Raymond Odierno

A couple days ago at the gym, listening to a Hugh Hewitt podcast and perhaps not paying as much attention as I should have while pedaling away, I heard Hugh mention that Barack Obama doesn't understand the role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. What was Hugh referring to? As the British would say: the penny just dropped.  A few minutes ago, CNN's Situation Room played a clip of Obama saying this about his plan for Iraq:

BARACK OBAMA: I'm going to call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and give them a new mission, and that is to bring the war in Iraq to a close.  We are going to get out.

There's only one problem.  The Joint Chiefs of Staff does not have operational command of U.S. military forces.  That authority resides in the commanders of the various Unified Combatant Commands.  CENTCOM is the command with responsibility for Iraq [and 26 other countries including Afghanistan and Pakistan].  Earlier this month, the Senate confirmed Pres. Bush's appointment of Gen. David Petraeus as CENTCOM commander.  Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno is the new US commander for Iraq, replacing Gen. Petraeus. Those are the people, along with the Secretary of Defense, to whom the orders Obama spoke of would be issued.

 View video here.

The day after Barry Bonds set a dubious record, CNN's Kyra Phillips [file photo] might have set one of her own. Rather than "Career Home Runs," file this one under "Tasteless and Inappropriate Questions Posed to a Soldier in a War Zone."

At about 3:40 P.M. EDT on this afternoon's CNN Newsroom, co-anchor Phillips was interviewing Lt. General Raymond Odierno, the MNF second-in-command in Iraq.

CNN Anchor Kyra Phillips: You know there's been a lot of shifting around in positions, a lot of positions lost, key positions. Do you think that this job that you've taken on could be career suicide?