Former top General in Iraq blast Bush admin 4 creating Iraq Nightmare

[actsnoblemartin]

how many times we gonna cry over spild milk?

Ex-Commander Blasts Iraq 'Nightmare'

By Robert Parry
October 12, 2007

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded U.S. forces in Iraq for the first year of the occupation, blamed “incompetence” by President George W. Bush’s national security team for creating a “nightmare” that could last far into the future.


Sanchez, who led coalition forces from June 2003 to June 2004, used an Oct. 12 speech to a conference of Military Reporters and Editors in Arlington, Virginia, to castigate nearly everyone connected to the Iraq War, including the U.S. news media, Congress, the State Department, the White House and the Pentagon.

“There has been a glaring, unfortunate display of incompetence in strategic leadership among our national leaders,” Sanchez said. “They have unquestionably been derelict in the performance of their duty. In my profession, these types of leaders would be immediately relieved or court-martialed.”

Though Sanchez did not criticize Bush by name, he left little doubt that he placed most of the blame on the administration’s top leadership, particularly the National Security Council which is led by the President and which was under the day-to-day direction of Condoleezza Rice until her elevation to Secretary of State in 2005.

Sanchez said that starting in July of 2003, the generals on the ground warned that the war could not be won by military means and required a coordinated strategy that brought to bear the full panoply of American power and influence.

“Any sequential solutions would lead to a prolonged conflict and increased resistance,” Sanchez said about these messages to Washington. “By neglect and incompetence at the National Security Council level, that is the path our political leaders chose and now America and more precisely the American military finds itself in an intractable situation.”......

“Continued manipulations and adjustments to our military strategy will not achieve victory,” Sanchez said in an apparent reference to Bush’s decision to "surge" U.S. troops this year. “The best we can do with this flawed approach is to stave off defeat.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/101207.html

 

[Doug]

Actually, Maineman has a point.

There are more than a few people on the Right whose reflex is to label any opponent of the war, "unpatriotic". But at least we are ecumenical when we do this: see the major article by David Frum in National Review a few years ago labeling Pat Buchanan and his co-thinkers "unpatriotic conservatives". (I loved the fact that Frum is an immigrant from Canada.)

It's a bad way to argue.

It's perfectly possible for someone to oppose invading Iraq the same way someone could have advised General Custer not to attack that large Indian encampment.

And it's even possible to see the point of people who might have sympathyzed with the Indians, rather than the US Cavalry, in that fight. (Full disclosure: I am part Indian, like many Americans.)

So whatever your conception of patriotism is, it must be one that gives guidance to a German patriot, who was also a believer in decency and democracy, in WWII, or a similarly-minded Russian patriot during the Cold War. It's not such an easy question, and anyone whose position is that any citizen of any country must automatically support any war that the government of that country at the time wages, is a ... well, has an over-simplifed concept of the duty of a thinking adult.

However, there are those on the Left who have gone beyond criticizing the war on tactical grounds. There are some who see the American political and economic system as inherently evil, root-and-branch, and who therefore rejoice in its failures, in any war. If the enemy makes the right noises about supporting some of the goals of liberalism -- equality, for example -- these people positively welcome its victory against us, as we saw when our opponent was Communism, and many liberals became positive cheerleaders for the North Vietnamese gulag-masters. (It's a bit harder for them to gush with admiration over the head-hackers, who don't seem to be keen on gay liberation etc. Although a few on the left have managed even that.)

And these people are often given a warm hearing by liberals who don't go quite so far. And this gives substance to the cry of "unpatriotic".

However, I am puzzled by Maineman's endorsement of General Sanchez. Is he really an ally of the people who want to withdraw from Iraq NOW, and be damned to the consequences? Here is an extract from the full interview in Stars and Stripes:

Even now, the U.S. government has yet to launch a concerted effort to come up with a strategy to win in Iraq, Sanchez said. Such a strategy should involve political reconciliation among Iraqis, building up the Iraqi security forces and getting Iraq’s regional partners.

Sanchez acknowledged that U.S. officials have adopted that idea, but added that they do not have the necessary nonmilitary resources to carry it out.

So, Maineman: do I take it that you want us to to launch a concerted effort to come up with a strategy to win in Iraq, which should involve political reconciliation among Iraqis, building up the Iraqi security forces and getting Iraq’s regional partners involved in the effort, while finding the necessary nonmilitary resources to carry it out?

 

[Doug]

It's always worthwhile to read all of a quoted source.

Here is some more from that interview with Sanchez in Stars and Stripes (with whose criticisms of the Bush Administration I am wholly in agreement):

Even now, the U.S. government has yet to launch a concerted effort to come up with a strategy to win in Iraq, Sanchez said. Such a strategy should involve political reconciliation among Iraqis, building up the Iraqi security forces and getting Iraq’s regional partners.

Sanchez acknowledged that U.S. officials have adopted that idea, but added that they do not have the necessary nonmilitary resources to carry it out.

So, are all in agreement with the General that the U.S. government should launch a concerted effort to come up with a strategy to win in Iraq, which would involve political reconciliation among Iraqis, building up the Iraqi security forces and getting Iraq’s regional partners [involved], making sure that they have the necessary nonmilitary resources to carry it out?

Somehow, I don't think that is what DeadCanDance has in mind.

 

[actsnoblemartin]

are we not allowed to criticize or disagree with you or him, I wish you would calm down a bit. your rhetoric is intense lately.

I mean, how are we supposed to criticize/disgree with him and you?

It seems you either really believe everything is out to question your patriotism, or everyone really is doing it.

which is it?, prove it

interesting though, isn't it? I have been saying the exact same thing as the general for quite some time, and my patriotism and my intelligence has been routinely questioned and denigrated..... by YOU, actually.

odd.

 

[maineman]

"So, Maineman: do I take it that you want us to to launch a concerted effort to come up with a strategy to win in Iraq, which should involve political reconciliation among Iraqis, building up the Iraqi security forces and getting Iraq’s regional partners involved in the effort, while finding the necessary nonmilitary resources to carry it out?"

absolutely. And when I have previously suggested that any strategy for success in Iraq needed to involve the syrians and iranians as well as the other regional players, mindless neocons on here and elsewhere have laughed and scoffed and suggested I was insane to want to employ diplomacy with our "enemies" and with "terrorists".

I am quite encouraged by the Brownback-Biden initiatives... I, for one, think that trying to retain the country of Iraq - as envisioned by european diplomats a century ago with no knowledge of the enmity existing between sects of Islam - is less than wise. Similarly, I think that the more we train an Iraqi military that consists of sunnis and shiites and kurds, the more well trained those sectarian militias will be when they split apart within months of our departure if we have not, somehow, gotten the neighbors - including our "enemies" - to supplant our forces with their own and to supplant our overall efforts with their own. I do not believe that an American strategy that is built on our continued military preeminence in the region to the exclusion of other Islamic states with stake in the solution will succeed...this year this decade or this century.

 

[DeadCanDance]

how many times we gonna cry over spild milk?

Until those who cheerled us into this disaster apologize, and are held accountable. And yes, that includes democrats like Liberman and Hillary.

As you can see from post number three, war cheerleaders are still dodging accountability for the nightmare they created: they're simply saying that, while it may be a nightmare, "we can't leave". That may or may not be true. But, I've never seen a war cheerleader apologize or demand anyone be held accountable for this disaster

 

[Paulie]

I happen to agree with almost every sentence by the General. But the quetion is, is our objective in Iraq achieveable under some other strategy? If not, we have to admit defeat and get out -- which will be a HUGE victory to our enemies.

How so? We aren't "defeated". We went in there and wiped the floor with them militarily, and took Baghdad in 3 weeks. That was anything BUT defeat. Us leaving now because we can't instill and enforce our ideologies upon Muslims who have been invaded and occupied by Western Christian forces is not defeat, it's just practical. If you want to argue that we were defeated POLITICALLY, then i might be willing to concede. Hasn't it become plainly obvious that no specific "strategy" is going to make a completely different religion accept our occupation?

But then again, the same people who already KNEW we'd be defeated politically back in '94, were stupid enough to risk it in '02 when nothing had even changed, so go figure.

Our "enemies" you refer to know our capabilities militarily. You're a fool if you think that leaving Iraq is going to empower them, and give them some new reason to think they can "defeat" us.

And if "defeat" to them means getting the US out of their land, then i don't necessarily disagree with them. We don't belong over there in the first place. We have enough of our own domestic problems.

Or are you one of those who doesn't believe that blowback from our continued presence and aggression around the world includes increasing hatred among certain Muslims?

 

[CorpMediaSux]

Originally Posted by actsnoblemartin View Post
how many times we gonna cry over spild milk?

I'm sorry, but...did you just equate a civil war that we have actively exacerbated that has caused the end of thousands of lives as "spilled milk?" Are you trying to demonstrate your own racism or just joking around. Civil Wars are not "spilled milk."

 

[doniston]

how many times we gonna cry over spild milk?

Maybe until someone cleans it up. It sure doesn't help to "STAY THE COURSE"

 

[Gunny]

I can hardly wait for the koolaid soaked Bush butt lickers to start assailing the patriotism of THIS fine general.

and right on schedule:

If YOU are going to present him as an authority with more knowledge than the rest (because you happen to agree with him), so should he stand the test of more scrutiny.

 

[Annie]

I can hardly wait for the koolaid soaked Bush butt lickers to start assailing the patriotism of THIS fine general.

and right on schedule:

Unfortunately the left got there first:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/082804Y.shtml

Army's Report Faults General in Prison Abuse
By Douglas Jehl and Eric Schmitt
The New York Times

Friday 27 August 2004

Washington - Classified parts of the report by three Army generals on the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison say Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former top commander in Iraq, approved the use in Iraq of some severe interrogation practices intended to be limited to captives held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and Afghanistan.

Moreover, the report contends, by issuing and revising the rules for interrogations in Iraq three times in 30 days, General Sanchez and his legal staff sowed such confusion that interrogators acted in ways that violated the Geneva Conventions, which they understood poorly anyway.

Military officials and others in the Bush administration have repeatedly said the Geneva Conventions applied to all prisoners in Iraq, even though members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban held in Afghanistan and Guantánamo did not, in their estimation, fall under the conventions.

But classified passages of the Army report say the procedures approved by General Sanchez on Sept. 14, 2003, and the revisions made when the Central Command found fault with the initial policy, exceeded the Geneva guidelines as well as standard Army doctrines...

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cach...aib&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us&client=firefox-a

...[edit] Ricardo Sanchez

Documents obtained by The Washington Post and the ACLU show that the senior U.S. military officer in Iraq Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez authorized the use of military dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns and sensory deprivation as interrogation methods in Abu Ghraib.[70] Also a November 2004 report by Brig Gen Richard Formica found that many troops, from the Abu Ghraib prison, were only following orders based on a memo from Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez and "[She] didn't find cruel and malicious criminals that are out there looking for detainees to abuse,".[71] "Gen Sanchez authorised interrogation techniques that were in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions and the army's own standards", ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh said in the union's statement.[72] In an interview for her hometown newspaper The Signal, General Karpinski claimed to have seen unreleased documents from Rumsfeld that authorized these tactic for Iraqi prisoners.[73] Both Sanchez and Rumsfeld have denied authorization....

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/12/185224/75

Lying General creates smokescreen for himself
by profmarcus
Fri Oct 12, 2007 at 04:05:44 PM PDT

[cross-posted at And, yes, I DO take it personally]

robert parry reports on general ricardo sanchez' october 12 speech...

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cach...ez&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=20&gl=us&client=firefox-a

 

[maineman]

If YOU are going to present him as an authority with more knowledge than the rest (because you happen to agree with him), so should he stand the test of more scrutiny.

are you really suggesting that the general that ran the war effort does not have more knowledge of the situation on the ground than anyone of us?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

are you really suggesting that the general that ran the war effort does not have more knowledge of the situation on the ground than anyone of us?

Well lets see, your willing to suggest that the Generals that followed him are both wrong, that this General has more knowledge then them. I wonder why that is?

 

[Gunny]

are you really suggesting that the general that ran the war effort does not have more knowledge of the situation on the ground than anyone of us?

I am suggesting that you started a thread basically accusing anyone of disagreeing with you or Sanchez of being some koolaid drinking whatever.

I also will suggest that being a LtGen does not give one inherent clairvoyance. I've known some DUMB general officers.

However, my point was that you're trying to make this a one way street. You want to allow the general credibility above and beyond the rest; yet, you insult when he is scrutinized above and beyond the rest.

 

[Doug]

Does General Sanchez have some special knowledge of Iraq that no one else has?

The fact is, no one knows much about Iraqi society, nor can we predict what is going to happen.

Those who want to see the US take a defeat there can of course come up with evidence to suggest Iraq will never stablize in any way that will be favorable to us.

The same conclusion might be reached by those who don't want to see us defeated, but believe our aims are unrealizable.

As for "defeat". Of course we will not be defeated in the sense of having to throw down our arms and march out with our hands up.

But if we are seen to be driven out, because we cannot take the casualties, or we need to spend the money now going to Iraq on welfare babies or wealthy farmers at home, or for whatever other reason ... of course our enemies will get a huge psychological boost from this, and our friends and non-enemies will adjust their calculations accordingly.

Sanchez, as I read him, wants us to WIN in Iraq. And that's the difference between him and those making use of his (mostly correct) criticisms of the hapless incompetents of the Bush Administration.

 

[trobinett]

General Sanchez , sour grapes anyone?

 

[Gunny]

General Sanchez , sour grapes anyone?

Ever noticed how General officers who agree with Bush are "Betray-us", but those that disagree are considered unipeachable witnesses, and of course have more insight than anyone else?

I don't particularly agree with Bush and/or his strategy in Iraq. But we ARE there and as long as we are, we need to clean the freakin' mess up.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Ever noticed how General officers who agree with Bush are "Betray-us", but those that disagree are considered unipeachable witnesses, and of course have more insight than anyone else?

I don't particularly agree with Bush and/or his strategy in Iraq. But we ARE there and as long as we are, we need to clean the freakin' mess up.

Notice how Mianeman picks and choses who he believes? Only those that say what he wants to hear have any knowledge if we are to believe him. Every General that disagrees or does not say what Maineman wants to hear is incompetent or "misinformed". Further this particular General has no direct knowledge of conditions or the situation in Iraq now, no knowledge on the intel, the politics or the troops missions and support.

Add to that the man is not condemning the mission only voicing his frustration with what was wrong when he was in command, something he did NOT do while IN command. He did not find conditions or the political decisions so onerous when he was in command that he resigned, now did he? Perhaps I missed that bit of the story.

Have things been done wrong? Could we have done better? Maybe, most likley in fact. History shows us that in every war or long term conflict mistakes are made, the winners are those that adapt and change as needed. Sounds a lot like what we are doing and have been doing.

Cutting and running is NOT a solution. It does not solve the problem nor clean up a mess we created. We have a DUTY and RESPONSIBILITY to help Iraq until they can help themselves or prove they will never do that. Neither of those conditions are met yet, though it is becoming clearer and clearer that the first is coming about.

 

[maineman]

Notice how Mianeman picks and choses who he believes? Only those that say what he wants to hear have any knowledge if we are to believe him. Every General that disagrees or does not say what Maineman wants to hear is incompetent or "misinformed". Further this particular General has no direct knowledge of conditions or the situation in Iraq now, no knowledge on the intel, the politics or the troops missions and support.

Add to that the man is not condemning the mission only voicing his frustration with what was wrong when he was in command, something he did NOT do while IN command. He did not find conditions or the political decisions so onerous when he was in command that he resigned, now did he? Perhaps I missed that bit of the story.

Have things been done wrong? Could we have done better? Maybe, most likley in fact. History shows us that in every war or long term conflict mistakes are made, the winners are those that adapt and change as needed. Sounds a lot like what we are doing and have been doing.

Cutting and running is NOT a solution. It does not solve the problem nor clean up a mess we created. We have a DUTY and RESPONSIBILITY to help Iraq until they can help themselves or prove they will never do that. Neither of those conditions are met yet, though it is becoming clearer and clearer that the first is coming about.

I notice how you put "misinformed" in quotation marks. Typical of YOU to make claims you cannot back up. I DEMAND that you show one post where I have EVER called a general incompetent OR "misinformed".... or have the grace to retract the statement.

I'll wait.

And, flag officers, as a rule, soldier on in the face of inept civilian leadership. They have a great degree of loyalty to their service and to their men and if every flag officer resigned every time an incompetent secdef oir CinC asked them to do something they disagreed with, we would have no uniformed leadership in our armed forces. I would think that you would KNOW that RGS.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

I notice how you put "misinformed" in quotation marks. Typical of YOU to make claims you cannot back up. I DEMAND that you show one post where I have EVER called a general incompetent OR "misinformed".... or have the grace to retract the statement.

I'll wait.

And, flag officers, as a rule, soldier on in the face of inept civilian leadership. They have a great degree of loyalty to their service and to their men and if every flag officer resigned every time an incompetent secdef oir CinC asked them to do something they disagreed with, we would have no uniformed leadership in our armed forces. I would think that you would KNOW that RGS.

When you explain why this ONE general is suddenly the be all for Iraq when he has not even been in Iraq in 3 years, why you do not believe the Generals since him INCLUDING the current one, then I will rspond to your bullshit red herring.

You have taken a general that has not been in command for 3 years, has not been in theater, has not even been IN the Army and blasted every other general with your koolaid comment. Or perhaps you didn't really mean that?

Now you have compounded it with claiming that serving General Officers lie for the President or the Sec Def. SO does that mean that Sanchez was lying in 2003/2004 when he said NONE of these things? If so why should we believe a known liar now?

Another example of YOU disparaging Military personnel because they do not do what you want or say what you want to hear. Your remark damns every general since Sanchez and those during his tour that have not "spoken up".