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Army general who oversaw Afghanistan withdrawal promoted to four-star officer after GOP senator drops hold
CNN
An Army general who oversaw the US withdrawal from Afghanistan was promoted to a four-star officer after a Republican senator dropped a hold on his nomination, according to a Senate aide.
An Army general who oversaw the US withdrawal from Afghanistan was promoted to a four-star officer after a Republican senator dropped a hold on his nomination, according to a Senate aide. The Senate on Monday confirmed Lt. Gen. Chris Donahue to be the commander of US Army Europe-Africa by unanimous consent, meaning no senator objected to his approval. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican from Oklahoma, had previously blocked the promotion, despite the Senate Armed Services Committee advancing 984 other military promotions. CNN is reaching out to Mullin’s office for comment. Donahue, who currently serves as the commander of the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Liberty in North Carolina, oversaw the final withdrawal from Afghanistan and was the last US soldier on the ground at Kabul’s international airport. A night vision picture of Donahue boarding a cargo flight out of the airport became a symbolic image of the end of a 20-year war and a chaotic withdrawal that saw the deaths of 13 US troops in a suicide bombing.
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The retired Air Force general announced as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by President Donald Trump after the abrupt Friday night firing of his predecessor is a respected career F-16 pilot who is described by current and former officials who served with him as a professional with a “strong moral center.”
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Over the past 10 days, Vice President JD Vance put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on notice, rattled the confidence of century-old allies in Western Europe during his first foreign trip, decamped to Capitol Hill to help in delicate budget talks and delivered a spirited defense of the Trump administration’s first month to a gathering of conservatives outside the nation’s capital.