The Bush administration is replacing Gen. Peter Pace, the nation’s top military officer, completing a revamping of the four-star generals who ran the Iraq war under former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced on Friday at the Pentagon that Pace, the first Marine named chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will not be renominated by President Bush for a second two-year term in September, as is traditional.
Instead, Bush will nominate Adm. Michael Mullen, the current chief of naval operations, as Pace’s successor. The nomination must be confirmed by the Senate.
Gates said that earlier this year, he had planned to keep Pace. But he said after consultations with congressional Democrats and Republicans “I concluded that … the focus of his confirmation process would have been on the past rather than the future, and further that there was the very real prospect the process would be quite contentious.”
When he retires in September, Pace will become the first two-year joint chiefs chairman since Gen. Maxwell Taylor retired in 1964 during the Vietnam War. All other chairmen, except one acting chairman, served over two years, and most of them for four years.
Pace’s retirement will complete a clean sweep of the four-star generals who ran Iraq policy in the darkest days of the war. Since the 2003 invasion, al Qaeda bombings, insurgent attacks and sectarian violence have killed more than 3,500 American service members and pushed Baghdad into chaos.
Earlier this year, Bush replaced Army Gen. John Abizaid as chief of U.S. Central Command with Navy Adm. William Fallon, who had been Pacific commander.
The president also transferred Army Gen. George Casey, who was the top officer in Iraq, to Army chief of staff. He was replaced by Army Gen. David Petraeus, who is now commanding a make-or-break reinforcement by nearly 30,000 new American troops designed to secure Baghdad.
Shelving Pace was not totally unexpected.
Pace was a vocal supporter of Rumsfeld when Democrats, and some Republicans, called for his firing over failures in Iraq. Some officers privately grumbled that a joint chiefs chairman, who is the president’s top military adviser, should refrain from what can appear to be political statements.
Pace was also closely tied to Iraq policy, from the war’s inception in 2003 when he served as joint chiefs vice chairman to the troubled post-Saddam Hussein period when he served as chairman.
But Gates said Friday, “It has absolutely nothing to do with my view of General Pace¹s performance.” Gates said Adm. Edmund Giambastiani Jr., joint chiefs vice chairman, also will retire rather than be renominated to a second term. His replacement: Marine Gen. James Cartwright, now commander of U.S. Strategic Command.
In recent weeks, as the deadline neared on the decision to renominate Pace, Gates’ aides pointedly did not endorse him. When Gates was asked at a news conference last month if Bush would renominate Pace, the defense secretary was noncommittal.
