I hope that this man will learn from the experience and the process that General Dayton worked with, Gen. Adnan Damiri, spokesman for the Palestinian National Security Forces, told The Media Line.

Dayton had an international plan and what he did he did well and that was to help train us, Damiri said. The plan was a bit square, but we had no opposition to it and it was good for us.

But Damiri also sent Dayton off with criticism that he had overstepped his mandate by making political statements.

His job was not political and if we have any anger toward him it was that he got political with statements he made in Washington, Damiri said.

Dayton, who left the region last week, avoided the media and as a general rule did not give interviews during his quiet tenure. However, comments he made at a symposium in Washington last year created waves when he was misquoted as saying that the Palestinian forces trained with US funding could turn their weapons on Israel if peace efforts failed. Dayton never made such remarks; on the contrary, he said Palestinian and Israeli security forces were surprisingly well-coordinated.

Dayton, a trained artillery officer, oversaw the cultivation of the Palestinian National Security Service into a well-disciplined, highly-trained and loyal force that has played a major role in instilling order across the West Bank. The force is trained under US sponsorship in Jordan and deployed in five battalions inside the Palestinian Authority in coordination with Israel.