As was the case with Jimmy Carter's assertion that the Bush administration has been engaged in torture, what Sanchez is saying about "neglect and incompetence" is obvious and has been for years. What's interesting is that Sanchez is characterizing the incompetence of the Bush team as "criminal negligence." Bush administration officials would have been "court-martialed" if they had been in the military because their "neglect and incompetence" resulted in the loss of so many American and Iraqi lives and the waste of so many military assets.If some of America’s political leaders were in the military they would have been relieved or court-martialed long ago, Sanchez told a conference of military journalists.
"Neglect and incompetence" by the National Security Council has led to an intractable situation in Iraq, the former commander of coalition forces in Iraq said.
An indictment of Bush administration negligence would certainly be extremely long--including George Bush's going with his "gut" on invading Iraq, the idiotic belief that the occupation would be a piece of cake, the decision not to suppress the initial round of looting, the breaking up of the Iraqi Army, and the failure to evaluate the internal politics of Iraqi Shiites.
Of course, there was Abu Ghraib as well.
As matters of criminal negligence, all of these examples of neglect and incompetence constitute "high crimes and misdemeanors" that would be impeachable if the Democrats were strictly applying the constitution.
Sanchez doesn't mention that the Bush administration was also involved in a variety of crimes against humanity that would include the constant round-ups and illegal interrogations of "men of military age," the treatment of accused terrorists at Guantanamo, the policy of exporting accused terrorists to countries that engage in torture, and the use of practices like extreme sensory deprivation, psychological torture, and waterboarding in our own facilities.
It's already well-known that the Bush administration has been engaged in widespread violations of American and international law. By alluding to the criminal negligence in Bush administration conduct, Sanchez adds another dimension to the indictment of the Bush team.
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Add General Sanchez to a growing list of military experts who object to the invasion/occupation/decimation of Iraq and her people and the “criminal negligence” on the part of the Administration.
There is nothing left. Bush and company are exposed and the days when they could spin their way out of this situation are at an end. The full measure of their lies and misdeeds are out there. They will never be held legally accountable and their lives will never be in jeopardy.
The lives in jeopardy here are Iraqi civilians and American soldiers who still fight without the equipment they need or the care they are owed. The security of the Iraqi people is not enhanced and the security of this nation is being compromised.
Ending this flawed conflict is crucial not just for Iraq, but also to the future of our own our own national security. We were all aghast when we learned of conditions at Walter Reed Hospital. But every day, the men and women of our military are suffering beyond reason. And it is clear that they and their commanding officers know that this cause in unjust and lost. How dare this Administration completely demoralize our brave soldiers this way!!
It is inhuman. The vehicles and equipment they use to train for war are failing and often break. They are physically weary, many still suffering from the lingering effects of leg and back injuries. Others are in counseling for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Most of the soldiers who were married before the war are now divorced. Their lives outside of this conflict are coming apart. They personify sacrifice yet they are punished for their loyalty. They never complain. When they are given a mission, they find a way to complete it. That creed is why our armed forces are so strong but this means nothing to the architects of the war/occupation.
General Sanchez is the latest voice in the chorus of mostly retired Generals to state that our Armed Forces cannot go on like this. The message though not necessarily expressed in these terms is clear, we are in danger of destroying our system of national defense. We see soldiers sent back for tour after tour after tour, some too injured to wear body armor. This war is a dramatic abuse and misuse of our military.
Make no mistake. The erosion of our national defense has nothing to do with any inherent internal weakness on the part of our brave soldiers. This is taking place because they are being forced to execute a flawed, unnecessary, impossible mission. And so, that mission must change. Not because we are conceding anything to those who would do our nation harm, not because we lack the will to fight for our security, and not because, as some will accuse, that to change the mission and redeploy our people out of there is giving up. It is simply a matter of reality. Our great/good people are being injured and dying based upon a pack of lies.
If we care about them we need to support a cautious, responsible withdrawal. To continue leaving them there and sending them back is to spit in their faces and dishonor their service to their country.
Sanchez has had enough. We’ve all had enough.
Expect to hear nothing from the Right on this. When the military betrays te Right's talking points, they wait for a few years to smear them (ever read Protein Wisdom or Red State re: John Murtha, John Kerry, or Wesley Clark?). So, when Sanchez's book comes out there will be silence....and then Michelle Malkin will allege a kid lied somewhere, a poor person was helped by the government, a soldier wrote a diary, etc and JD will be here blathering some half-coherent defense of Malkin and her mini-me Goldstein.
At no time will reality poke its head into their little room and introduce itself. If it tried, since they've never seen it, they bludgeon it to death, because it has to be anm Islamic terrorism.
"an Islamic terrorist"
I hate muffing the closing
Sanchez's own words. (I feel this is relevant so I am assuming the "cutnpaste" role for this information.
Ex-general: 'No end in sight' in Iraq
By STEVEN KOMAROW, Associated Press Writer 41 minutes ago
The U.S. mission in Iraq is a "nightmare with no end in sight", a former chief of U.S.-led forces said Friday.
Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchezcurrent strategies — including the deployment of 30,000 additional forces earlier this year — a "desperate attempt" to make up for years of misguided policies in Iraq.
"There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight," Sanchez told a group of journalists covering military affairs.
Sanchez criticized the State Department, the National Security Council, and the senior military leadership during what appeared to be a broad indictment of White House policies and a lack of leadership to oppose them.
Such assessments — even by former Pentagon brass — are not new, but they have added resonance as debates over war strategy dominate the presidential campaign.
Sanchez retired from the Army last year, two years after he completing a tumultuous year as commander of all U.S. forces in Iraq. As he stepped down, he called his career a casualty of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.
He was never charged with anything but he was not promoted in the aftermath of the prisoner abuse reports. He was criticized by some for not doing more to avoid mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners.
Sanchez told the gathering that he thought he had made mistakes and said he didn't always fully appreciate the secondary affects of actions the military took.
The retired soldier stressed that it became clear during his command that the mission was severely handicapped because the State Department and other agencies were not adequately contributing to a mission that could not be won by military force alone.
When asked when he saw that the mission was going awry, he responded: "About the 15th of June 2003" — the day he took command.
"There is nothing going on today in Washington that would give us hope" that things are going to change, he said.
Sanchez went on to offer a pessimistic view on the current U.S. strategy against extremists will make lasting gains.
Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
I also decided to include this in my roll as "cutnpaste." It is news. It is relevant:
October 11, 2007
Marines Press to Remove Their Forces From Iraq
By THOM SHANKER
WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 — The Marine Corps is pressing to remove its forces from Iraq and to send marines instead to Afghanistan, to take over the leading role in combat there, according to senior military and Pentagon officials.
The idea by the Marine Corps commandant would effectively leave the Iraq war in the hands of the Army while giving the Marines a prominent new role in Afghanistan, under overall NATO command.
The suggestion was raised in a session last week convened by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and regional war-fighting commanders. While still under review, its supporters, including some in the Army, argue that a realignment could allow the Army and Marines each to operate more efficiently in sustaining troop levels for two wars that have put a strain on their forces.
As described by officials who had been briefed on the closed-door discussion, the idea represents the first tangible new thinking to emerge since the White House last month endorsed a plan to begin gradual troop withdrawals from Iraq, but also signals that American forces likely will be in Iraq for years to come.
At the moment, there are no major Marine units among the 26,000 or so American forces in Afghanistan. In Iraq there are about 25,000 marines among the 160,000 American troops there.
It is not clear exactly how many of the marines in Iraq would be moved over. But the plan would require a major reshuffling, and it would make marines the dominant American force in Afghanistan, in a war that has broader public support than the one in Iraq.
Mr. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have not spoken publicly about the Marine concept, and aides to both officials said no formal proposal had been presented by the Marines. But the idea has been the focus of intense discussions between senior Marine Corps officers and other officials within the Defense Department.
It is not clear whether the Army would support the idea. But some officials sympathetic to the Army said that such a realignment would help ease some pressure on the Army, by allowing it to shift forces from Afghanistan into Iraq, and by simplifying planning for future troop rotations.
The Marine proposal could also face resistance from the Air Force, whose current role in providing combat aircraft for Afghanistan could be squeezed if the overall mission was handed to the Marines. Unlike the Army, the Marines would bring a significant force of combat aircraft to that conflict.
Whether the Marine proposal takes hold, the most delicate counterterrorism missions in Afghanistan, including the hunt for forces of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, would remain the job of a military task force that draws on Army, Navy and Air Force Special Operations units.
Military officials say the Marine proposal is also an early indication of jockeying among the four armed services for a place in combat missions in years to come. “At the end of the day, this could be decided by parochialism, and making sure each service does not lose equity, as much as on how best to manage the risk of force levels for Iraq and Afghanistan,” said one Pentagon planner.
Tensions over how to divide future budgets have begun to resurface across the military because of apprehension that Congressional support for large increases in defense spending seen since the Sept. 11 attacks will diminish, leaving the services to compete for money.
Those traditional turf battles have subsided somewhat given the overwhelming demands of waging two simultaneous wars — and because Pentagon budgets reached new heights.
Last week, the Senate approved a $459 billion Pentagon spending bill, an increase of $43 billion, or more than 10 percent over the last budget. That bill did not include, as part of a separate bill, President Bush’s request for almost $190 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Senior officials briefed on the Marine Corps concept said the new idea went beyond simply drawing clearer lines about who was in charge of providing combat personnel, war-fighting equipment and supplies to the two war zones.
They said it would allow the Marines to carry out the Afghan mission in a way the Army cannot, by deploying as an integrated Marine Corps task force that included combat aircraft as well as infantry and armored vehicles, while the Army must rely on the Air Force.
The Marine Corps concept was raised last week during a Defense Senior Leadership Conference convened by Mr. Gates just hours after Admiral Mullen was sworn in as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
During that session, the idea of assigning the Afghan mission to the Marines was described by Gen. James T. Conway, the Marine Corps commandant. Details of the discussion were provided by military officers and Pentagon civilian officials briefed on the session and who requested anonymity to summarize portions of the private talks.
The Marine Corps has recently played the leading combat role in Anbar Province, the restive Sunni area west of Baghdad.
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior Army officer in Iraq, and his No. 2 commander, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, also of the Army, have described Anbar Province as a significant success story, with local tribal leaders joining the fight against terrorists.
Both generals strongly hint that if the security situation in Anbar holds steady, then reductions of American forces can be expected in the province, which could free up Marine units to move elsewhere.
In recent years, the emphasis by the Pentagon has been on joint operations that blur the lines between the military services, but there is also considerable precedent for geographic divisions in their duties. For much of the Vietnam War, responsibility was divided region by region between the Army and the Marines. As described by military planners, the Marine proposal would allow Marine units moved to Afghanistan to take over the tasks now performed by an Army headquarters unit and two brigade combat teams operating in eastern Afghanistan.
That would ease the strain on the Army and allow it to focus on managing overall troop numbers for Iraq, as well as movements of forces inside the country as required by commanders to meet emerging threats.
The American military prides itself on the ability to go to war as a “joint force,” with all of the armed services intermixed on the battlefield — vastly different from past wars when more primitive communications required separate ground units to fight within narrowly defined lanes to make sure they did not cross into the fire of friendly forces.
The Marine Corps is designed to fight with other services — it is based overseas aboard Navy ships and is intertwined with the Army in Iraq. At the same time, the Marines also are designed to be an agile, “expeditionary” force on call for quick deployment, and thus can go to war with everything needed to carry out the mission — troops, armor, attack jets and supplies.
General Petraeus is due to report back to Congress by March on his troop requirements beyond the summer. His request for forces will be analyzed by the military’s Central Command, which oversees combat missions across the Middle East and Southwest Asia, and by the Joint Staff at the Pentagon. All troop deployment orders must be approved by Mr. Gates, with the separate armed services then assigned to supply specific numbers of troops and equipment.
Marines train to fight in what is called a Marine Air-Ground Task Force. That term refers to a Marine deployment that arrives in a combat zone complete with its own headquarters, infantry combat troops, armored and transport vehicles and attack jets for close-air support, as well as logistics and support personnel.
“This is not about trading one ground war for another,” said one Pentagon official briefed on the Marine concept. “It is about the nature of the fight in
Afghanistan, and figuring out whether the Afghan mission lends itself more readily to the integrated MAGTF deployment than even Iraq.”
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