US president Barack Obama fired his top Afghanistan commander today over inflammatory comments that angered the White House and threatened to undermine the war effort.
Calling it the "right thing for our mission in Afghanistan," Mr Obama relieved General Stanley McChrystal of his command after a 30-minute meeting at the White House and named General David Petraeus, head of the US Central Command, to replace him.
The general had been summoned by Mr Obama to explain remarks he and his aides made in a magazine article that disparaged the US president and other senior civilian leaders.
"The conduct represented in the recently published article does not meet the standard that should be set by a commanding general," Mr Obama said in the White House Rose Garden.
"It undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system. And it erodes the trust that's necessary for our team to work together to achieve our objectives in Afghanistan," he said.
The situation posed a dilemma for Mr Obama. If Gen McChrystal had kept his job, the president could have been seen as tolerating insubordination from the military. But by firing him, Mr Obama is shaking up the chain of command at a perilous moment in the unpopular nine-year-old war.
Vowing not to tolerate divisions within his national security team, Mr Obama said the switch in generals was a "change in personnel but it is not a change in policy." There have been increasing doubts among US politicians about Mr Obama's troop buildup strategy against a resurgent Taliban.
Gen McChrystal first met Defence Secretary Robert Gates at the Pentagon before entering the White House through a side door for his one-on-one meeting with Mr Obama. He left before Mr Obama's Afghanistan war council, which he had been due to attend, convened in late morning.
Mr Obama had been described by aides as furious about the Rolling Stone magazine article, but said in his Rose Garden appearance that he was not acting out of a feeling of personal insult.
Amid harsh criticism over Gen McChrystal's contemptuous remarks, US officials had said they expected the general, the US and Nato commander in Afghanistan and architect of Mr Obama's war strategy, to offer his resignation and allow the president to decide whether to accept it.
With his career on the line, the 55-year-old general apologised. "It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened," Gen McChrystal said in a statement.
Reuters