Iraq: A Nightmare With No End In Sight
So says retired Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded American forces in Iraq from 2003-2004:
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.”
“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.
At the same time, though, Sanchez argues that simply withdrawing American forces without thinking about what might happen after that isn’t a choice either:
America has no choice but to continue our efforts in Iraq. A precipitous withdrawal will unquestionably lead to chaos that would endanger the stability of the greater Middle East. If this occurs it would have significant adverse effects on the international community. Coalition and American force presence will be required at some level for the foreseeable future. Given the lack of a grand strategy we must move rapidly to minimize that force presence and allow the Iraqis maximum ability to exercise their sovereignty in achieving a solution.
In other words, it’s time to start handing responsibility for the security of Iraq over to the Iraqis. Which is something the Iraq Study Group called for nearly a year ago.
At the same time, though, it’s becoming apparent that simply walking away from this problem that we’ve created isn’t an option and continuing with the status quo isn’t working. Fixing the situation in Iraq to the point where American troops can come home is going to require both sides in the debate — unquestioning war supporters and vehement war opponents — to recognize those facts.
