More like rats deserting a sinking ship if you ask me.

d

PS: SecCode "please" as in, well, "please".

Retirement? I don't buy it. He was either fired like Powell and Comey for not following orders or pushed out like Rumsfeld to become a scapegoat or provide the public with an empty gesture of change.

It also seems odd Pace is making his next career move allegedly based on financial concerns when considering the fact that most military officals that have risen to the highest levels have done so based on the notion of selfless acts of dedication and service over their own personal financial gains.

Like always, this announcement is sure to filled with half-truths...like he'd secure benefits for leaving and somebody wanted him out or wanted to bring in someone more compliant.

Gates admitted he didn't renominate Pace because he thought the confirmation hearing in the Senate would be difficult. I got news for him; as Joe said above, whomever is nominated is going to get a new one torn for themselves as proxy for Bush, Cheney, Gates, et. al. I can't wait to see it! I'll bring the popcorn, OK?

d

get
a
clue

He'll end up serving exactly two years, which is the term for the JCS. He's just not signing on for a second term, as is usual. September 30, is his last day.

Pace is being replaced by a Naval Admiral because attacks on Iran will be made from Navy aircraft and submarines (which we were informed last year were being armed with nuclear warheads). This portion of the Bush war will require naval war strategy so it's unlikely Pace is leaving for any/ all reasons put forward. -- It's far worse.

Re, Chris: "Pace is being replaced by a Naval Admiral because attacks on Iran will be made from Navy aircraft and submarines ..."

Note that Petraeus, now in charge in Iraq, commanded the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)—nicknamed the “Screaming Eagles”— which is an elite airborne division of the United States Army primarily trained for air assault operations. (There was a lot of speculation when he took over that it was a step toward attacking Iran.)

So, 1+1=2. Or perhaps we should say it equals 3, as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran. Cheney is most definitely in charge.

Agree 100% that this is another shell game. It gives some smoke and mirrors for Bush to point at and claim "change" and once again only serves to run out the clock a few more months so he doesn't have to withdraw any troops. Plus, Pace being a career miltary man may have infuriated "the decider" by suggesting that the troops were stretched too thin. Bush gets a two-fer.

Sorry, I hate when people post their SC, but mine is "same" as in same shit, different day...

I think we might be missing something. One of my primary fears is that Bush/Cheney will move on Iran sometime before they leave office in January 2009. One key, to me, will be to note who and how many among the current military leadership "retires." I fully believe that if we start to see senior generals "retiring" en masse, that could signal the Bush cabal is planning an imminent attack on Iran.

"Maybe Gates has a clue and wants to get rid of the dead thinkers and the yes men."

If he did that, there'd be no one left!

d

I'm surprised someone of Pace's integrity lasted as long as he did. I suspect someone is still po at Pace for not supported "The Iranians are doing it" BS.

Another career ruined by the worst leader in American history. Another good soldier taken down for following the orders of our criminally incompetent commander in chief. The body count is really getting impressive. Bush takes no prisoners. No one gets out alive.

Pace may have been a Kool-Aid drinker, but he was never a bootlicker as Clare stated above. Twice he publicly contradicted Rumsfeld. Once over torture and once over intel on the alleged Iranian EFDs in Iraq. Now I do not know much about bootlicking, but I would opine that daring to differ with the Secretary of Defense during a press conference should not be defined that way.

mike42

At this rate of "retirement" we'll soon have 2nd Lts. running the military.

Posted by: Dennis
Date: June 8, 2007 02:53 PM

There aren't enough of them, as middle officers have been quitting in droves.

How about having something to do with that letter he wrote on behalf of Scooter Libby? Interesting that he retires as soon as it becomes public. I called two Senators and a Member of the House over that one and pitched a fit over his very official appearing letter.

What an imagination! A four-star general being concerned about retirement benefits, just like all those yokels reading about it who are now unemployed or working for Chinese, Korean or Indian firms.

Claptrap. General Pace can readily make a seven-figure income for three to five years after retirement, "consulting" with think tanks, sitting on boards of directors of defense contractors, and making the paid rounds on the rubber chicken circuit.

Retirement benefits? What will the propagandists suggest next? That Mr. Bush thinks independently of Cheney, or that Cheney respects the law and Constitution?

Where was Pace during the reviews of Guantanamo prisoner abuse? I'm not impressed with his leadership; nor with his lap-dog approach to things.

Maybe when we get a straight story why the JAGs were shut out, and Pace refused to stand up to the Geneva vioaltions, I might wish him well in returenment. Until then, he appears to have been complicit with a war crimes coverup; or, at a minimum, activity which failed to ensure Geneva was fully enforced.

Pace doesn't appear to have had a record of challenging the lazy American lawyers in the White House who said Geneva vioaltions were "just fine," or for those lawyers who turned their back on NSA-FISA violations.

Pace seems to have said, "Whatever you want on NSA violations" while Comey and others in DoJ refused to go along. PACe seems to have permitted NSA to do things which should have been blocked. So much for civilian control of the military; time for the public to impose lawful consequences on the President through statate prosecutions of a sitting President. Also, both the DNC and GOP civilian leadership in Congress needs to be targeted for oath of office violations for their failing to ensure this President was held to account.

I go with Chris Goulding's viewpoint that an attack on Iran using naval weaponry is on Cheney's agenda with no doubt whatsoever. Whether or not Cheney gets his way is perhaps not a given, but the chess pieces are being put in place to take out Iran's nuclear capacity and the move of an admiral to chairman of JCS is on a par with the movement of a carrier group into attack position.

Re: takeover of our gov't since 9/11? How about a slow motion coup d'etat that started with the killing of JFK in 1963 and culminated with the theft of the election in 2000? I don't know if that was the plan when Kennedy got wasted, but I can look around at the government we've got today and clearly see the net effect. The coup was carried out so incrementally that we didn't even notice, just like Theodore Roszak predicted back in the 'seventies in "Where The Wasteland Ends."

By the way, I'm wondering if Chris Goulding is the same Goulding who went from the Cleveland Plain Dealer to DOD in LBJ's day? If so, his words deserve heightened attention 'cause he's been there and done that.

Does anyone else find it interesting that Pace is departing just as the whole "War Czar" office is going live? Those who noted General Pace's having flagrantly contradicted Rumsfeld during a press conference are right. And it isn't just pace. General Petraeus himself said that he gives the "surge" a 25% chance of success. I see a lot of skepticism among the Generals. Bush/Cheney see it too. It may be that many functions traditionally associated with the Joint Chiefs are being quietly moved into the domain of the "War Czar", who is answerable to the White House, and independent of the services.

Admiral Tweedledum replaces General Tweedledee. They're both nothing but a couple of "ticket punchers" marching over the dead and wounded bodies of Americans and Iraqis. Don't mean shit!