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The stakes keep getting higher: Friday brought the harshest criticism we’ve heard yet of the Iraq war from a retired military commander :
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.”
….”There has been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders,” he said, adding that civilian officials have been “derelict in their duties” and guilty of a “lust for power.”
Between the New York Times account and the Washington Post account , it seems that Sanchez attacked (a) the Bush administration, (b) the Pentagon, (c) Congress, (d) the National Security Council, (e) the “inter-agency process,” (f) the State Department, and (g) the media. I don’t doubt they all deserve it, but at the same time that’s a suspiciously sweeping indictment for a senior guy who says he realized the war was FUBAR the day he took command in 2003 but didn’t speak out about it until now.
In any case, Sanchez promised “more to follow later” and said he would make further public statements in which he names names. Pass the popcorn.
“The administration, Congress and the entire interagency, especially the State Department, must shoulder the responsibility for this catastrophic failure, and the American people must hold them accountable,” Sanchez told military reporters and editors. “There has been a glaring unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders.”
Sanchez lashed out specifically at the National Security Council , calling officials there negligent and incompetent, without offering details. He also assailed war policies over the past four years, which he said had stripped senior military officers of responsibility and thus thrust the armed services into an “intractable position” in Iraq.
“The best we can do with this flawed approach is stave off defeat,” Sanchez said in a speech to the Military Reporters and Editors’ annual conference in Crystal City. “Without bipartisan cooperation, we are destined to fail. There is nothing going on in Washington that would give us hope.”
He faulted the administration for failing to “communicate effectively that reality to the American people.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
