Topic: U.S. Army Chief In Europe To Run NATO Afghan Unit

New York Times
January 15, 2008
Pg. 8
By Michael R. Gordon
WASHINGTON — Gen. David D. McKiernan is expected to be appointed as the next commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, American military officials said Monday.
General McKiernan oversaw the allied ground attack that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. He has held a variety of senior posts and is the commander of American Army forces in Europe. He is likely to assume his new command in June and is to replace Gen. Dan K. McNeill.
By all accounts, it will be a challenging assignment. United States and allied forces face a resilient Taliban, as well as Qaeda militants, who have been operating from sanctuaries in northwestern Pakistan. But NATO nations have had to carry out their mission short of combat troops and trainers.
General McNeill recently requested that some 3,200 additional troops be sent, according to Defense Department officials. The Pentagon is expected to announce a decision on the request on Tuesday.
The NATO force in Afghanistan numbers about 40,000, of which 14,000 are Americans. Separately, the United States has 12,000 troops who are carrying out a counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan.
General McKiernan entered the Army in 1972. In the months before the Iraq war, he pressed to begin the war with a greater number of troops than authorized in the plan he had inherited.
General McKiernan was never a favorite of former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, and after the invasion he was made the deputy head of the Army’s Forces Command, which oversees the training of American troops in the United States. In 2005, he was awarded a fourth star and made the head of American Army troops in Europe.
His European experience will be a plus in dealing with NATO’s disparate forces in Afghanistan. During the 1990s, he was a senior officer with allied forces in Bosnia and later was deputy chief of staff of American Army operations in Europe.
Among his other posts, he has been commander of the First Cavalry Division and the Army’s chief of operations.