Bush, at the second presidential debate:
“Of course, I listen to our generals. That’s what a president does. A president sets the strategy and relies upon good military people to execute that strategy.”
Bush, at a White House press conference with Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi last month:
“[W]hen our commanders say that they need support, they’ll get support, because we’re going to succeed in this mission.”
Bush, at a rally in New Hampshire on Oct. 1:
“When American [sic] puts our troops in combat, I believe they deserve the best training, the best equipment, the full support of our government.”
The front page of the Washington Post today:
The top U.S. commander in Iraq complained to the Pentagon last winter that his supply situation was so poor that it threatened Army troops’ ability to fight, according to an official document that has surfaced only now.
The lack of key spare parts for gear vital to combat operations, such as tanks and helicopters, was causing problems so severe, Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez wrote in a letter to top Army officials, that “I cannot continue to support sustained combat operations with rates this low.”
[…]
Sanchez, who was the senior commander on the ground in Iraq from the summer of 2003 until the summer of 2004, said in his letter that Army units in Iraq were “struggling just to maintain . . . relatively low readiness rates” on key combat systems, such as M-1 Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, anti-mortar radars and Black Hawk helicopters.
He also said units were waiting an average of 40 days for critical spare parts, which he noted was almost three times the Army’s average. In some Army supply depots in Iraq, 40 percent of critical parts were at “zero balance,” meaning they were absent from depot shelves, he said.
He also protested in his letter, sent Dec. 4 to the number two officer in the Army, with copies to other senior officials, that his soldiers still needed protective inserts to upgrade 36,000 sets of body armor but that their delivery had been postponed twice in the month before he was writing. There were 131,000 U.S. troops in Iraq at the time.
First, it’s a shame Sanchez couldn’t announce his concerns on his own. If he had taken his observations public, support would have been immediate. Instead, we’re hearing about this from a leaked memo almost a year after the fact. The damage has already been done.
Second, is it safe to assume that the Bush White House will somehow dismiss Gen. Sanchez as a disgruntled former employee?