Top US military officer sacked

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates announced on Friday he was replacing General Peter Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to avoid a divisive showdown in Congress focusing on the Iraq war.The surprise shake-up removes a general who has been at the centre of US military decision-making for the past six years, from the war in Afghanistan to the US-led invasion of Iraq.“I am disappointed that circumstances make this kind of a decision necessary,” Gates said of the loss of Pace, who has held the country's top military post since September 2005.The moves comes amid persistent difficulties in Iraq and sharpening political tensions at home with Congress already gearing up to receive a key progress report from US military commanders on the Iraq war in September.Gates said he had intended to name Pace to a second two-year term as chairman in September, but changed his mind after consulting members of Congress, who also already have an eye on the 2008 presidential polls.“I have decided that at this moment in our history, the nation, our men and women in uniform and General Pace himself would not be well served by a divisive ordeal in selecting the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” he told reporters.The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the president's chief military adviser and the senior most US military officer.In deciding to replace Pace with Admiral Michael Mullen, who is currently the chief of naval operations, Gates also had to replace Admiral Edmund Giambastiani as vice chairman so that the top two military positions would not both be held by naval officers.Giambastiani will be replaced by Marine General James Cartwright, currently the head of the US Strategic Command, which is responsible for US strategic nuclear forces.Gates insisted that his decision was no reflection on either Pace's or Gambastiani's performance, only of the political realities of getting them confirmed to a second term.He said he had spoken with Democratic and Republican senators over the past several weeks and came away convinced that “there was the very real prospect the process would be quite contentious.” “As I say, I just think that a divisive ordeal at this point is not in the interests of the country or of our military services, our men and women in uniform, or the individuals,” he said.“I wish that that were not the case. I wish it were not necessary to make a decision like this. But I think it's a realistic appraisal of where we are,” he said.Pace will step down in September after a distinguished 40 year career in the marines that began as the leader of a rifle platoon in Vietnam in 1968.He commanded US troops in Latin America, served as director of the Joint Staff, and was deputy commander of US forces in Somalia during an ill-fated intervention in the early 1990s.He was named vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff just weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, becoming the first marine in history to hold the post.Pace quickly became a favourite of then US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who raised his profile by sharing the podium with him at press conferences and Pentagon “Town Hall” meetings.Intense but criticised by some as too deferential, he rarely contradicted his boss in public.Gates had only high praise for him on Friday.“I have thoroughly enjoyed working with him, trust him completely and value his candour and his willingness to speak his mind,” he said.He said he consulted Pace and Giambastiani in selecting their successors.Mullen, a surface warfare commander who studied at Harvard Business School, served as commander of US naval forces in Europe and was in charge of NATO operations in the Balkans, Iraq and the Mediterannean.He became the chief of naval operations in July, 2005.Gates called him “a very smart strategic thinker, and I think he has a view of the interests of the services as a whole.” “So as we try to look to the future, in terms of where we need to be five years from now or 10 years from now, I think Admiral Mullen will bring a tremendous perspective,” he said.