Retired Lt. General Michael Flynn and the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency is reported to be on Trump’s short list for the vice presidential slot.
General Flynn was forced out of the DIA in 2014 amid rumors that his “management style” was “chaotic.”
The Washington Post reported at the time:
Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn is expected to end his tenure as DIA director this summer, about a year before he was scheduled to depart, according to officials who said Flynn faced pressure from Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. and others in recent months . . . .. . . . Flynn, who served as a top intelligence adviser to Gen. Stanley McChrystal in Iraq and Afghanistan, arrived at the DIA in July 2012 vowing to accelerate the agency’s overhaul. Asked after a public speech how he would treat employees reluctant to embrace his agenda, Flynn said he would “move them or fire them.”He drafted a blueprint that called for sending more employees overseas, being more responsive to regional U.S. military commanders, and turning analysts’ attention from the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan to a broader array of emerging national security threats.. . . . Critics said that his management style could be chaotic and that the scope of his plans met resistance from both superiors and subordinates. At the same time, his tenure was marked by significant turbulence, including the fallout from the classified intelligence files leaked by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, as well as other emerging crises.
However, when Carly Fiorina named General Flynn as one of the generals who had to “retire early” because they told Obama things “he didn’t want to hear,” even Politifact agreed in General Flynn’s case.
Flynn was a key intelligence adviser to McChrystal in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2012, he became the head of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency. According to the Washington Post, Flynn wanted to reorganize the agency, placing more operatives overseas and focusing on a range of threats beyond the conflict zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. His management style and strategic plans put him at odds with his bosses, importantly, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers.Flynn and his deputy left the agency at the same time.Flynn’s story largely aligns with Fiorina’s message.
Yesterday, General Flynn published an article in The New York Post entitled “The military fired me for calling our enemies radical jihadis.” In this article, General Flynn undermines the early reports of problems with his leadership.
Two years ago, I was called into a meeting with the undersecretary of defense for intelligence and the director of national intelligence, and after some “niceties,” I was told by the USDI that I was being let go from DIA. It was definitely an uncomfortable moment (I suspect more for them than me).I asked the DNI (Gen. James Clapper) if my leadership of the agency was in question and he said it was not; had it been, he said, they would have relieved me on the spot.I knew then it had more to do with the stand I took on radical Islamism and the expansion of al Qaeda and its associated movements. I felt the intel system was way too politicized, especially in the Defense Department. After being fired, I left the meeting thinking, “Here we are in the middle of a war, I had a significant amount of combat experience (nearly five years) against this determined enemy on the battlefield and served at senior levels, and here it was, the bureaucracy was letting me go.” Amazing.
Outlining his philosophy about winning the war against radical Islamic terrorism, General Flynn continues:
[W]e’re not going to talk our way out of this war, nor can we escape its horrors. Ask the people in San Bernardino or South Florida, or the relatives of the thousands killed on 9/11. We’re either going to win or lose. There is no other “solution.”I believe we can and must win. This war must be waged both militarily and politically; we have to destroy the enemy armies and combat enemy doctrines. Both are doable. On military battlefields, we have defeated radical Islamic forces every time we have seriously gone after them, from Iraq to Afghanistan. Their current strength is not a reflection of their ability to overwhelm our armed forces, but rather the consequence of our mistaken and untimely withdrawal after demolishing them.We have failed to challenge their jihadist doctrines, even though their true believers only number a small fraction of the Muslim world, and even though everybody, above all most living Muslims, knows that the Islamic world is an epic failure, desperately needing economic, cultural and educational reform of the sort that has led to the superiority of the West.. . . . As we defeat them on the ground, we must clearly and forcefully attack their crazy doctrines. Defeat on battlefields does great damage to their claim to be acting as agents of divine will. After defeating al Qaeda in Iraq, we should have challenged the Islamic world and asked: “How did we win? Did Allah change sides?”We need to denounce them as false prophets, as we insist on the superiority of our own political vision.
That vision, Flynn asserts, cannot be accomplished with the current administration.
[Featured image via The New York Post]
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