitable; and tried to avoid Sunday talk shows \tduring the fight over the war spending bill to preserve relations with \tlawmakers, according to administration sources. “With Fallon, it’s pretty \tmuch in your face,” said a senior official. “Gates is quieter.”<\/p>\n<p>A Pentagon official said Gates is “very concerned about all of our energy” \tbeing devoted to Iraq…<\/p>\n<p>Petraeus was doing his part in Baghdad, hosting dozens of lawmakers and \tmilitary scholars for PowerPoint presentations on why the Bush strategy had \tmade gains….<\/p>\n<p>Bush made a surprise visit to Anbar where he met with Maliki and the \tothers to congratulate them, then met with the sheiks to highlight the \tsuccess of the U.S.-tribal coalition.<\/p>\n<p>The trip energized Bush and his team. <strong>Even Gates said he was more \toptimistic<\/strong> than he has been since taking office. While the secretary had \tbeen “cagey” in the past, a senior defense official said, “he’s come to the \tconclusion that what Petraeus is doing is actually more effective than what \the thought.”<\/p>\n<p>But the trip did not end the debate. <strong>Fallon has made the case that \tPetraeus’s recommendations should consider the political reality in \tWashington and lay out a guide to troop withdrawals, while Petraeus has \tresisted<\/strong> that, beyond a possible token pullout of a brigade early next \tyear, according to military officials. <strong>The Joint Chiefs have been \tsympathetic to Fallon’s view<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview Friday, Fallon said he and Petraeus have reached \taccommodation about tomorrow’s testimony. “The most important thing is I’m \tvery happy with what Dave has recommended,” he said. As for the earlier \tdiscussions, he begged off. “It’s too politically charged right now.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What does all that amount to?<\/p>\n<p>Probably not much.\u00c2\u00a0 Critics should not take much comfort in the idea that they have allies “on the inside.”<\/p>\n<p>Are there some elements of the military brass who favor a “radical” drawn down of troops?\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe.\u00c2\u00a0 And it is possible that Fallon has been “captured” by this crowd.\u00c2\u00a0 But it wasn’t long ago that critics were thinking of Fallon as an administration stooge.<\/p>\n<p>Back in March 2007, Craig Unger wrote in <em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/politics\/features\/2007\/03\/whitehouse200703?printable=true&currentPage=all\"> Vanity Fair<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[The idea of a surge] was sharply at odds with the consensus forged by \tthe top brass in Iraq. Iraq commander General George Casey and General John \tAbizaid, the head of Central Command (CentCom), had argued that sending \tadditional troops to Iraq would be counterproductive. (Later they both \treversed course.)…<\/p>\n<p>Soon, it would be announced that Casey and Abizaid were being replaced with \t<strong>more amenable officers<\/strong>: Lieutenant General David Petraeus and Admiral \tWilliam J. Fallon, respectively. The escalation was on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Maybe Fallon has proven less “amenable,” after all.<\/p>\n<p>There have been other reports in the past that would lead critics to invest considerable hope in Fallon.<\/p>\n<p>Gareth Porter filed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ipsnews.net\/print.asp?idnews=37738\"> one such report<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Fallon… [sent] a strongly-worded message to the Defence Department in \tmid-February opposing any further U.S. naval buildup in the Persian Gulf as \tunwarranted.<\/p>\n<p>“He asked why another aircraft carrier was needed in the Gulf and insisted \tthere was no military requirement for it,” says the source, who obtained the \tgist of Fallon’s message from a Pentagon official who had read it.<\/p>\n<p>Fallon’s refusal to support a further naval buildup in the Gulf reflected \this firm opposition to an attack on Iran and an apparent readiness to put \this career on the line to prevent it. A source who met privately with Fallon \taround the time of his confirmation hearing and who insists on anonymity \tquoted Fallon as saying that an attack on Iran “will not happen on my \twatch”.<\/p>\n<p>Asked how he could be sure, the source says, Fallon replied, “You know what \tchoices I have. I’m a professional.” Fallon said that he was not alone, \taccording to the source, adding, “There are several of us trying to put the \tcrazies back in the box.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Be that as it may, the “dissent” reported by the <em>Washington Post<\/em> seems pretty weak.<\/p>\n<p>Gates is portrayed as being something less than “fully on board,” <em>but<\/em> he is also depicted as delivering the troops and coming around to a more “optimistic” view of the surge.\u00c2\u00a0 Hardly the stuff of factional sabotage.<\/p>\n<p>And Fallon is hardly channeling Cindy Sheehan.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, he seems pretty pleased about the surge.\u00c2\u00a0 Consider an excerpt from his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenewstribune.com\/tacoma\/24hour\/iraq\/story\/147920.html\"> recent remarks<\/a> to the Commonwealth Club of California:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Adm. William Fallon, the head of U.S. Central Command, said his trips to \tIraq have convinced him momentum has shifted away from the insurgents.<\/p>\n<p>“In the less than six months I’ve been in this job, I have seen a \tsubstantial change and it gives me some significant optimism that <strong>this \tplace may just work out the way we had envisioned, or some had envisioned, \twhen the tasks were undertaken<\/strong>,” Fallon said in remarks to the \tCommonwealth Club of California, a public affairs forum.<\/p>\n<p>“What’s going on now in the security business in Iraq is that things are \tsubstantially improved,” he said. “By almost any measure, any statistical \tanalysis of what’s happened in the last few months, there’s been an \timprovement.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And, as I noted in <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=290\">a previous post<\/a>, Fallon hardly counts himself among those leading the charge against the Maliki government.\u00c2\u00a0 Indeed, if <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/05\/10\/AR2007051002506_pf.html\"> his own account of his conversations with Saudi King Abdullah<\/a> are credible, Fallon basically told the Saudis to go to hell.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, Fallon \tsaid the king told him \u00e2\u20ac\u0153several times\u00e2\u20ac\u009d during their April 1 discussion that \tU.S. policies \u00e2\u20ac\u0153had not been correct in his view.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153He also told me that he had severe misgivings about the Maliki government \tand the reasons for that,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Fallon added. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He felt, in his words, that there \twas a \u00e2\u20ac\u2122significant linkage to Iran.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 He was concerned about Iranian \tinfluence on the Maliki government and he also made several references to \this unhappiness, uneasiness with Maliki and the background from which he \tcame.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>In a message that U.S. officials said will be underscored by Cheney, Fallon \tsaid he urged the king to show some support for the Iraqi leadership even if \the does not like Maliki, because it is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153unrealistic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to expect a change in \tthe Baghdad government.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not going to be the puppeteers here,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Fallon told the Senate \tcommittee\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Just to review, then: Fallon is pleased with the surge and has been resisting Sunni Arab pressure for an anti-Shiite coup in Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>With dissent like that, who needs unity?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>he Washington Post rolled out aThe Washington Post rolled out a big headline about new fissures within the Bush administration: “Among Top Officials, ‘Surge’ Has Sparked Dissent, Infighting.” Echoes of the early days, perhaps, when Right Arabists like Scowcroft, Baker, and Powell battled Cheney, Rumsfeld and their Right Zionist allies for control of Bush administration […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}