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Obama to confront McChrystal at White House
Loading ...President Barack Obama will confront his top Afghanistan commander on Wednesday before deciding whether to fire him over inflammatory comments that have angered the White House and threatened to undermine the war effort.
Summoned from Afghanistan to meet with Obama, Gen. Stanley McChrystal will be asked to explain remarks he and his aides made in a Rolling Stone magazine article that disparaged the president and mocked other senior civilian leaders.
The situation poses a tough dilemma for Obama, who faces the choice of either being seen as tolerating insubordination from the military or shaking up the chain of command at a perilous moment in the unpopular nine-year-old war.
Obama, described as furious about the article in private but speaking in measured tones in public, issued a stern rebuke to McChrystal and said he would talk directly to the general before making a final decision.
“I think it's clear that the article in which he and his team appeared showed poor judgment,” Obama told reporters after a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
U.S. officials said they expected McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan and architect of 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 has apologized. “It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened,” McChrystal said in a statement.
In the article entitled “The Runaway General” — here — McChrystal himself makes belittling remarks about Vice President Joe Biden and the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke. His aides are quoted as calling one top Obama official a “clown” and another a “wounded animal.”
Continue Reading at Obama to confront McChrystal at White House | Reuters.
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