US President Barack Obama met his top Afghanistan commander on Wednesday to decide whether to fire him over inflammatory comments that angered the White House and threatened to undermine the war effort.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, summoned to explain remarks he and his aides made in a magazine article that disparaged Mr Obama and other senior civilian leaders, held a 30-minute session with the President in the Oval Office before getting into a car and leaving the White House compound.
There was no immediate word on whether Mr Obama had determined Gen. McChrystal’s fate.
The situation poses a dilemma for Mr Obama. If Gen. McChrystal keeps his job, the President could be seen as tolerating insubordination from the military. If he sacks him, it would mean shaking up the chain of command at a perilous moment in the unpopular 9-year-old war.
Gen. McChrystal met earlier on Wednesday with defence secretary Robert Gates at the Pentagon before going to the White House and entering through a side door for a one-on-one meeting with Mr Obama. The general left the White House before a scheduled 11:35 am session of Mr Obama’s Afghanistan war council that he had been asked to attend in person.
Mr Obama, described as furious about the Rolling Stone magazine article in private, issued a stern rebuke to Gen. McChrystal on Tuesday, saying he would talk directly to the general before making a final decision.
“I think it’s clear that the article in which he and his team appeared showed poor judgment,” Mr Obama told reporters after a Cabinet meeting.
US officials said they expected Gen. McChrystal, the US and Nato commander in Afghanistan and architect of Mr Obama’s war strategy, to offer his resignation and allow the President to decide whether to accept it. With his career on the line, the 55-year-old general has apologised. “It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened,” Gen. McChrystal said in a statement.