“In June [8, 2007], just as the [troop] surge [in Iraq] was about to take full effect, Defense Secretary [Robert] Gates effectively fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. [Peter] Pace, who was the last member or the old Rumsfeld team still in place, having been vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs starting in October 2001 and then chairman since October 2005.”
– Thomas E. Ricks, The Gamble, Page 199