This all comes back to a Presidential administration that thinks it knows more about war fighting than the men and women in uniform. In May 2007, shortly after his confirmation as CENTCOM Commander, Inter Press Service wrote of Admiral William Fallon:
Fallon's refusal to support a further naval buildup in the Gulf reflected his firm opposition to an attack on Iran and an apparent readiness to put his career on the line to prevent it. A source who met privately with Fallon around the time of his confirmation hearing and who insists on anonymity quoted Fallon as saying that an attack on Iran "will not happen on my watch".
Asked how he could be sure, the source says, Fallon replied, "You know what choices I have. I'm a professional." Fallon said that he was not alone, according to the source, adding, "There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box."
We have a military that knows it’s being led by chickenhawks. Unfortunately, today it seems as though the "crazies" may have succeeded in taking down another highly-esteemed senior military officer. Add him to the list: Abizaid, Eaton, Batiste, Sanchez, and now Fallon.
Fallon, apparently, wasn’t able to get those crazies back in the box quickly enough, and his efforts cost him his job. Let down by a weak Congress and cornered by the Bush administration after the publication of the Esquire piece, Admiral Fallon appears to have resigned in protest.
Jon Soltz says as much on Huffington Post:
Just one year into his tenure as CENTCOM commander, Fallon resigned today, and you can read into it nothing more than a resignation in protest.
Sure, he'll try to put a good face on it, as a loyal Admiral, and the Pentagon will insist that he was stepping aside to help the team. But that's not the case. The fact of the matter is that the war in Iraq has taken precedence over the war on terror, and the administration has put General Petraeus out there to make the case for our military policy, not his boss, Admiral Fallon.
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The only reason -- ONLY reason -- that Fallon wasn't put out there was because he didn't believe Iraq was making America safer, and knew that Iraq was a drain on the war in Afghanistan. He wasn't going to put his neck out there and repeatedly shill for the administration. At the same time, like many brass, he was going to give his best shot, behind the scenes, to change the policy.
Now, it's become clear that the policy won't change. So, today, Admiral Fallon essentially said, "Forget this. I'm out of here."
But what makes this drama truly unsettling is the fact that Thomas Barnett, writing for Esquire Magazine, plainly telegraphed this turn of events nearly a week ago:
How does Fallon get away with so brazenly challenging his commander in chief?
The answer is that he might not get away with it for much longer. President Bush is not accustomed to a subordinate who speaks his mind as freely as Fallon does, and the president may have had enough.
He continues in disturbing detail:
But still, well-placed observers now say that it will come as no surprise if Fallon is relieved of his command before his time is up next spring, maybe as early as this summer, in favor of a commander the White House considers to be more pliable. If that were to happen, it may well mean that the president and vice-president intend to take military action against Iran before the end of this year and don't want a commander standing in their way.
And so Fallon, the good cop, may soon be unemployed because he's doing what a generation of young officers in the U. S. military are now openly complaining that their leaders didn't do on their behalf in the run-up to the war in Iraq: He's standing up to the commander in chief, whom he thinks is contemplating a strategically unsound war.
Our nation is certainly in a more precarious position this afternoon than we were this morning. It’s clear that Admiral Fallon didn’t have enough support—both institutionally and politically—to "put the crazies back in the box." We must now hope that other senior-level officers will react to this alarming move by stepping up and standing up to the worst Commander-in-Chief in American history. And we must expect the Congress to back them up. Though that may be asking too much.