This is a stinging rebuke of George W. Bush and the entire Iraq War policy. The White House was stunned and the only comment from the Bush Spin Machine was to thank General Sanchez for his service. General Sanchez not only blasted the way the war was handled but said, the current surge strategy is a desperate move that will not achieve long-term stability. General Sanchez also said the Bush Administration handling of the Iraq war was incompetent with no end in sight. As our most senior military leaders retire and are able to tell it like it is, the picture of Bush as Commander-in-Chief and the entire Iraq war becomes worse and worse.
This is a direct quote from what General Sanchez had to say:
“There was been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders,” he said, adding later in his remarks that civilian officials have been “derelict in their duties” and guilty of a “lust for power.”
Friday, October 12, 2007
General Sanchez, Former Commander in Iraq, Harshly Criticizes the Administration in Speech
By Dr. Steven Taylor
Via the NYT: Former Top General in Iraq Faults Bush Administration
In a sweeping indictment of the four-year effort in Iraq, the former top American commander called the Bush administration’s handling of the war incompetent and warned that the United States was “living a nightmare with no end in sight.”
In one of his first major public speeches since leaving the Army in late 2006, retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez blamed the administration for a “catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan” and denounced the current “surge” strategy as a “desperate” move that will not achieve long-term stability.
“After more than fours years of fighting, America continues its desperate struggle in Iraq without any concerted effort to devise a strategy that will achieve victory in that war-torn country or in the greater conflict against extremism,” Mr. Sanchez said, at a gathering here of military reporters and editors.
Funny, this sounds pretty much like what every critic of the war has been saying for some time. I wonder how the hard-core war supporters will deal with this? My guess is that they will attack Sanchez–which will be interesting to watch, given that the drum beat for months has been that we have to show deference to high level military leaders like General Petraeus, as they know better about these things than the rest of us. Of course, much of the counter-punch will be along these lines:
his role as commander in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal leaves General Sanchez vulnerable to criticism that that he is shifting the blame from himself and exacting revenge against an administration that replaced him as the top commander in the aftermath of the scandal and declined to nominate him for a fourth star, forcing his retirement.
I certainly have to admit that despite my early assumptions that this administration had assembled a team of competent policymakers, that they have come to be exemplified as follows:
“There was been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders,” he said, adding later in his remarks that civilian officials have been “derelict in their duties” and guilty of a “lust for power.”