Washington, November 13: Aides to General Stanley McChrystal yesterday condemned the intervention of US ambassador and former military man Karl Eikenberry in the debate on troop reinforcements as nothing short of a military betrayal.
“He ambushed us” and “he went behind our backs” were two complaints widely repeated in Kabul. The US commander of Nato forces himself was said to be “fuming”.
The remarkable spectacle of Washington’s top two men in Afghanistan, feuding in public is not just a matter of policy; there is a personal dimension too. This is not the first time that the two West Point graduates have failed to see eye-to-eye.
During his military career Lieutenant-General Eikenberry completed two tours of Afghanistan. During the second the pair clashed when General McChrystal – who was at that time leading clandestine operations in Iraq and Afghanistan – repeatedly pushed for commando operations. Mr Eikenberry was said to have resisted them because of the risk of unacceptable levels of civilian casualties.
–Agencies