<p>So then your contention is that the President - who clearly was Gen Keane’s sponsor in this, had no right to do so? Apparently you view the President as constrained to utilize the formal chain of command and no other method for receiving alternative views of what is going on at the scene? Further, that the Theater Commander should have had nothing to do with an envoy who is operating under the president’s direction? Even though the President has reason to believe that his intent is being stonewalled or not executed with the vigor that he is expecting? So in short the process (going thru the formal command loops with all of the attendant bureaucratic back and forth that the JCS is so well known for- is more important in your view than the outcome? Read again what Gen Keane had to say to Bush and Cheney. It sure as heck isn’t irrelevant- in fact what was going on here it would appear, is that the JCS and the CINC were stonewalling the Presidents chosen course of action and the General chosen to execute it because they didn’t want to execute it. Well known bureaucratic tactic- wait them out. As far as the Sec Def being out of the loop- it doesn’t say that- in fact it doesn’t talk much about the Sec Def at all. However, the Sec Def at some point came on board and told the Joint Staff to stop impeding Gen Keane’s access. </p>
<p>"As Keane was laying out his view, President Bush walked in.
“I know you’re talking to Dave,” Bush said to Keane. “I know that the Joint Chiefs and the Pentagon have some concerns.” The JCS had not favored the surge of 30,000 troops that Bush had decided was essential to quell the escalating violence in Iraq; the chiefs were deeply worried that the surge left no strategic reserve for an unexpected crisis elsewhere. </p>
<p>Keane repeated what he had just told Cheney: The JCS and Adm. William J. Fallon, Petraeus’s boss at Central Command, were insisting on studies and reports to justify even the smallest request for more resources for Iraq. Their persistent pressure, pushing Petraeus for a faster drawdown, was taking its toll.
“There is very little preparation,” Keane said, “for somebody who grows up in a military culture to have an unsupportive chain of command above you and still be succeeding. You normally get fired.” The result, he said, is that Petraeus “starts to look for ways to get rid of this pressure, which means some kind of accommodation.”</p>