Toby Harnden in Washington, Telegraph/UK, June 22, 2010
“McChrystal has been directed to attend the monthly meeting [on Wednesday] on Afghanistan and Pakistan in person,” a senior American official said so the general could “explain to the Pentagon and the commander in chief his quotes in the piece about his colleagues”.
The decision over whether to fire Gen McChrystal, the architect of a new counter-insurgency strategy designed to turn around the nine-year Afghan war, for insubordination is one of the most momentous of Mr Obama’s presidency.
It comes at a time when his Afghan surge strategy is faltering. Gen McChrystal has delayed the summer offensive on Kandahar and said that Marja, which was “cleared” in a major operation at the start of the year, was a “bleeding ulcer”.
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