Guantanamo general won't receive post in Pakistan
WASHINGTON - When the Pentagon announced in March that Major General Jay W. Hood would become the senior officer based in Pakistan, it reflected the military's aim to put a crisis-tested veteran in a critical job at a pivotal time in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan's tribal areas.
But nearly two months later, the military has quietly canceled Hood's assignment after the 33-year Army officer was excoriated in the Pakistani news media for one of his previous jobs: commander of the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
During Hood's command from 2004 to 2006, military authorities force-fed with tubes detainees who were engaging in hunger strikes, a step they justified as necessary to prevent the prisoners from committing suicide. Also during Hood's tenure, reports that an American guard may have desecrated a Koran stirred wide protests in the Islamic world.
The decision to withdraw Hood's assignment has not been announced, but it appears to reflect the widening shadow that the Guantanamo military prison is casting over US foreign policy. While the United States considers Pakistan an ally in its counterterrorism efforts, the accounts by those who have returned to Pakistan after being held at Guantanamo Bay have added to anti-American sentiment in the country.
Several leading Pakistani military and foreign affairs commentators had denounced Hood's selection in recent weeks, calling on the new government to block his appointment. In interviews this week, US military officials said they had reluctantly concluded that Hood's effectiveness could be seriously hindered, and that his personal safety might even be at risk if he were to take up the post in Islamabad. About 65 detainees at Guantanamo Bay have been repatriated to Pakistan, according to Commander Pauline Storum, a military spokeswoman.
It is not clear whether Pakistan's new government requested that the appointment be canceled. But yesterday, a spokesman for the Pakistani Foreign Ministry, Mohammed Sadiq, told reporters that the government was "fully cognizant of the public sentiments and sensitivities regarding the reported transfer of General Hood to Islamabad."
Until a few years ago, a colonel typically directed the office. But in a sign of Pakistan's strategic importance in the Bush administration's campaign against terrorism, the job was upgraded to a two-star general after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The current head of the office, Major General James R. Helmly, had been scheduled to leave at the end of May. No replacement for Hood has been named.
