McChrystal Breaks His Silence
John Avlon reports:
In his first public comments since being relieved of command in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal broke his silence on military and foreign-policy matters at The Daily Beast’s Innovators Summit in New Orleans today.
In an onstage interview with Bush administration Homeland Security official Frances Townsend, McChrystal addressed a wide range of subjects, including the breaking news of WikiLeaks’ release of nearly 400,000 Iraq War documents, his close relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the prospects for protecting women’s rights against the Taliban, and the media’s impact on modern leadership.
“It is likely that the leak of some of that information could lead to the deaths of some of our own people or some of our allies,” McChrystal said of the WikiLeaks document dump. “A level of responsibility toward our people needs to be balanced with a need or right to know.”
“The decision by anybody to leak classified information is something that not only is it illegal… that individual is making judgments about the value of that information and the threat to comrades, that almost nobody is qualified to make,” McChrystal said. “If somebody leaks information that puts me or one of my soldiers at risk, I think that's a level of irresponsibility that’s very upsetting.”
While Karzai has come under criticism from other American leaders, General McChrystal had strikingly warm recollections of Karzai, describing “a relationship not only of trust but of real affection for each other.”
