admiral william fallon is retiring

is it because he's done his duty and just wants to retire. OR is it because his commandant in chief is a lunatic who wants to start YET ANOTHER WAR? i guess we'll just have to wait (for more people to be killed, displaced, tortured and gravely wounded)
Mideast military chief resigns after magazine article
Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that Admiral William Fallon, the top U.S. military commander for the Middle East, is resigning.
Gates said Fallon had asked Gates for permission to retire and that Gates agreed.
Fallon was the subject of an article published last week in Esquire magazine that portrayed him as opposed to President Bush's Iran policy. It described Fallon as a lone voice against taking military action to stop the Iranian nuclear program.
In one passage, the magazine said:
So while Admiral Fallon's boss, President George W. Bush, regularly trash-talks his way to World War III and his administration casually casts Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as this century's Hitler (a crown it has awarded once before, to deadly effect), it's left to Fallon--and apparently Fallon alone--to argue that, as he told Al Jazeera last fall: "This constant drumbeat of conflict . . . is not helpful and not useful. I expect that there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working for. We ought to try to do our utmost to create different conditions."
Gates described as "ridiculous" any notion that Fallon's departure signals the United States is planning to go to war with Iran. And he said "there is a misperception" that Fallon disagrees with the administration's approach to Iran.......

and this:
Middle East commander resigned by phone from Iraq
By Nancy A. Youssef McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Adm. William J. Fallon, the commander of all U.S. military operations in the Middle East, abruptly ended his nearly 42-year military career Tuesday with a phone call from Iraq in which he asked to resign because of controversy caused by his criticism of the Bush administration's Iran policy.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Tuesday in a hastily convened news conference that he accepted Fallon's resignation because it was the "right thing to do."
Fallon's phone call, and Gates' decision to accept his resignation, ended weeks of speculation within military circles about how long a military commander who appeared to challenge Bush administration policy could hold onto his job.
Army Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, Fallon's deputy and a one-time commander of efforts to train Iraq's security forces, will lead U.S. Central Command until the Senate can confirm a permanent replacement, Gates said. Fallon's resignation is effective March 31.............

hmmmmmmmm a little somethin' something'

i find VERY interesting. where IS petraeus' bossman?
(now remember, those ain't my woids, theys the woids o' his bossman)
U.S.-IRAQ: Fallon Derided Petraeus, Opposed the Surge

By Gareth Porter *WASHINGTON, Sep 12 (IPS) - In sharp contrast to the lionisation of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior. That extraordinarily contentious start of Fallon's mission to Baghdad led to more meetings marked by acute tension between the two commanders. Fallon went on develop his own alternative to Petraeus's recommendation for continued high levels of U.S. troops in Iraq during the summer. The enmity between the two commanders became public knowledge when the Washington Post reported Sep. 9 on intense conflict within the administration over Iraq. The story quoted a senior official as saying that referring to "bad relations" between them is "the understatement of the century". .....

CentCom Chief Fallon: Petraeus Is ‘An Ass-Kissing, Little Chickensh*t,’ ‘I Hate People Like That’

During the Iraq war, the Central Command (CENTCOM) head — who leads U.S. operations in the entire Middle East region — and the Multinational Force Commander (MNF) have regularly testified together about the course of the war in Iraq.
Former-MNF Commander Gen. George Casey and his CENTCOM Commander Gen. John Abizaid constantly briefed Congress about the situation in Iraq and its regional effects. In at least four public hearings after Casey took office in 2004, the pair testified together:
Senate Armed Services [6/23/05]
House Armed Services [6/23/05]
House Armed Services [9/29/05]
Senate Armed Services [9/29/05]
In January, President Bush replaced Abizaid and Casey, who were “surge” skeptics, with Adm. William Fallon and Gen. David Petraeus. This week, Petraeus — in the first public hearings since taking on his new role — delivered his Iraq assessment to great media fanfare. But where was his boss, Admiral Fallon? Inter-Press Service suggests animosity between the two might be one reason for Fallon’s absence:
Fallon told Petraeus [in March] that he considered him to be “an ass-kissing little chickensh*t” and added, “I hate people like that”, the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.
The Washington Post reported this weekend that there is an internal military debate, described as “Armageddon,” brewing between Petraeus and Fallon because the two men have “profoundly different views of the U.S. role in Iraq.”............