Former U.S. Commander in Iraq sees a ‘nightmare with no end in sight’

October 13, 2007

Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded U.S. forces in Iraq for a year after the March 2003 invasion, is an imperfect messenger for criticism of the administration’s war policy. He is perhaps best known for being the top U.S. general in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib scandal, though he was cleared of wrongdoing in the abuses.

But with that behind him, the retired three-star general is now offering a blunt assessment of those who used to give him orders.

In a sweeping indictment of the four-year effort in Iraq, the former top commander of American forces there called the Bush administration’s handling of the war “incompetent” and said the result was “a nightmare with no end in sight.”

Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who retired in 2006 after being replaced in Iraq after the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, blamed the Bush administration for a “catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan” and denounced the current addition of American forces as a “desperate” move that would not achieve long-term stability.

“After more than four 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,” General Sanchez said at a gathering of military reporters and editors in Arlington, Va.

In today’s political climate, the White House and its allies usually dismiss assessments like this as “defeatist,” and borderline treason. When Democratic members of Congress offer nearly identical criticism, the knee-jerk response from the right is that Dems are emboldening terrorists, undermining the troops, and putting the U.S. at risk.

It’s probably going to be more difficult, at least a little, for the right to smear Gen. Sanchez as reflexively as they do everyone else. In fact, considering the recent claims that questioning the judgment of U.S. generals is practically seditious, conservative war supporters will need to tread carefully.

Keep in mind just how broad this “revolt of the generals” is. It’s not as if Sanchez’s criticism is unusual — on the contrary, he’s the latest in a long line of leaders with stars on their shoulder to break with tradition and blast the Bush administration for its failures.

The generals acted independently, coming in their own ways to the agonizing decision to defy military tradition and publicly criticize the Bush administration over its conduct of the war in Iraq.

What might be called The Revolt of the Generals has rarely happened in the nation’s history.

In op-ed pieces, interviews and TV ads, more than 20 retired U.S. generals have broken ranks with the culture of salute and keep it in the family. Instead, they are criticizing the commander in chief and other top civilian leaders who led the nation into what the generals believe is a misbegotten and tragic war.

Are they all “phony soldiers“?

In fact, considering the recent claims that questioning the judgment of U.S. generals is practically seditious, conservative war supporters will need to tread carefully.

Don’t be silly. You keep falling into the old “logical consistancy” trap. The right will smear him faster than you can say Wesley Clark.

  • Heh – I wonder if we’ll look back on the MoveOn ad as bait that the wingnuts wished they hadn’t grabbed. They’ve now made it pretty darn hard for themselves to use the tactics that they love to use – the smear – on generals who speak out about the administration’s policies. I mean, they’ll still use it (the “phony soldiers” schtick by Rush just weeks after the Petraeus flair-up shows that they aren’t too bright about these things), but it’ll only make them look stupider and stupider.

  • “What might be called The Revolt of the Generals has rarely happened in the nation’s history. ”

    i’m sorry, i don’t mean to seem pessimistic, but what the hell good has it done so far?

  • I think it very well to have an army with bloody spears but to use that army as ours is being used I think it shameless on the part of our so called leaders. War is good for the economy my wages have gone up seventy percent in the last six years. I just wish that we would have had people in charge of the army who know war, instead of the politicians who send in the army with only a forth of the soldiers needed to get the job done right. If that would have constituted a draft so be it. All the looting that took place in Iraq after the start of the war sure didn’t create any good will towards us, all the main infrastructure should have been secured but we didn’t have enough troops in country to do the job right. Thanks to the firing of the generals at the beginning of the war that argued with the current administration on how to proceed with the war and win !

  • Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez…blamed the Bush administration for a “catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan”

    In this case, “optimistic” is a euphemism for “swollen-headed”! Since many of us civilians don’t know what operations are really like in Iraq — we see only the results but might blame that on the confusion of American forces being in the midst of insurgents who don’t wear uniforms — it’s too easy to forget that all along, US military leaders have been saying it can’t be done. Whatever “it” is. But Bush didn’t listen to the military leaders. He was determined to do things his way when he had no idea what he was doing, as apparently in everything he’s ever touched.

    It still disturbs me deeply that the invasion of Iraq was illegal under the Geneva Conventions, that Bush is a war criminal along with others in his administration, and that we’re there at all. So I truly don’t care about winning or losing in Iraq, whatever they mean, just want it to end. Bush is just like the thief who tried to enter a house through the chimney on Christmas Eve and got stuck. Right or wrong, he can’t do anything successfully, unless his purpose is to create bedlam, destruction, and disorder in everything he does. He does THAT quite well.

    Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez makes a good case for getting out in early 2008, not later.

  • You seriously underestimate the right’s ability to tolerate massive cognitive dissonance, they won’t hesitate for even a second to smear Sanchez. It’s not okay for anyone to criticize people who believe exactly what they believe (like Petraeus), everyone else is fair game.

  • I’ve already started to catch a whiff of how they will try to dispute Sanchez’s assessment. There will be two tacks:

    1) Sanchez also criticized the media, which no one seems to be reporting, as if the incompetence of the media led to more than 3,800 dead Americans

    2) Sanchez is bitter for being forced out because of Abu Ghraib

  • The talking heads on CNN were criticizing the general. If he thought the policy was so disasterous, they said he should have resigned in protest. Maybe he should have. I guess the talking heads have their retirement policies already in place and wouldn’t mind giving up a vocation they have devoted their entire lifetime to.

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  • My question is, why did Sanchez wait so long to go public with his thoughts? For that matter, I have to wonder if he would even have retired had he been given the fourth star he probably thought he should have gotten, but which Abu Ghraib pretty well killed, even though he was determined not to have been at fault.

    I suppose one could speculate that he waited this long so as not to be accused of just being bitter over the whole thing, but even so.

    This is another in a long line of people who seem to have finally found their conscience – and their voice – long after it would have made a real difference. I don’t think this administration gives a rat’s ass at this point what these retired military leaders are saying – they know, as do the rest of us, that it’s going to be business as usual from now until at least January, 2009. All this administration hears when people like Sanchez speak is some variation of “blah-blah-blah, yadda-yadda-yadda;” and their response is “whatever.”

    I can’t be the only one who is sickened by the number of people who only found the “courage” to speak when there was nothing on the line for them. Sanchez going public with his “Me, too!” thoughts doesn’t make my heart flutter as much as it makes my stomach hurt.

  • The article posted at the top of the Times website seems to pertain to this discussion. I recommend it, particularly to those of us that wonder why more officers failed to speak out while in uniform.

    “For the sake of argument, a question from the reporter was posed: If enough four-star generals had done that, would it have stopped the war?

    “Yeah, we’d call it a coup d’etat,” Colonel Fontenot said. “Do you want to have a coup d’etat? You kind of have to decide what you want. Do you like the Constitution, or are you so upset about the Iraq war that you’re willing to dismiss the Constitution in just this one instance and hopefully things will be O.K.? I don’t think so.”

    IMHO our Iraq debacle is a failure of the civilian leadership. On balance, I think that we’re better off having the generals salute and execute the plan than getting involved in the political process.

  • I’m sure these Generals are used to having the civilian leadership defer to them or at least listen to them, and it comes as a shock when dealing with the Bush Administration.

    Even the Generals have been conditioned for years to listen to their superiors, so I’m sure it takes some time after they hang Abu Ghraib on you (buck stops where, Cheney?) to shed that conditioning.

    I’m glad to see him publicly tell the truth, but I think nothing will come of it, and they will swift-boat him as a vindictive with an ax to grind.

  • There is enough blame for all when it comes to the Iraq situation.
    When will someone take action to end the senseless killing of both American and Iraqi people? Let’s put politics to side and act as humane beings and end this war.

  • I watched Sanchez’s presentation on C-Span. It was fascinating on a number of levels – not the least of which was the level of bitterness about the situation in Iraq that he levels at the press and at politicians. While he allows that the military has made mistakes – he is most angry about the failings of other parties to the disaster. I believe he did say – in response to questions after his speech – that military commanders should have resigned rather than accept Rumsfeld’s “scaled down” approach to the number of troops needed for the invasion. But, he still will not comment on whether the invasion itself was the most castrophic error of them all. I found General Sanchez’s comments most remarkable for the bitter baldness of his accusations of incompetence within the ranks of his civilian bosses and for his promises to “name names” later. I also felt that he (perhaps predictably) was not hard enough on himself or his fellows among the military. At some point, if his assessments were ignored and he felt civilian leadership threatened his troops and their success, he should have resigned and said so. He did not.

    Finally, I have to admit that the agnostic in me felt an unpleasant chill from General Sanchez’s closing line in his comments (after wishing a “God bless” on the gathering and America):

    “PRAISE BE TO THE LORD MY ROCK WHO TRAINS MY FINGERS FOR BATTLE AND MY HANDS FOR WAR”

  • Are they all “phony soldiers“? — CB

    Nope; just “armchair generals”. They’re retired old farts, what do they know? Very easy to dismiss.

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