Wartime sackings of US military commanders

General Stanley McChrystal has tendered his resignation to President Barack Obama after a magazine profile portrayed him as at odds with his commander in chief.

General Stanley McChrystal Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Sackings of wartime commanders are rare, but not unprecedented in US history. Insubordination or a simple lack of confidence have moved presidents to take the fateful step. Here is a history of previous incidents:

Abraham Lincoln and General George McClellan

Abraham Lincoln was the first to face the difficult decision of whether to get rid of his military commander.

Major General George McClellan, a politically ambitious former railroad executive, was credited with mobilizing and training the volunteer Army of the Potomac after the outbreak of the US Civil War in 1861.

Popular with the troops, he was made general in chief of the Union Armies in November 1861.

But to Mr Lincoln's frustration, Gen McClellan proved to be an exceedingly cautious commander, chronically overestimating the enemy's strength and unwilling to commit his prized forces in combat against the Confederate forces massed on Washington's doorstep.

Moreover, Gen McClellan did not support the emancipation of the slaves and was contemptuous of the president, privately referring to Lincoln as "a well meaning baboon" who was unworthy of his office.

By March 1962, Mr Lincoln had removed Gen McClellan as general-in-chief, leaving him in command only of the Army of the Potomac.

But when Gen McClellan's army finally moved on the Confederate capital in Richmond, Virginia, he was forced to retreat.

And after the Battle of Antietam, he failed to pursue the retreating Confederate forces, allowing it to survive intact after the bloodiest battle of the war.

Mr Lincoln removed Gen McClellan from command on November 5, 1862, eventually turning to Ulysses Grant to finish the war.

"If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time," Mr Lincoln is reported to have said.

Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur

President Harry Truman's firing of General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War also was a historic showdown, one that reaffirmed civilian control over the US military after a decade of global conflict.

Gen MacArthur, already a legend for his World War II campaigns in the Pacific and the surrender of Japan, was placed in command of all UN forces after North Korea invaded the South in June 1950.

He quickly delivered on his reputation with a daring amphibious landing at Inchon in September 1950 that outflanked the North Korean forces, and drove them back across the 38th parallel.

But then China entered the war, tipping the balance once again, and Gen MacArthur soon began to bridle at what he saw as Washington's too timid approach to the new communist power.

He first criticized Mr Truman's policy toward Formosa, now Taiwan, in August 1951, referring to it in a statement to Veterans of Foreign Wars as a "threadbare argument by those who advocate appeasement and defeatism in the Pacific."

Mr Truman let the attack pass, and met with the general on Wake Island in October 1950.

But when Gen MacArthur ignored a ceasefire proposal that Truman had sent him on March 20, 1951, and then issued an ultimatum demanding China's surrender, the US president was fit to be tied.

"I was ready to kick him into the North China Sea. I was never so put out in my life," Mr Truman later wrote.

The last straw came on April 5, 1951 when a letter from Gen MacArthur criticising the Truman administration was read out in the US Congress by the House Minority leader.

Mr Truman consulted his top aides and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and fired Gen MacArthur on April 11, causing a political furore.

"If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the military," he said.

Since MacArthur, wartime commanders have generally been kicked upstairs as confidence in them waned.

General William Westmoreland, who commanded US forces in Vietnam from 1964 to the Tet offensive in 1968, was elevated to chief of staff of the army.

General George Casey, the army's current chief of staff, was replaced by General David Petraeus in Iraq in 2006 as the country spiralled into uncontrolled sectarian violence and chaos.

But in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan was unceremoniously sacked as US and NATO commander on May 31, 2009 by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who said he wanted "new thinking" and picked Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal to replace him.