>From this morning's Washington Post
http://tinyurl.com/yvly8j
Ex-Commander In Iraq Faults War Strategy
'No End in Sight,' Says Retired General Sanchez
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 13, 2007; Page A01
Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who led U.S. forces in Iraq for a year
after the March 2003 invasion, accused the Bush administration yesterday of
going to war with a "catastrophically flawed" plan and said the United States
is "living a nightmare with no end in sight."
Sanchez also bluntly criticized the current troop increase in Iraq, describing
it as "a desperate attempt by the administration that has not accepted the
political and economic realities of this war."
Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez told military reporters, "There has been a
glaring unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership."
"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 Sanchez offered little advice about fixing military problems in Iraq,
instead saying that current efforts generally need more resources and skill.
"From a catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan to the
administration's latest surge strategy, this administration has failed to
employ and synchronize its political, economic and military power," Sanchez
said.
Sanchez led Combined Joint Task Force 7 in Iraq beginning on June 15, 2003.
Under his command, an insurgency erupted in Iraq and he and other top officers
were slow to respond to it, in part because of the reluctance of then-Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials to
recognize its existence.
Some officials thought the anti-U.S. attacks would fade away after Saddam
Hussein was captured in December 2003, but instead the insurgency intensified,
with pitched battles the next spring in Najaf and Fallujah. Some analysts have
argued that Sanchez had little feel for strategy and permitted commanders to
use tactics that were counterproductive and helped intensify opposition to the
U.S. presence in the country.
But Sanchez may be best remembered for being the top U.S. general in Iraq
during the period when the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison occurred
and was later revealed. Photographs of Iraqi detainees being humiliated shocked
many and provoked a reevaluation of the U.S. presence in Iraq. After those
disclosures, some enlisted troops and Army Reserve officers were charged, but
in legal proceedings and official reviews no top commanders were deemed
responsible for the scandal.
Sanchez retired after more senior defense officials, fearing that a public
confirmation hearing would go badly in light of the abuse allegations, decided
not to give him a fourth star. He is now a senior mentor at the military's
Joint Warfighting Center.
Although he would not address the Abu Ghraib abuse directly, Sanchez said after
his speech that Abu Ghraib was a "difficult issue," and that it is important to
generally address the way the United States treats its detainees. He declined
to say whether he thinks he was scapegoated by the Army and refused to name
senior leaders he believes failed at developing war strategy, saying several
times: "More to follow later."He told reporters in response to questions that,
when he assumed command in Iraq, he realized the situation had come unglued, in
large part because there was high-level disregard for addressing what U.S.
forces should do after the major combat operations conquered Baghdad. He said
the U.S. presence has been an occupation.
Although he acknowledged that "mistakes were made" during his tenure in Iraq,
he said his ability to make the war strategy work was limited by the
administration's decision to restrict the military's authority over the postwar
civil administration and reconstruction.
A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on Sanchez's remarks. NSC spokeswoman
Kate Starr said: "We appreciate his service to the country. As General Petraeus
and Ambassador Crocker said, there's more work to be done but progress is being
made in Iraq. And that's what we're focused on now."
Sanchez's former aides have described him as highly critical of decisions made
by the leader of the U.S. occupation authority, L. Paul Bremer, who issued
orders disbanding Iraq's army and banning many mid-level members of the former
Baath Party from government jobs.
Sanchez opened by criticizing the U.S. news media, saying he was unfairly
labeled "a liar" and "a torturer" because of the Abu Ghraib scandal, and he
alleged that the media have lost their sense of ethics. He said that members of
the media blow stories out of proportion and are unwilling to correct mistakes,
and that the "media environment is doing a great disservice to the nation."
Staff writers Thomas E. Ricks in Washington and Peter Baker in Miami
contributed to this report.
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