As war worsens, U.S. fires top general in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama fired the top U.S. general in Afghanistan on Monday, replacing him with a former special forces commander in a quest for a more agile, unconventional approach in a war that has gone quickly downhill.

With the Taliban resurgent, Obama’s switch from Gen. David McKiernan to Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal suggests the new commander in chief wants major changes in addition to the additional troops he’s ordering into Afghanistan to shore up the war effort.

McKiernan, on the job for less than a year, has repeatedly pressed for more forces. Although Obama has approved more than 21,000 additional troops this year, he has warned that the war will not be won by military means.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates echoed that view at a grim Pentagon news conference announcing the leadership overhaul. “As I have said many times before, very few of these problems can be solved by military means alone,” he said. “And yet, from the military perspective, we can and must do better.”

A new team of commanders will now be charged with applying Obama’s revamped strategy for challenging an increasingly brutal and resourceful insurgency. The strategy, still a work in progress, relies on the kind of special forces and counterinsurgency tactics McChrystal knows well, as well as nonmilitary approaches to confronting the Taliban. It would hinge success in the seven-year-old war to political and other conditions across the border in Pakistan.

McKiernan, named to his post by former President George W. Bush, expected to serve into next year but was told he was out during Gates’ visit to Afghanistan last week.

McChrystal is a former special forces chief credited with nabbing one of the most-wanted fugitives in Iraq.