Gen McChrystal faces sack for unguarded remarks

The White House indicated on Tuesday that the top US commander in Afghanistan might lose his job for making derogatory remarks about President Barack Obama and his team.

“The magnitude and graveness of the mistake here are profound,” said President Obama’s press secretary Robert Gibbs who repeatedly declined to assure the White House press corps if Gen Stanley McChrystal’s job was safe.

“All options are on the table,” said Mr Gibbs when asked if firing the top US and Nato commander in Afghanistan was also an option.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Gen McChrystal had “made a significant mistake and exercised poor judgment” but he offered no clue as to whether the commander would stay in his job.

“Gen McChrystal has apologised to me and is similarly reaching out to others named in this article to apologise to them as well,” Mr Gates said in a statement.

A spokesman for US Military Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen told journalists the admiral had expressed his “deep disappointment” about the comments. Admiral Mullen spoke to Gen McChrystal late on Monday.

A spokesman for Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the general had Mr Rasmussen’s full support. The Nato secretary-general described a Rolling Stone article which included those derogatory remarks as “rather unfortunate”, but stressed it was just an article.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai expressed similar sentiments, saying that he would like to continue to work with Gen McChrystal and that he was generally supportive of the general as the operations in Kandahar and elsewhere went forward.

The White House press secretary, when asked to comment on President Karzai’s statement, said: “It is important that President Karzai have confidence in the entire team. And I think many people in that team enjoy good relationships with President Karzai.”

Earlier on Tuesday, President Obama summoned his top general to Washington to explain the remarks attributed to him and his team.

The White House also confirmed that Gen McChrystal’s top civilian press aide Duncan Boothby had resigned over the scandal.

Gen McChrystal and his aides mocked Obama officials in a profile in the popular US magazine, which is to hit newsstands on Friday.

The aides told Rolling Stone that Gen McChrystal was “disappointed” at his “10-minute photo op” with President Obama last year. He commented that he found last fall “painful” because he was “trying to sell an unsellable position”.

The general himself told Rolling Stone he felt “betrayed” by Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador to Afghanistan, who sent an internal memo to Washington expressing doubts about Gen McChrystal’s strategy to add more troops to fight the Taliban insurgency.

Gen McChrystal accused Ambassador Eikenberry of “covering his flank for the history books” in criticising President Karzai.

Mr Eikenberry had described the Afghan president as an unreliable partner in the US efforts to defeat the Taliban insurgents.

Aides variously called national security adviser Gen Jim Jones a “clown” who is “stuck in 1985”.

Ambassador Richard Holbrooke is called a “wounded animal” who is “hearing rumours he’s going to get fired, so that makes him dangerous”. In comments on Vice President Joe Biden, an aide said: “Biden? Did you say ‘bite me’?”

According to an aide; the general joked, “Are you asking about Vice President Biden? Who’s that?” when preparing to answer a question about the vice president.

Mr Biden and Gen McChrystal have serious differences over Afghanistan and the vice president favours a far more limited approach in Afghanistan than the one the US military commander advocated.

The summons to Washington came hours after Gen McChrystal issued a statement in Kabul extending his “sincerest apology” for the profile, which he called “a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened”. Gen has called nearly every figure mentioned in the article to apologise personally.

The reaction to the article was immediate. Gen McChrystal received unhappy phone calls from the White House, the Secretary of Defence, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

He is expected to arrive in Washington on Wednesday to explain his comments in person at a monthly White House meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“Right now he’s on a plane coming back here to have that face-to-face meeting,” the White House press secretary said.

Mr Gibbs said there would be two meetings, one in the White House situation room with President Obama and the members of his Afghan team and the two would also have a one-to-one meeting.

Asked at the White House briefing if President Obama was angry, Mr Gibbs said: “I gave him the article last night. And he was angry.” “How so?” asked the journalist. “Angry. You would know it if you saw it,” said Mr Gibbs.

“Would the president accept Gen McChrystal’s resignation?” he was asked.

“I think he looks forward to the talk tomorrow,” said Mr Gibbs. “The purpose for calling him here is to see what in the world he was thinking.”

Mr Gibbs also said that the parents of soldiers serving in Afghanistan needed to be sure that the US command structure in that country was capable and mature enough to lead.

“Did I hear you correctly? Are you’re questioning whether Gen McChrystal is capable and mature enough for this job?” asked a journalist.

“You had my quote right,” said Mr Gibbs.

Senator John Kerry, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, however, urged both sides to show restraint.

“I respect General McChrystal as a soldier and always have,” he said. “Everyone needs to take a deep breath and give the president and his national security team the space to decide what is in the best interest of our mission, and to have their face-to-face discussion tomorrow without a premature Washington feeding frenzy.”

News of the general’s comments came as Britain’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan reportedly resigned. Sherard Cowper-Coles had been a vocal critic of the US and Nato strategy in Afghanistan.

Britain’s foreign office issued a statement saying Mr Cowper-Coles was merely taking a leave of absence and would return later this year. He will be replaced on a temporary basis by the Foreign Office director for South Asia and Afghanistan, Karen Pierce.

Ambassador Cowper-Coles is reported to have told the British government that he believed America’s “military-driven counter-insurgency effort was headed for failure”.

While reporting Gen McChrystal’s remarks, the US media also noted that the last 24 hours had been tough for him.

At least 10 Nato troops were killed across Afghanistan on Monday in a helicopter crash and attacks.

Ambassador Holbrooke, en route to Marjah with Ambassador Eikenberry, was reportedly met with apparent gunfire, and in Kunduz, the head of the public health department was just killed by a bomb under the stairwell to his private clinic, along with a number of patients.

In Washington, a House subcommittee released the results of a six-month investigation finding that the US military was inadvertently funding Afghan insurgents, corrupt public officials, and warlords who reportedly receive “tens of millions of dollars” in safe passage fees for use of Afghanistan’s roads.

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