Who's in charge -- generals or Obama?
By: David Rogers
December 6, 2009 10:34 PM EST
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, goes before Congress this week, and with him comes this question: Whos really in charge here, the generals or President Barack Obama?
The long-awaited hearings, beginning Tuesday before the House and Senate Armed Services committees, are a bookend of sorts to Obamas address last Tuesday at West Point committing 30,000 more troops to the war effort in Afghanistan. Implicit in the presidents decision is an effective cap of about 100,000 for the American force, but top Democrats fear that unless Obama is more assertive, the military chain of command will undermine his July 2011 target to begin some U.S. withdrawal.
The presidents decision is already being softened and made mush of, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) told POLITICO. And within the House and Senate Appropriations committees, senior Democrats themselves veterans of past wars have grown increasingly concerned by the political clout of a generation of younger, often press-savvy military commanders.
McChrystal and his strong ally, Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the U.S. Central Command, are quotable stars in todays modern media; their wartime budgets not only are large but also give them exceptional discretion that is the envy of their foreign policy partners in the State Department. ...
