No Pak post for ex-Gitmo general

During General Hood8217;s command from 2004 to 2006, military authorities force-fed with tubes detainees who were engaging in hunger strikes at the Guantaacute;namo prison, a step they justified as necessary to prevent the prisoners from committing suicide to protest their indefinite confinement. Also during General Hood8217;s tenure, reports that an American guard may have desecrated a Koran stirred wide protests in the Islamic world.

The decision to withdraw General Hood8217;s assignment has not been announced, but it appears to reflect the widening shadow that the military prison at Guantaacute;namo is casting over American foreign policy. While the United States considers Pakistan a close ally in its counterterrorism efforts, the accounts by Pakistanis who have returned to Pakistan after being held at Guantaacute;namo Bay have added to anti-American sentiment in the country.

Several leading Pakistani military and foreign affairs commentators denounced General Hood8217;s selection in recent weeks, calling on their new government to block his appointment. In interviews this week, American military officials said they had reluctantly concluded that General Hood8217;s effectiveness could be seriously hindered, and that his personal safety might even be at risk if he were to take up the post.

About 65 detainees at Guantaacute;namo Bay have been repatriated to Pakistan, according to Cmdr. Pauline Storum, a military spokeswoman.

It is not clear whether Pakistan8217;s new government requested that the appointment be canceled. But on Thursday, a spokesman for the Pakistani Foreign Ministry, Mohammed Sadiq, told reporters that the government was 8220;fully cognizant of the public sentiments and sensitivities regarding the reported transfer of General Hood to Islamabad,8221; and he added, 8220;We hope to address this matter of public interest in the best possible manner.8221;

Asked about the withdrawal of the appointment, an American military spokesman sought Thursday to put the best face on an awkward situation. 8220;General Hood is being considered for a different, equally important job in the Centcom headquarters,8221; said Capt. James Graybeal, chief spokesman for the United States Central Command, which oversees military affairs in Pakistan.

General Hood did not return e-mail messages or a telephone call to his office on Thursday.

General Hood, who served in the 1991 Persian Gulf war and in Kosovo, had been expected to become chief of a division of the United States Embassy in Islamabad known as the Office of the Defense Representative to Pakistan. The office has about two dozen people and oversees military relations with Pakistan, including training and equipment.

Until a few years ago, a colonel typically directed the office. But in a sign of Pakistan8217;s strategic importance in the Bush administration8217;s campaign against terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the job was upgraded to that of a two-star general. The current head of the office, Maj. Gen. James R. Helmly, had been scheduled to leave at the end of May. No replacement for General Hood has been named.

Two senior Defense Department officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the issue involves personnel decisions, expressed chagrin that General Hood8217;s selection had not been evaluated more carefully.