Defense Secretary Liam Fox said the head of the armed forces, Air Chief Marshall Jock Stirrup, will leave his job in the autumn, about six months early. His term had not been due to end until April 2011. The top civilian defense official will leave at the same time.
Fox told the Sunday Times newspaper that the two men had been in their jobs “longer than they needed to be.” Stirrup was appointed in 2006 by the Labour government, which lost power in May to a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.
Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Sunday the two men were not being punished for the rising death toll in Afghanistan. He told the BBC they were leaving at “a natural time to have a change of personnel.” Some officers and defense officials have accused the previous government of underfunding front-line troops.
Hague said some aspects of defense policy “hadn’t been run as well as it might have been,” but that responsibility lay with politicians, not civil servants.
The new administration of Prime Minister David Cameron has said Britain is committed to Afghanistan, but is also keen to offer war-weary Britons an exit strategy. Cameron and other officials have said they hope to speed up the hand-over of control to Afghan security forces.
