U.S. is losing a savvy leader in Afghan war efforts

By Greg Jaffe, Tuesday, April 19, 8:40 PM

No U.S. general has spent more time in Afghanistan than Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez.
He is the primary author of the U.S.-Afghan war plan, a 600-plus-page classified document that is a catalogue of the lessons he has taken from three years of fighting the war. He can rattle off from memory the number of Afghan bureaucrats manning a lonely outpost in Zhari district. “Four months ago, we had one district governor and a bad police chief,” he said. “Now there are 13 people and a good police chief.”

Gallery: A leader of the Afghan war, about to depart: Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez has been bypassed for the top Afghanistan job and instead will take an unmatched level of experience in the country with him when he leaves for a stateside post.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the former top commander in Afghanistan, calls him the “best combat leader I have ever known.”

But Rodriguez will not be leading the war in Afghanistan anytime soon. This summer he will be returning home to the United States to take over U.S. Army Forces Command, a four-star job in the Army’s vast stateside bureaucracy. The decision to bypass Rodriguez for the top job reflects a determination among senior Pentagon officials that the war needs a commander who can make the case for the increasingly unpopular conflict to Congress, the news media and skeptics in the White House.

In Washington, Rodriguez is seen as a savvy fighter but a so-so salesman.

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