WASHINGTON, May 22: US General Tommy Franks, who led US forces in two invasions in two years in Afghanistan and Iraq, has decided to retire but probably won’t hand over his command before the fall, military officials said on Thursday.

The date Gen Franks, 57, will leave the service “is one of the things he has to decide” in conjunction with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said the official. No successor has been named.

Tommy Franks “has let him (Rumsfeld) know he’s going to retire, but he’s focused on what is going on right now in the AOR (area of responsibility) and no official timeframe has been established”, a second military official said, adding that a fall retirement “is probably pretty realistic”.

An artillery officer by background, Franks made dramatic use of US special operations forces in both invasions, and gambled in favour of speed of movement over the massing of overwhelming force to capture Baghdad in only three weeks.

Mr Rumsfeld, who leaned on him to produce more imaginative plans, hailed Franks as “a truly outstanding professional military officer who performed his critically important tasks just about as well as they could have been performed”.—AFP