Richard Holbrooke Dead At 69

President Obama praised Richard Holbrooke as “one of the giants of foreign policy.” Holbrooke suffered a torn aorta and faced 20 hours of surgery, and even met with members of his Afghanistan team hours before he lost his battle.

Holbrooke’s death comes just days before the Obama administration’s latest review of the Afghanistan war, expected Thursday. It could affect the administration’s ability to put in place — and also sell to a skeptical Congress — its push for Afghan forces to assume a greater role in the fighting, allowing U.S. troops to come home. It is a transition in which Holbrooke was expected to play an important part.

The feisty and sometimes abrasive diplomat — whose forceful style earned him nicknames such as “The Bulldozer” or “Raging Bull — is perhaps best known for helping broker the Dayton accords, a 1995 agreement that ended the war in Bosnia.

He served as ambassador to the United Nations during the Clinton administration. He also was ambassador to Germany from 1993 to 1994 and then assistant secretary of state for European affairs.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.