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Senate leader criticizes Pace, Petraeus

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday he had lost confidence in Gen. Peter Pace and was happy to learn the four-star general will not remain chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Reid also said he was concerned Gen. David Petraeus might not be offering an honest assessment of the Iraq war.

Such a stinging critique of the military’s top leadership is rare on Capitol Hill, where members traditionally reserve such attacks for civilian policy-makers and mostly praise uniformed officers for their service to the nation.

Pace “had not done a very good job in speaking out for some obvious things that weren’t going right in Iraq,” said Reid, D-Nev.

Regarding Petraeus as Iraq war general, Reid said, “I’m waiting to see if (he) can be a little more candid with us.”

Reid stopped short of calling Pace incompetent and declined to confirm a report in “The Politico” that he had done so earlier in the week in a private phone call to a group of liberal bloggers. The article prompted White House spokesman Tony Snow to blast Reid for insulting U.S. military leaders. Then, Snow acknowledged, he didn’t know if Reid actually said them.

“In a time of war, for a leader of a party that says its supports the military, it seems outrageous to be issuing slanders toward the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and also the man that is responsible for the bulk of military operations in Iraq,” Snow said at his daily briefing.

“Indeed, Sen. Reid has at some point declared the war lost and also has declared the surge a failure, even though it has not yet been fully enacted,” Snow said, referring to President Bush’s decision to send more troops to Iraq.

Snow later added: “I don’t know if it’s true or not. If it is true, I certainly hope he does apologize.”

On Friday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the stunning announcement that he would not recommend Pace to serve a second two-year term as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Marine Corps four-star general had not previously been a target of Democrats’ ire on the war, but Gates said lawmakers made it clear the confirmation process would be ugly.

“It would be a backward looking and very contentious process,” Gates said at a Pentagon news conference.

The announcement was a surprise, particularly because the Senate in recent months confirmed other military officers with close ties to the Iraq war with little fuss.

In an interview with reporters this week, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said Pace’s nomination would have been more contentious than other uniformed officers because he was the closest military adviser to the president on a failing war.

Levin also noted the White House had hammered Democrats for approving Petraeus’ nomination earlier this year while opposing the general’s recommendation to send more troops to Iraq.

“So by the president’s and the White House’s own logic, a vote for or against Pace then becomes a metaphor for where do you stand on the way the war is handled,” Levin said.

Reid, D-Nev., said he was particularly concerned about Petraeus’ recent comment that there are “astonishing signs of normalcy” throughout the majority of Baghdad. Petraeus was quoted in USA Today this week as saying, “I’m talking about professional soccer leagues with real grass field stadiums, several amusement parks, big ones, markets that are very vibrant.”

Reid said the remark “gives you a feeling that he’s not in touch with what is really going on in Iraq or just trying to make the president feel good.”

Reid’s comments triggered an angry backlash from at least one Republican.

“The debate about this war has gone into the gutter when the Democrat leader of the United States Senate uses ‘disparaging remarks’ to describe our military leadership,” said Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky.

Sen. John Warner, the no. 2 Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said congressional leaders should be allowed to speak freely on their assessment of military officers but indicated he was concerned that any suggestion Pace was incompetent could undercut the morale of the troops.

“How this will affect the troops remains to be seen,” Warner said. “But that is a factor I hope (Reid) weighed before making that statement.”

Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher said Wednesday she thought Pace was guilty of a dereliction of duty because of his support for President Bush’s Iraq policy. Tauscher, D-Calif., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said Pace lost standing among members in March when he said homosexual acts were immoral and that the military should not condone the behavior by letting gays.