When a new US commander takes over the war in Afghanistan, his arrival will herald a broader shake-up as the Pentagon seeks to raise its game and devote more of its best people to taking on the Taleban. US Army Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal could take charge in Kabul as soon as this week if the US Senate approves his nomination and promotion to four-star general in the next few days. But Washington also plans to revamp the structure of the NATO force McChrystal will command, under changes set to be approved by alliance defense ministers in Brussels this week. Lieutenant General David Rodriguez, a former US and NATO commander in eastern Afghanistan who now serves as Defense Secretary Robert Gates' right-hand military man, will take on a powerful new post as McChrystal's deputy. Rodriguez will effectively run day-to-day war operations, leaving McChrystal to focus on strategy and other tasks such as liaising with Afghan and NATO leaders and pushing forward the training of Afghan security forces. “What I would like to aspire to is that he would... be in operational command of the regional commands,” McChrystal said of Rodriguez at his Senate confirmation hearing last week. “That would allow me to look at the strategic level and the interface, and he would do the maneuvering,” said McChrystal, a workaholic veteran of the secretive world of special operations who is currently director of the Pentagon's Joint Staff. The planned structure draws heavily on US experience in Iraq, where the top commander delegates operational control to a three-star general with his own headquarters. Sense of urgency The decision last month to dismiss US Army General David McKiernan as the top commander in Afghanistan and, effectively, replace him with not one but two highly rated generals reflects a sense of urgency in the Obama administration about the war. With insurgent violence on the rise, US officials have acknowledged they are not winning in Afghanistan. They also know support in Congress will be severely tested if US fortunes do not improve as mid-term elections loom next year. Pentagon chief Gates has instructed McChrystal and Rodriguez to conduct a 60-day review to ensure the United States is making the most of its forces on the ground. The appointment of McChrystal and Rodriguez also reflects the administration's decision to set Afghanistan as its top military priority. Under President George W. Bush, Afghanistan came a distant second to Iraq when troops and other resources were allocated. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has told McChrystal he can have his pick of officers on his staff for the Afghan mission. “The chairman gave him permission to take the top talent from the Joint Staff that he felt he needed,” said Navy Captain John Kirby, a spokesman for Mullen. McChrystal has already selected US Army Major General Michael Flynn, the top intelligence officer on the Joint Staff, to join him in Kabul. McChrystal is also hoping to boost substantially the specialist knowledge of US officers deployed to Afghanistan when it comes to culture, geography and language. In his Pentagon job, he has been developing a plan under which officers will build up such knowledge over years, alternating between deployments in the field and desk jobs back in the United States. McChrystal will also beef up his command's communication with the news media. US officials have long lamented that they are out-communicated by the Taleban and take too long to respond to the militants' claims. Rear Admiral Greg Smith, a former head of the US Navy's public affairs who coordinated communications efforts for General David Petraeus in Iraq, has agreed to go to Kabul to perform a similar role for McChrystal.
