Adm. Fallon denies animosity with Petraeus
By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Sep 17, 2007 14:30:04 EDT

If Bill Fallon has a bad relationship with David Petraeus, he’s sure not saying so publicly.

As Petraeus, the top U.S. commander on the ground in Iraq, was delivering his widely anticipated assessment of the war in Washington last week, news stories and blogs reported a deep rift over that assessment with Fallon, the four-star Navy admiral in charge of U.S. Central Command, which covers a wide area of responsibility that includes Iraq.

Fallon, to whom Petraeus reports, does not deny that the talks leading up to Petraeus’s report and recommendations for future strategy included some lively arguments. “Everybody’s going to have a difference of opinion,” Fallon said. “We are where we want to be right now. How we got there is our business.”

The bottom line, Fallon said, is that he endorses the U.S. strategy and that the overall effort, in his view, is progressing.

“I agree with what’s going on,” said Fallon, who spoke with the Military Times newspapers Sept. 14 just prior to a flight to the Middle East. “The thing that’s important right now is that we’re on the right glide slope.”

Petraeus told Congress the situation in Iraq is “complex, difficult, and sometimes frustrating” but said he felt it is “possible to achieve” U.S. objectives in Iraq over time.

He voiced optimism about improvements in security in Iraq and said that Iraqi Security Forces are improving and increasingly taking the lead in combat operations. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker testified that Iraq is making slow but measurable political, economic and diplomatic progress.

As a result, Petraeus recommended beginning a gradual reduction in U.S. troop strength in Iraq, a plan President Bush endorsed in a Sept. 13 speech. Petraeus said he would reassess the situation in mid-March and present a follow-on report.

Fallon was clearly irked by the stories about his supposed disagreements with Petraeus over the pace of that withdrawal and all-around disdain for the Army general published in outlets ranging from The Washington Post to various blogs. One story cited an unnamed senior official who said “bad relations” between Fallon and Petraeus was the “understatement of the century.” Another quoted Pentagon sources as saying Fallon openly derided Petraeus during their first meeting last March after Fallon took the CentCom reins.

The latter story particularly galled Fallon, who called it “scurrilous,” adding that the characterizations of a dysfunctional relationship with Petraeus are “just absurd.”

But the stories quickly grew legs and made their way off the street and into Petraeus’s meetings with Congress.

“I do not know how accurate these news reports are,” said Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “But responsible media have suggested that even Admiral Fallon, among others, have favored a more rapid and more substantial withdrawal than what you are proposing.”

Petraeus denied any disagreement. “Admiral Fallon fully supports the recommendations that I have made, as do the Joint Chiefs of Staff. ... We had discussions about the pace of the mission transition. But there has been no recommendation I am aware of that would have laid out, by any of those individuals, a more rapid withdrawal.”

The following day, Petraeus reiterated his sense of chain-of-command support before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“Certainly, Admiral Fallon has assured me of that, and the chairman has and the secretary,” Petraeus said. “I have talked to Admiral Fallon on several occasions, and basically, he just assured me that he supports the recommendations that I have put forward.”

Fallon said such talk may have been the genesis of the stories — the result of “a lot of people in a room” voicing opinions and someone coming out with a less-than-comprehensive or slanted perspective of the discussion.

During a Sept. 14 Pentagon news conference, Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, hinted that some strong opinions were voiced during the assessment period leading up to Petraeus’s testimony, often colored by the perspective of each participant — the president’s senior military advisers, to include the Joint Chiefs — and their area of responsibility.

“Clearly, General Petraeus, as he should, was focused on how many troops he needed inside Iraq to get the job done,” Pace said. “Admiral Fallon focused on what he needed in his region, as he should. ... And as a member of the Joint Chiefs and as the chairman, I looked at what did the nation need, not only for all that area, but also globally to have available to us to respond to unanticipated requirements.

“At the end of the day,” Pace said, “we were unanimous that the next six months to nine months, as laid out by what General Petraeus spoke of to our Congress and what the President decided and announced last night, that that was, in fact, the best way forward.”

The next steps in Iraq, Fallon said, are up to the Iraqis themselves. He agrees with the many observers in and out of government who say the major obstacles to progress are political.

“There’s lots to be done” on the civilian side, Fallon said. “The main issue is, can [the Iraqi people] gain the trust and confidence in their government as it’s currently constructed? If they don’t have confidence in it, we’re not likely to make the progress we need to make.”

At the same time, he said, the Iraqi Security Forces must show they can take the operational lead in more areas of Iraq. “How do you get them confident?” Fallon said. “They have to be confident in leading.

“So part of this is us putting the ball back in their hands in a major way,” Fallon said. “How they react to this is going to be very interesting.”

Ellie