How McChrystal lost his job

WASHINGTON — Gen. Stanley McChrystal's team knew it had a problem on its hands last Thursday when fact-checkers for Rolling Stone magazine sent in questions for an upcoming cover story.

Did the Afghanistan commander's inner circle really refer to itself as "Team America"? read one question that landed on the desk of McChrystal press aide Duncan Boothby.

It was hardly the most explosive revelation in the piece, but it was the first inkling that McChrystal's decision to allow generous access might have backfired.

By Monday, an advance copy of the article was in the hands of a young press aide for President Barack Obama, setting into motion a chain of events that culminated less than 48 hours later with McChrystal's ouster and Obama seeking to reassert control over a military leadership that appeared disdainful of civilian authorities.

The article caught the Obama White House wholly unprepared. "There was no forewarning," a senior administration official said in an interview.

Vice President Joe Biden was flying home from Chicago aboard Air Force Two on Monday when McChrystal called to apologize. But Biden didn't know what the general was talking about — he had no inkling that the article existed.

Soon enough he would learn the reason for the call. Aides scrambled to get him a copy of the story, in which one McChrystal aide derisively referred to Biden as "Bite Me."

In a series of interviews Wednesday, several senior administration officials recounted the rapid-fire events that led from a profile in a music magazine to the ouster of America's top battlefield general.

Obama first saw the article on Monday. White House press aide Tommy Vietor had printed out copies and walked them around the West Wing.

Press secretary Robert Gibbs headed to the bottom level of the White House residence, where at about 8 p.m. he handed a copy to the president. Obama read a chunk of it, growing visibly more angry as he moved down the page.

Obama isn't a screamer. How does he show anger? "You would know it if you saw it," Gibbs would say later.

Obama summoned top aides to the Oval Office that night. In the room were senior adviser David Axelrod, National Security Council chief of staff Denis McDonough and deputy security adviser Ben Rhodes. Chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and national security adviser James Jones would come later that night for a second round of meetings.

"Is anybody disputing this article?" Gibbs asked the others, according to a senior staffer who was present. No one had heard that was the case.

The question then turned to McChrystal's future: Would the general have to go?