Joint Chiefs chair to be replaced

WASHINGTON -- In a surprise announcement, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday he would not renominate Marine General Peter W. Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a tacit acknowledgment that the war in Iraq needs new leadership -- and a move that avoids a tough Senate fight that probably would have become a referendum on the war.

Pace, a 40-year Marine Corps veteran and the nation's top military officer, will retire in the fall, Gates said, and Admiral Michael G. Mullen, the chief of US naval operations, would be nominated to replace him.

At a Pentagon news conference yesterday, Gates said he had been prepared to keep Pace as chairman for another two-year term, but changed his mind after discussions with US senators, who must confirm the appointment. Gates said bluntly that those conversations convinced him that hearings to reconfirm Pace would be "quite contentious" and could turn into a bitter public debate on Iraq.

"The events of the last several months have simply created an environment where I think there would be a confirmation process that would not be in the best interests of the country," Gates said. "I am disappointed that circumstances make this kind of a decision necessary."

Since the US invaded Iraq in 2003, more than 3,500 US troops have died and public support for the war has plummeted. As the fledgling Iraqi government has struggled to assert its authority, sectarian violence has raged across the country, killing tens of thousands of Iraqis. President Bush recently sent more than 30,000 additional troops in what is seen as a last-ditch effort to establish order.

Some Pentagon analysts believe Gates decided to let Pace go because he wanted a fresh voice as his senior military adviser. During his tenure, Pace was closely identified with the war: Since 2001, he had been deputy chair or chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the military planned and carried out wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he had vigorously defended the Iraq war to reporters and before Congress.

"For six years, Peter Pace has been hugely implicated in everything we've done over that period, not all of which we've done well," said Michael E. O'Hanlon , a foreign policy specialist at The Brookings Institution , a liberal Washington think-tank. "Obviously, Gates has had his qualms, too."

In a press release issued yesterday, Senator John F. Kerry said the White House sacrificed Pace to dodge an open debate on the war.

"It is a sad state of affairs when this administration withdraws a general they believe is qualified simply to avoid having to publicly defend their failed Iraq policy," the Massachusetts Democrat said. "Congress has an obligation to ask tough questions about Iraq, and the architects of this war have an obligation to answer them openly and honestly."

Like most top military officers at the time, Pace did not object to Rumsfeld's plan to invade Iraq with a relatively small force and without a detailed plan to rebuild the country after toppling Saddam Hussein. Selected by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and confirmed by a Republican-controlled Senate, Pace was a staunch supporter of the Bush administration's approach with the Iraq war, even as casualties mounted and the public began to urge a withdrawal of the troops.

President Bush, who was in Europe yesterday for the end of the Group of Eight summit, said in a statement that Pace had performed his duties "superbly" and that he had "relied on his unvarnished military judgment" as commander in chief.

Despite widespread public opposition, the president has strongly rejected Democrats' attempts to require a timetable for troop withdrawal, maintaining that the administration's plan to send additional troops to secure the country must be given time to succeed. The Pentagon is set to deliver an assessment of the strategy to Congress in September -- the same time lawmakers are scheduled to reauthorize funds for the war.

But Bush's nominee to be war czar, Lieutenant General Douglas E. Lute , told senators Thursday at a confirmation hearing that the increase in US troops in recent months has not significantly improved stability in Iraq, adding "we're not likely to see much difference in the security situation" a year from now.

In a closed session the same day, US intelligence officials told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Shi'ites, Sunnis, and Kurds -- Iraq's bitterly divided political factions -- could achieve reconciliation

Mullen, a graduate of the US Naval Academy, Harvard Business School, and the Naval Postgraduate School, is "very smart strategic thinker," Gates said yesterday. When one of his senior advisers first talked to Mullen and asked him his chief concerns, Gates said, "the chief of naval operations said the Army. So he has a broad view of what the needs and requirements of the services are and of the nation."

Raymond F. DuBois , a former top official under Rumsfeld from 2002 to 2005 and now a senior adviser at Center for Strategic and International Studies , a Washington think-tank, said that Mullen's broad view "was telling . . . of a man who is not parochial," who favors his branch of the armed services. "As a chairman of the Joint Chiefs, you have to have a non sectarian approach to life," he said.

But Moira Mack , spokeswoman for Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, an advocacy group, pointed to Mullen's comments to sailors in Hawaii last month as indicative that the administration planned no change in its Iraq strategy. Mullen was quoted in news reports as saying, "The enemy now is basically evil and fundamentally hates everything we are -- the democratic principles for which we stand. . . . This war is going to go on for a long time. It's a generational war."

"It's another example of how out of touch the president is with the public on Iraq, that he would appoint someone talking about a generational war," Mack said.

DuBois, though, said that Mullen and General James E. Cartwright -- Gates's nominee for vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs -- "were the strongest strategic thinkers in the top tier of uniformed leadership."

"There would have been ad hominem attacks on Pete Pace the man, the general, the Marine," DuBois said, noting that two key senators -- Hillary Clinton, a New York Democrat, and John McCain, an Arizona Republican -- want to be president.

"It is important to recognize the context, the times, the fact the Democrats are in charge of the Senate," he said, "and that one Democratic member of the Senate Armed Services Committee is running for president, and one Republican is running for president."

John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com