US military advice to Obama should remain private: Gates

~AFP

The US military’s advice to President Barack Obama on Afghanistan should be candid but private, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday, in a rebuke to the commander who has openly declared his stance on war strategy.

Referring to pivotal White House discussions on the war, Gates said: “It is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations, civilians and military alike, provide our best advice to the president, candidly but privately.”

Although Gates did not mention General Stanley McChrystal by name, his remark appeared aimed at the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan who has made his views on strategy known in media interviews and a high-profile speech in London last week.

Gates’s comment, delivered in a speech to the Association of the US Army, echoed criticism on Sunday from retired general James Jones, Obama’s national security adviser.

Jones told CNN on Sunday: “It is better for military advice to come up through the chain of command.”

McChrystal last week dismissed an alternative to the current manpower-intensive strategy under discussion at the White House, saying such an approach using a smaller ground force was “short-sighted.”

Obama met with McChrystal briefly on Friday aboard his plane in Copenhagen.

Gates defended the pace of deliberations at the White House, despite criticism from Republicans in Congress demanding the president act quickly on a request for more troops from McChrystal.

“I believe the decisions that the president will make for the next stage of the Afghanistan campaign will be among the most important of his presidency,” Gates said in his speech.

“So it is important that we take our time to do all we can to get this right.”

In an apparent reference to tensions between senior US military officers and the White House over war strategy, Gates said the military would carry out the president’s decisions on Afghanistan without hesitation.

“And speaking for the Department of Defense, once the commander in chief makes his decisions, we will salute and execute those decisions faithfully and to the best of our ability,” he said.

The defense secretary said the war in Afghanistan was on a “worrisome trajectory,” with violence levels up some 60 percent compared to last year.

Gates, whose opinion could prove crucial in Obama’s final decision about strategy and troops, has yet to publicly declare if he supports deploying more American forces to the NATO-led mission.