Obama remakes Afghan war braintrust

US Marines on patrol in Helmand Province © AFP/File Adek Berry

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama will Thursday unveil new military and diplomatic commanders for the increasingly unpopular US Afghan war effort, in a sweeping reshuffle of his national security team.

Obama will use a White House Rose Garden event to nominate a new defense secretary, ambassador to Kabul and top war commander, engineering a shake-up permitted by the June retirement of powerful Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

The president will recall talismanic General David Petraeus from Afghanistan to head the CIA in place of veteran Washington bureaucrat Leon Panetta, who will be nominated as defense secretary as Obama seeks Pentagon spending cuts.

Petraeus, who commands NATO’s Afghan war operations and won political kudos by masterminding the Iraq troop surge strategy, will be replaced by Lieutenant General John Allen, deputy head of US Central Command, officials said.

One of America’s most grizzled diplomats, Ryan Crocker, will come out of retirement in the academic world and be entrusted with the often fractious US relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai as ambassador in Kabul.

Officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the personnel shakeup ahead of Obama’s official announcement following months of speculation on who would hold critical posts during the rest of the president’s term.

The moves could permit the White House to exert more leverage over the Pentagon on Afghan war policy, at a time when Obama is seeking to transfer more security authority to Kabul authorities to pave the road home for US troops.

Politically powerful Petraeus and the defense department have been cool to Obama’s vow to begin a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in July, despite White House assurances a drawdown will be conditions-based.

The scope of the Afghanistan revamp was revealed on a day when nine Americans died when an Afghan man opened fire at a Kabul training center, in an incident underscoring continuing instability in the country.

A senior US official said that Obama had selected the “strongest possible team” of deeply experienced operators.

Panetta, 72, who will be the oldest man to take up the post of defense secretary and the first Democrat for more than a decade, may be one of the few men in Washington with the credentials and political weight to succeed Gates.

A holdover from the Republican administration of George W. Bush who emerged as a critical player in Obama’s team, Gates forged a strong alliance with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and was respected across political divides.

Panetta, a former White House chief of staff and California congressman, will need all his organizational wiles to implement Obama’s demand for 400 billion dollars in Pentagon cuts as he seeks to trim the huge budget deficit.

All of Obama’s appointees, to be formally unveiled at the White House on Thursday, require Senate confirmation, seen largely as a formality.

The immediate reaction to Obama’s moves on Capitol Hill was warm.

“This team will provide the leadership to help make our nation safer,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, an influential Republican on national security matters.

Peter King, Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security committee, said he strongly supported Obama’s moves.

Senior administration officials dismissed suggestions the appointment of a top military officer would revive Washington turf battles between military and espionage professionals over strategy and the use of intelligence.

Crocker, who retired from the foreign service several years ago, will inherit a relationship strained by often testy exchanges between Karzai and current US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry.

“The president has nominated a person with deep experience in the region and tremendous experience and success with political military efforts,” the senior official said of Crocker.

Apart from the top defense job, a number of crucial national security posts are coming open in the next several months, including the military’s top officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, who finishes his term in September.

As for Petraeus, some former CIA officials and analysts have touted the general as a perfect fit for the spy agency, citing his work with intelligence operatives battling Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and elsewhere, as well as his experience in Washington’s policy debates.

© AFP — Published at Activist Post with license