Associated Press


U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye expressed regret today that Adm. William Fallon was resigning as the top U.S. commander in the Middle East.

"I am sorry to see Admiral Fallon's brilliant career come to an end in this way," Inouye, D-Hawaii, the chairman of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said in a statement.

The Pentagon earlier said Fallon was leaving as the head of the U.S. Central Command over press reports portraying him as opposed to President Bush's Iran policy.

Fallon says the reports were wrong but had become a distraction hampering his efforts in the Middle East.

Inouye's spokesman, Mike Yuen, said the senator had "no information regarding any real or perceived differences between Fallon and the administration."

Fallon's departure invited comparisons to the ousting of Kauai native Gen. Eric Shinseki as Army chief of staff after he estimated a war in Iraq would require "hundreds of thousands" of deployed troops.

Hawaii's junior senator, U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, said Fallon's resignation showed the Bush administration was silencing top military leaders.

Akaka said in a statement that the inability of leaders like Fallon to independently express their opinions underscored the need for a new administration.

"It is not only necessary but mandatory that these military experts who have spent years in the field serving our country have the ability to express their concerns without fear of censure or reprisal," said Akaka, D-Hawaii.

The senator is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Before taking over at Central Command last March, Fallon was based in Hawaii as the top U.S. military commander in the Pacific.

Both Inouye and Akaka thanked Fallon for his service.

"His service to our nation has been invaluable, and we owe him much," Inouye said. "As he retires, I wish to convey to him my deepest gratitude for his service and integrity."

Akaka said he worked with Fallon as a member of the Armed Services Committee and when Fallon headed the U.S. Pacific Command at Camp Smith in Halawa Heights.

"I know him to be a man of honor and integrity whose primary concern is always, first and foremost, the defense of this nation and the well-being of the men and women who serve in the Armed Forces," Akaka said. "He embodies the best qualities of any individual who assumes the mantle and obligation of leadership."

The Central Command's area of responsibility includes Iran and stretches from Central Asia across the Middle East to the Horn of Africa.

"I don't believe there have ever been any differences about the objectives of our policy in the Central Command area of responsibility," Fallon said in a statement, and he regretted "the simple perception that there is." He was in Iraq when he made the statement.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a Pentagon news conference that he accepted Fallon's request to resign and retire from the Navy, agreeing that the Iran issue had become a distraction. But Gates said repeatedly that he believed talk of Fallon opposing Bush on Iran was mistaken.

"I don't think that there really were differences at all," Gates said, adding that Fallon was not pressured to leave.

"He told me that, quote, 'The current embarrassing situation, public perception of differences between my views and administration policy, and the distraction this causes from the mission make this the right thing to do,' unquote," Gates told reporters.

Fallon was the subject of an article published last week in Esquire magazine that portrayed him as at odds with a president eager to go to war with Iran. Titled "The Man Between War and Peace," it described Fallon as a lone voice against taking military action to stop the Iranian nuclear program.

Gates said he did not think it was that article alone that prompted Fallon to quit. Rather, Gates thought it was "a cumulative kind of thing" that he and Fallon had failed to put "behind us."

It is highly unusual for a senior commander to resign in wartime. Fallon took the post on March 16, 2007, succeeding Army Gen. John Abizaid, who retired after nearly four years in the job. Fallon was part of a new team of senior officials, including Gates, chosen by Bush to implement a revised Iraq war policy.

Fallon's departure, effective March 31, is unlikely to have an immediate effect on conducting the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. His top deputy at Central Command, Army Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, will take his place until a permanent successor is nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

Gen. David Petraeus, who runs the Iraq war from Baghdad but is technically subordinate to Fallon, was known to have differences with Fallon over the timing and pace of drawing down U.S. troops from Iraq. Fallon has favored a faster pullback.

Petraeus issued a statement lauding Fallon's service. "Over the past year, he and I worked closely together as we charted a new course in Iraq and, more recently, developed a shared view on recommendations for the future," Petraeus said.

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