The top U.S. general in Afghanistan was summoned to Washington for a White House meeting after apologizing Tuesday for flippant and dismissive remarks about top Obama administration officials involved in Afghanistan policy.

The remarks in an article in this week’s in Rolling Stone magazine are certain to increase tension between the White House and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal.

The profile of McChrystal, , titled the “Runaway General,” also raises fresh questions about the judgment and leadership style of the commander Obama appointed last year in an effort to turn around a worsening conflict.

McChrystal and some of his senior advisors are quoted criticizing top administration officials, at times in starkly derisive terms. An anonymous McChrystal aide is quoted calling national security adviser James Jones a “clown,” who remains “stuck in 1985.”

Referring to Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s senior envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, one McChrystal aide is quoted saying: “The Boss says he’s like a wounded animal. Holbrooke keeps hearing rumors that he’s going to get fired, so that makes him dangerous.”

On one occasion, McChrystal appears to react with exasperation when he receives an e-mail from Holbrooke, saying, “Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke. I don’t even want to read it.”

U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, a retired three-star general, isn’t spared. Referring to a leaked cable from Eikenberry that expressed concerns about the trustworthiness of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, McChrystal is quoted as having said: “Here’s one that covers his flank for the history books. Now if we fail, they can say, ‘I told you so.'”

A U.S. embassy spokeswoman said she had no immediate comment on the piece.

The story also features an exchange in which McChrystal and some of his aides appear to mock Vice President Biden, who opposed McChrystal’s troop surge recommendation last year and instead urged instead for a more focused emphasis on counter-terrorism operations.

“Are you asking me about Vice President Biden?” McChrystal asks the profile’s reporter a at one point, laughing. “Who’s that?”

“Biden?” an unnamed aide is quoted as saying. “Did you say Bite me?”

Lt. Col. Joseph Breasseale, a U.S. military spokesman, said McChrystal called Biden and other senior administration officials Tuesday morning in reference to the article. “After these discussions, he decided to travel to the U.S. for a meeting,” the spokesman said in an e-mail.

A senior administration official in Washington said McChrystal had been summoned to the White House to explain his remarks. The general will attend a regular meeting on Afghan-Pakistan strategy scheduled for Wednesday. Normally, he would have participated in the session via videoconference.

The magazine hits newsstands Friday and could be posted online earlier in the week. The Washington Post received an advance copy of the article from its author, Michael Hastings, a freelance journalist who has written for the Post.

“I extend my sincerest apology for this profile,” McChrystal said in a statement issued Tuesday morning. “It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and it should have never happened.”

The timing of the piece could hardly be worse. Amid a flurry of bad news in Afghanistan and a sharp rise in NATO casualties, U.S. lawmakers and senior officials from NATO allied countries are asking increasingly sharp questions about the U.S.-led war strategy.

Dutch and Canadian troops are scheduled to pull out within the next year. And the White House has said it will start drawing down U.S. forces next July.

The magazine story shows that McChrystal is also facing criticism from some of his own troops who have grown frustrated with new rules that force commanders be extraordinarily judicious in using lethal force.

A few weeks ago, according to the magazine, the general traveled to a small outpost in Kandahar Province, in southern Afghanistan, to meet with a unit of soldiers reeling from the loss of a comrade, 23-year-old Cpl. Michael Ingram.

The corporal was killed in a booby-trapped house that some of the unit’s commanders had unsuccessfully sought permission to blow up.

One soldier at the outpost showed Hastings, who was traveling with the general, a written directive instructing troops to “patrol only in areas that you are reasonably certain that you will not have to defend yourself with lethal force.”

During a tense meeting with Ingram’s platoon, one sergeant tells McChrystal: “Sir, some of the guys here, sir, think we’re losing, sir.”

McChrystal has championed a counterinsurgency strategy that prioritizes protecting the population as a means to marginalize and ultimately defeat the insurgency. Because new rules sharply restrict the circumstances under which air strikes and other lethal operations that have resulted in civilian casualties can be conducted, some soldiers say the strategy has left them more exposed.

June is on track to be the deadliest month for NATO troops in Afghanistan since the war began nearly nine years ago. At least 63 NATO troops have been killed so far this month, including 10 who died Monday in a helicopter crash and a series of attacks.

In his statement, McChrystal says he has “enormous respect and admiration for President Obama and his national security team.”

“Throughout my career, I have lived by the principles of personal honor and professional integrity,” the general said. “What is reflected in this article falls far short of that standard.”

(Source: Washington Post)