"No End In Sight"

Retired Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez is shrill:

The U.S. mission in Iraq is a "nightmare with no end in sight" because of political misjudgments after the fall of Saddam Hussein that continue today, a former chief of U.S.-led forces said Friday. [...]

Sanchez avoided singling out at any specific official. But he did criticize the State Department, the National Security Council, Congress 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.

Obviously, there's something self-severing about this "blame everyone but the commanding general" approach to the situation. Still, it's very telling that a person in Sanchez's position has decided that the self-serving thing to do is to explain why the disaster is someone else's fault rather than sticking with the right-wing orthodoxy that it's actually all fine and everyone would know it if only the liberal media would report some of the good news.

Comments

"self-severing": the terrifying new trend among teens and generals these days!

Posted by onymous | October 13, 2007 11:23 AM

"blame everyone but the commanding general" approach

Well, yeah, except that we've just had 4 years of blaming nobody but the commanding generals. Nobody else was "in the loop" about what was actually happening including the civilians at DoD and the Whitehouse, apprently.

max
['Curiously, all of those people have excellent plans for staying in and dealing with the situation which they will be revealing in 2015.']

Posted by max | October 13, 2007 11:31 AM

Blamming the commanding general is a waste of time. What were they really going to do? Refuse to go to war? There really isn't any way this could have ended in any fashion other than the way it has. Maybe it could have taken longer to devolve to this point, but it still wouldn't have gotten here. There were no real military strategies that could have led to victory. Any strategy that would have had a anowballs chance in hell of working would have been administrative, not military.

Posted by soullite | October 13, 2007 11:37 AM

there's something self-severing

Still blogging from your iPhone?

Posted by feh | October 13, 2007 11:40 AM

Sanchez suffers from "Powell-itis."

Too little, too late, General.

Where were you when it counted and YOU could have done something, or at least made a difference?

This is like Rommel saying, right before Normandy, "You know, maybe invading Africa and Russia wasn't such a bright idea after all..."

General Sanchez: WANKER!

Posted by c u n d gulag | October 13, 2007 12:08 PM

BTW - I forgot to add, "Powell-itis" is preceded by "Ike-itis!"

Thanks for the head's-up on the "military industrial complex," General. Maybe, just maybe, you, as President, could have done a little something?

I never knew that if I looked up the term "Monday Morning Quaterback," the word "General" would be there to define it!

Waaker's one and all!

Posted by c u n d gulag | October 13, 2007 12:15 PM

Sanchez Panza & the Windmills of Pinch WaPo:

http://www.militaryreporters.org/sanchez_101207.html

May the self-severing, auto-filtering, inner-gatekeeping, narcissi-contra-dancing, Mexican standoff begin.

Posted by tao9 | October 13, 2007 12:16 PM

But Gore should hand over his Nobel Peace prize to the really deserving man, Gen. Petraus.

Posted by gregor | October 13, 2007 12:17 PM

Yeah, I'm getting tired of these people coming out after the fact and saying, "Whoops! It was a mistake. I knew it then, but I kept my mouth shut." I don't expect generals to go to the public and say this stuff, but I damn well expect them to be telling the civilian decision makers when they are full of shit.

Better late than never, I guess, but even better then than now.

Posted by Captain Noble | October 13, 2007 12:19 PM

Re General Sanchez

The right wing smear machine will be out in full force after the good genera.

Posted by SLC | October 13, 2007 12:32 PM

The pattern is clear enough that I think that Bush either specifically hires people who don't tell him what they think or he creates a managerial culture in which dissenting voices are not taken into consideration and demands only opinions in support of his self-created bubble to be voiced (the immediate aftermath of katrina was a great example of this, as well).

The thing is that avoiding this isn't some sort of managerial "code" you need to recognize and decipher-- the problem of surrounding yourself with sycophants and being blind to the facts around you has been a consistent theme of stories about leadership reaching back into classical times.

And you'd think Bush -- he's an avid reader, after all -- would have been more careful about that sort of thing.

Posted by Tyro | October 13, 2007 12:53 PM

Fine, but where are the consequences?

These things have been know now for what, four + years? In addition, we have also known that the public reasons for invading were cooked, and that the invasion was likely to and did end in a pandoraesque civil conflict (predicted in 92-93).The incompetence was fostered by deliberate political and ideological idiocy.

Okay, so what next?

Posted by Thunderlips | October 13, 2007 1:47 PM

Tyro hits the nail on the head. Except for this:

And you'd think Bush -- he's an avid reader, after all -- would have been more careful about that sort of thing.

Bush is too busy reading the great works of literature to have time for briefing memos...

Posted by McKingford | October 13, 2007 2:07 PM

Sanchez avoided singling out at any specific official. But he did criticize the State Department, the National Security Council, Congress and the senior military leadership

How can you narrow it down to one person when there are so many to choose from?

Posted by McKingford | October 13, 2007 2:09 PM

Bush is too busy reading the great works of literature to have time for briefing memos...

That was sort of the point of my sarcastic barb-- that this is such a recurrent theme of "great works of literature" that Bush, if he really were the avid reader he claims to be, would have picked up on the hazard of isolating yourself in a bubble that comes with leadership.

Posted by Tyro | October 13, 2007 2:35 PM

Sanchez actually does blame the media in the beginning of that speech.

He informs the media in attendance, "THE DEATH KNELL OF YOUR ETHICS HAS BEEN ENABLED BY YOUR PARENT ORGANIZATIONS WHO HAVE CHOSEN TO ALIGN THEMSELVES WITH POLITICAL AGENDAS. WHAT IS CLEAR TO ME IS THAT YOU ARE PERPETUATING THE CORROSIVE PARTISAN POLITICS THAT IS DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY AND KILLING OUR SERVICEMEMBERS WHO ARE AT WAR."

He's super pissed about something, but he doesn't provide any specifics as to what, exactly. But whatever these unspecified acts of the media are, they're killing servicemebers, just like corrosive partisan politics.

I don't think he's really thought this all through.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | October 13, 2007 3:13 PM

Neither Sanchez nor Franks seem like sharpest tools in the shed, and I suspect Sanchez is bitter that the Abu Ghraib fiasco happened on his watch and effectively ended his career. Petraeus and the brain trust around him (H.R. McMaster, John Nagl, etc.) are a big improvement.

McMegan has a post on Iraq, which contains an intelligent and informed comment on the state of Iraqi infrastructure and the difficulties getting it turned around: a happy surge.

Posted by Fred | October 13, 2007 3:37 PM

These discussions among generals about what mistakes were made and who is to blame are useless. All of the disasters and subsequent mistakes we see in Iraq stem from one single early mistake: invading Iraq. There is nothing we could have done differently to have made this go well.

Posted by Rob Mac | October 13, 2007 8:06 PM

"Neither Sanchez nor Franks seem like sharpest tools in the shed ...... McMegan has a post on Iraq...."

Posted by Rihilism | October 13, 2007 8:10 PM

There we have the nutso hater Fred being a nutso hater. Waiting for the nutso smearing of generals now all for nutso fred and the hate crew. Hi, nutso hater, Fred.

Posted by Jennifer | October 13, 2007 8:48 PM

Nutso Fred Furd? Heading for Iraq to fight, Furd Fred? Fight on nutso Furd Fred.

Posted by Jennifer | October 13, 2007 8:50 PM

Sanchez seems to be firmly in the "good idea, terrible f-ing execution" camp.

I'm pretty sympathetic to this point of view, but I'm not sure why this guy gets any credibility at all. (or for that matter why Matt thinks this is a good line of reasoning to promote)

The first half of his speech is a full on, foaming at the mouth condemnation of the press that reads like Lyndon Larouche channelling the Powerline guys. Plus, we're getting a lecture in ethics from General Abu Ghraib. It's a bit embarrassing, to be honest.

At least he's not in charge of troops anymore.

Posted by heedless | October 13, 2007 9:17 PM

Actually Lyndon Larouche sounds much more like you guys, then you''d care to admit. Don and Rich
don't have a yen for Schiller, but other than, their demonizing of neo-cons; who thought
dictators as a general rule should cede to civilian authority, because of the inapplicability
of the 'good czar' problem. But didn't think Marxists or Maoists were the proper solution. Who think fawning over Arab potentates, and scape
goating the only real , albeit flawed,democracy in the region isn't an answer. They're distrustful of China's authoritarian impulses, thirty years after the need for them, was obviated for full recognition.

Posted by narciso | October 13, 2007 11:03 PM

"The first half of his speech is a full on, foaming at the mouth condemnation of the press that reads like Lyndon Larouche channelling the Powerline guys."

Speaking of Powerline, here's their take on this. I hardly ever read that blog, but RealClearPolitics happened to link to it (along with a lefty blog) in reference to this story:

"If the Bush administration gets attacked, the press will report it. But what if someone attacks the press? If the attack goes unreported, did it ever really happen?

Today General Ricardo Sanchez gave a speech to the Military Reporters and Editors' annual conference, in which he criticized just about everyone associated with our effort in Iraq. The Washington Post's headline was typical: "Former Iraq Commander Faults Bush."

Actually, I don't believe Sanchez ever mentioned Bush by name, although, as I say, he was critical of just about everybody. But it would be hard to tell from press accounts of Sanchez's speech that he was mostly critical of...the press."

[Here Powerline quotes the first half of Sanchez's speech verbatim]

"So, one might ask: Why did the Washington Post (and every other news outlet I have seen) not headline their story: "Former Iraq Commander Bitterly Denounces Mainstream Media's Coverage of Iraq War"? Or, perhaps, "Former Iraq Commander Accuses Biased, Unethical, Agenda-driven Press of 'Killing Our Servicemembers Who Are At War'"?

I guess the question answers itself. The Post has an agenda, and those headlines wouldn't have advanced it. The same is true for essentially all newspapers and other news outlets. It's quite a luxury to be able to decide whether criticisms of your own conduct ever see the light of day--a luxury the mainstream media not only enjoy, but abuse."

Posted by Fred | October 14, 2007 1:00 AM

"because of political misjudgments after the fall of Saddam Hussein that continue today,"

That is the telling statement. The moron STILL doesn't get it.

It's a nightmare because of the original decision to invade - NOT because of the stupid mistakes done later which merely enhanced the initial mistake.

Again, this demonstrates what the Leavenworth officers article also showed: these guys are totally clueless.

How can you do your job when you don't even know what your job is?

But that didn't stop this jerk from babbling bullshit every single day in press briefings while he was in Iraq.

He was an incompetent, lying moron while he was there and while he was a general, and he still is.

So who cares what he thinks?

Citing these guys who are now saying the war was a bad idea when a year or two ago they were babbling that it was a good idea makes them pretty unreliable as supporting arguments either way.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 14, 2007 6:07 AM

"McMegan has a post on Iraq"

Is she part of Petraeus' "brain trust" now?

That would fit.

Petraeus is a nitwit. If he took on the Iraq assignment, it was only to brown nose his way up Bush's butt in order to establish some political aspiration credentials later.

He has no clue about counter-insurgency, or he'd know the war is lost and has been lost since about the end of 2003 at the latest.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 14, 2007 6:13 AM

"Person criticized by press criticizes press" is not as big a story as "person who oversaw the was for years says the war is hopeless."

THe media response makes sense.

No need to blame it on media bias, sorcery, or Freemasons.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | October 14, 2007 8:49 AM

General gives half hour speech all but explicitly stating that MSM is a knowing tool of islamofacist/alQuaeda propaganda

MSM cites 3-4 words of general's speech to attack Bush & military efforts in Iraq

Hmmm... sometimes I wonder if the MSM here could easily slip over to a Stalinist or N Korean modus

Posted by Jozef | October 14, 2007 9:21 AM