Gates replaces top U.S. commander in Afghanistan

At a press briefing this afternoon, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that he was replacing the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. David McKiernan.  

McKiernan will be succeeded by Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who previously headed the Defense Department’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). 

"I made these decisions only after careful consideration of a great number of factors, including the advice of [Joint Chiefs chairman Adm. Michael] Mullen and [Centcom commander Gen. David] Petraeus," Gates said. "In the end, I believe my decisions are in the best interest of our national security and the success of our mission in Afghanistan."   

Sources said that McChrystal, who spent time in Iraq although JSOC is based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, is close with Genereal Petraeus. 

"The Special Operations Forces guys are more likely institutionally to get that they are working with the population, that killing folks is not the whole ball game," one government South Asia hand said on condition of anonymity. "They have door kickers but also are seen as anthropologists with guns."  

CSIS’s Karin von Hippel said she expects the McChrystal-Petraeus relationship to be critical. She also noted that Petraeus seems to be replicating in Afghanistan parts of the Iraq model he oversaw as the top four-star commander in Iraq, with two three-star generals – including then Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, reporting to him. 

Gates also announced that he was appointing his senior military advisor Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez to be the deputy commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.  

Gates traveled to Afghanistan last week. Notable in retrospect is that an American Foreign Press Service report on Gates’s two-day visit never mentions McKiernan once.

UPDATE: A senior Defense Department official who asked to speak on background said the decision to replace McKiernan preceded the U.S. air strikes last week that killed Afghan civilians:

It had nothing to do with that. Gates went over there to deliver this announcement to McKiernan last week. It had already been long decided. McKiernan himself knew two weeks ago when chairman [Mullen] gave him the heads up that Gates was going in this direction. The bottom line is that Gates has been thinking about this since the transition. We have a new policy, new stratetgy, new mission, new ambassador and it’s time for new military leadership as well. It’s not about anything McKiernan did or didn’t do.  It was the desire of the secretary to have new leadership in there to carry out the new policy. The US is putting 20,000 forces in there and the Secretary believes they deserve the very best leadership.

McChrystal and Rodriguez are universally regarded in this building as two of the premiere counterinsurgency commanders in the army. Both have Afghanistan experience. Both have been home for more than a year now and are both rested, ready and raring to go.

He further described McKiernan as more old school Army vs. McChrystal’s and Rodriguez’s being part of the counterinsurgency camp. But he said McKiernan has actually been quite forward-leaning in urging measures to prevent civilian casualties in Afghanistan.

Another administration official who asked for anonymity said McKiernan had rejected the support of a three-start general being added to his command structure, along the lines of the Petraeus-Odierno model in Iraq. He said that McKiernan had made very few changes to a strategy that was recognized not to be working for several months. He thought the administration had blown the chance to explain more about what it saw as shortcomings to the leadership in announcing his being replaced today.