أرشيف موقع العهد الإخباري من 1999-2018
ارشيف من : 2005-2008
Bush to appoint new Iraq commanders
strife-torn nation that may include increasing the number of US occupation troops.
The US television network ABC said Thursday that Bush intends to nominate Admiral William Fallon, head of US Pacific Command, to replace General John Abizaid at US Central Command, which has responsibility for the Middle East.
It said General George Casey, the US military commander in occupied Iraq, would be replaced by Lieutenant General David Petraeus, who has played a major role in the training of Iraqi security forces. Abizaid, 55, announced last month that he planned to retire early this year and ABC said Casey, 58, would probably leave in the next few months, earlier than a planned June departure.
Both Abizaid and Casey have expressed reservations about a reported plan to increase the number of US occupation troops in Iraq from the current 140,000.
ABC said the military nominations would be announced next week, before Bush delivers his speech on strategy for an increasingly unpopular US war in occupied Iraq that has cost the lives of some 3,000 US occupation soldiers.
As a naval officer, ABC said the appointment of Fallon to head Central Command and oversee ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be "highly unusual."
The appointments come as Bush pursues an aggressive overhaul among his top military, diplomatic and intelligence aides. He is expected to announce Friday that he is moving Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte to the State Department as deputy to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He also will nominate next week Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Iraq, to be the new top US diplomat at the United Nations, a senior US official said. The appointments are subject to Senate confirmation.