WASHINGTON, 11 November 2006 — US military leaders are preparing to recommend changes in Iraq strategy but the ouster of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will not have a direct impact, the Pentagon’s top general said yesterday.
“We have to give ourselves a good honest scrub about what is working and what is not working, what are the impediments to progress and what should we change about the way we are doing it to make sure that we get to the objective that we set for ourselves,” Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on the CBS “Early Show.”
“The change in leadership itself will not have a direct impact on what we do or don’t do in Iraq,” Pace said. “We continuously review what’s going right, what’s going wrong, what needs to change.” Pace declined to discuss potential changes, but said he and other leading officers including Gen. George Casey — the top commander in Iraq — and Gen. John Abizaid, head of US Central Command, were working on the review.
