Admiral Fallon is cut adrift

Admiral William Fallon, USN lasted less than a year as commander of Centcom. His boss, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, has outdone his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, at reminding everyone about the concept of civilian control over the military. Many critics of Mr. Rumsfeld accused him of berating his generals and admirals and of swatting away their advice. But when it comes to summarily terminating and sending into retirement the very top brass, Mr. Gates has tallied an impressive total during his relatively short time in office.

Although today’s statements by both Secretary Gates and Admiral Fallon attempted to minimize any differences in policy views between the Bush administration and Admiral Fallon, calling the problem just “misperceptions,” it seems clear that Admiral Fallon was either hostile to the Administration’s approach to Iran policy, or was contemptuous of his civilian masters. Secretary Gates called Admiral Fallon’s offer of resignation and retirement “the right thing to do.”

There had to be something deeper than a mere problem of misperception between Admiral Fallon and the Administration. If, as Secretary Gates said at today’s news conference, that Admiral Fallon “is enormously talented and very experienced, and he does have a strategic vision that is rare,” one would think that a joint press conference or two with Secretary Gates and Admiral Fallon would have cleared up all of the “misperceptions” and allowed the “enormously talented,” “very experience,” and “rare” Admiral Fallon to get back to work fixing the Centcom AOR. Secretary Gates made no effort to salvage Admiral Fallon, cutting him loose just as he did with General Pace. It would have seemed a minor problem to fix the “misperception” if that is all there was. The fact that no such effort was made indicates that a deeper and irreparable rift existed.

Secretary Gates reminded everyone, including the remaining generals and admirals, that “we have a lot of very talented senior military officers, so I'm confident we'll be able to find a -- a skilled and qualified replacement.”

Who will be that replacement? I will be very surprised if it is not General James Mattis, USMC, currently the commander of Joint Forces Command. His biography shows his preparation for the Centcom billet.

POSTSCRIPT

Don’t miss the transcript to Secretary Gates’s press conference on Admiral Fallon’s removal, or the video presentation at the DoD website. Secretary Gates appears as a mild-mannered Midwesterner. But it should also be clear that he is decisive and ruthless, at least when it comes to body counts at the Pentagon.