White House
General McChrystal summoned to White House over Rolling Stone interview
The top US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has been ordered to the White House to explain his criticism of the President and his senior advisers in an interview in Rolling Stone magazine.
"McChrystal has been directed to attend (Wednesday's) monthly meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan in person to explain to the Pentagon and the commander in chief his quotes in the piece about his colleagues," a White House official said.
In a profile in Rolling Stone, General McChrystal critcised Vice President Joe Biden, who has been sceptical of the general's war strategy, and imagined ways of "dismissing the vice president with a good one-liner."
McChrystal also told the magazine that he felt "betrayed" by the US ambassador to Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, in a White House debate over war strategy last year.
And an unnamed adviser to General McChrystal told the magazine that the general came away unimpressed from a meeting with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office a year ago.
"It was a 10-minute photo op," the general's adviser said.
"Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was ... he didn't seem very engaged."
Another aide called the national security adviser, Jim Jones, a "clown" who was "stuck in 1985".
General McChrystal has apologised for his remarks to the magazine.
"I extend my sincerest apology for this profile," he said in a statement issued hours after the article, entitled The Runaway General, was released.
"It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened."
General McChrystal, a former special operations chief, usually speaks cautiously in public and has enjoyed mostly sympathetic US media coverage since he took over the Nato-led force last year.
In Brussels, Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen indicated support for the US commander, expressing full confidence in General McChystal and his strategy.
"The Rolling Stone article is rather unfortunate, but it is just an article," Mr Rasmussen's spokesman said.
(Published by The Australian – June 22, 2010)