USA — Joint Forces Command Responds to Gates Announcement

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9, 2010 — U.S. Joint Forces Com­mand offi­cials issued a state­ment today in response to Defense Sec­re­tary Robert M. Gates’ rec­om­men­da­tion to elim­i­nate the com­mand and assign its oper­a­tional func­tions to oth­er orga­ni­za­tions.

Gates announced the rec­om­men­da­tion today among a host of oth­er ini­tia­tives designed to make the Defense Depart­ment more efficient. 

Joint Forces Com­mand is the Defense Department’s pro­po­nent for joint train­ing, doc­trine and oper­a­tions in the mil­i­tary. Army Gen. Ray­mond T. Odier­no, com­man­der of U.S. Forces Iraq, is slat­ed to become its new com­man­der, replac­ing Marine Corps Gen. James N. Mat­tis, who is tak­ing the reins of U.S. Cen­tral Command. 

Here is the text of the Joint Forces Com­mand statement: 

We all will work to car­ry out the Secretary’s deci­sion to dis­es­tab­lish Joint Forces Com­mand. There will be much hard work and analy­sis in the time ahead and we will do the best we can to pro­vide sol­id data on which to base decisions. 

We have been assured that our work force will receive the best pro­fes­sion­al career advice and place­ment assis­tance avail­able. This assis­tance begins with tomorrow’s vis­it of Dr. Clif­ford Stan­ley, the Under Sec­re­tary of Defense for Per­son­nel and Readi­ness, to talk with our lead­er­ship about the way ahead. 

While this deci­sion will under­stand­ably cause con­cern among our work force, we will be dili­gent to make sure we keep dis­trac­tions to a min­i­mum and con­tin­ue to pro­vide the best pos­si­ble sup­port to the warfighter. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

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