Just on Friday, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former top commander in Iraq, criticized the administration’s handling of the war as “incompetent” and “catastrophically flawed.
Sounds to me Bush wasn't listening to his military after all.
This is not about Bush. This is about Sanchez. As a 3 star he did not sit at the big table.
Sounds to me like we have another general who did not have the moral courage to state his true beliefs before taking American Soldiers to war.
He indicates he believed what he now states before the war began. In my opinion, that means he sold his soul and the lives of American Solders for a promotion.
He was in command when the insurgency took root and began its counterattack. He was part of (the leader of) the leadership team that rejected the reports by Special Forces that an insurgency was underway until it was well established.
He is sour grapes because he did not get a 4th star.
If he was a patriot, he should have quit before the battle and gone public with his concerns.
He should have been fired for not winning and because the possibility of a military victory was lost on his watch.
He was a loser. Now he is a whiner.
But his motives have not changed. Follow the money. He failed to speak out when he should have for an opportunity at another promotion and pay raise.
He shifted gears and is speaking out now to create a controversy that will help is book sell.
He is not alone. We have an army full of such generals and we have civilian leadership that refuses to fire them no matter how much they lose.
It is not completely unnoticed by W however.
The descendancy of the army is underway.
Meanwhile, the ascendancy of the Navy, USMC, and USAF is in full swing as (for the first time) they have displaced Army generals and assumed command of every major Combatant Command including NATO, and Chairman JCS.
Think about it. Sanchez did such a good job of screwing the pooch that General Petraeus now works for the new CENTCOM Commander 4-star Admiral Fallon and all Special Operations forces are now commanded by 4-star Admiral Olson.
The problems we have in our army today have been incubating within the walls of West Point since Vietnam.
West Point gave us the two losers in that conflict - Westmoreland and Creighton Abrams. Westie took the army from 25,000 in Vietnam to 570,000 and down to 530,000. Abrams took it from 530,000 back to 25,000. During their glorious tenure 58,000 American kids died. Having lost a counter-insurgency, West Point decided not to fight any more and quit studying that form of warfare. When this war began the only school in the Army that taught the requisite skills was US Army Special Forces and West Point Grads were told to avoid us like the plague or suffer fewer promo opprtunities.
West Point's Wes Clark did such a good job at NATO, his old position is now held by a USAF General.
When you hear that our army is broken - believe it - but it is not W's fault. If you want a President to blame, look at Clinton. His 8 years of draconian cuts of 34-38% in military strength (depending on the service) left us unprepared for war.
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