February 7, 2009

General Says His Iraq Envoy Job Was Rescinded - NYTimes.com

General Says His Iraq Envoy Job Was Rescinded - NYTimes.com:

What a shameful way to treat a general who was told that he all but had the job as ambassador to Iraq. We are not told who made the decision, but if Hillary and Joe accepted him, it must have been the President or one of his top aides who changed the decision. It smacks of Rahm Immanuel, who we are told by the media, is a foul-mouthed and difficult person. Or was it Obama himself?
"General Zinni said he met for more than an hour with Mrs. Clinton, discussing a wide range of Iraq issues with her; James B. Steinberg, one of her two appointed deputy secretaries; and William J. Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs.
“She thanked me for taking this, and we went over what needed to be done,” General Zinni said. “She turned to Steinberg and Burns and said: ‘Let’s get the paperwork moving. We’ve got to move on this.’ ”
The next day, General Zinni said, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. called to thank him for taking the job.

But that was the last word on Iraq that General Zinni said he heard from the administration.

The call he was told to expect from Mr. Burns never came, General Zinni said, and when he called each day to check on his status, he said, Mr. Burns sounded increasingly vague.

With decisions to make on withdrawing from corporate boards and recruiting aides, General Zinni said he called General Jones on Monday.

General Jones broke the news: “It’s going to be Chris Hill,” General Zinni said he was told."

“As a sorry offer to placate me, they offered ambassador to Saudi,” he said in a separate e-mail message, referring to Saudi Arabia. “I told them to stick it where the sun don’t shine.”

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