(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-03-28 23:34

Dempsey has extensive experience in Iraq. He earned high marks as commander of the 1st Armored Division in Iraq in 2003-2004. For nearly two years prior to taking the Central Command job he served in Baghdad as head of the command that is training and equipping Iraqi security forces.

Bush is not expected to nominate a successor to Fallon until after Petraeus reports to Congress April 8-9 on his assessment of conditions in Iraq and his recommendations for how to proceed.

It is possible that Dempsey could get the job, but there are several other candidates, including Petraeus.

When Gates disclosed Fallon's decision to quit he noted that Dempsey would fill in on an interim basis but named no candidates to be the permanent successor. Gates said Fallon's departure would "leave a hole" but he denied an Esquire magazine report that if Fallon were to leave prematurely it would mean Bush was going to war against Iran. The magazine said Fallon had fallen out of favor with the White House for public comments suggesting that war should not be an option in Iran.

Andrew Bacevich, a professor of international relations at Boston University, said he does not foresee significant changes in US policy toward Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan or Pakistan as a result of Fallon's departure.

"Those who believe that Fallon was the only person preventing the administration from going to war against Iran are wrong, in my view," Bacevich wrote in an e-mail exchange. "When Secretary Gates describes the prospect of such a war as 'ridiculous,' we should take him at his word."

The job of Central Command commander is part war fighter, part strategist and part diplomat. The commander answers to the secretary of defense and is responsible for US military relations with countries stretching from the Horn of Africa, through the Middle East and across Central Asia. That region is at the center of the administration's war on terrorism.

In addition to his years in Iraq, Dempsey headed a US program in Saudi Arabia to modernize the kingdom's National Guard, which is an elite force designed to protect the royal family, from September 2001 to June 2003.

Dempsey graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and attended the National War College in 1995-1996.

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