former top commander in Iraq: "America is living a nightmare"

[Neomega]

ARLINGTON, Va. – The former top commander of U.S. troops in Iraq slammed the handling of the war and gave a bleak assessment of the current situation in Iraq.

“There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight,” retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told a convention of military journalists on Friday.

Sanchez commanded U.S. troops in Iraq from June 2003 to July 2004. His controversial tenure saw the capture of Saddam Hussein and the handover of sovereignty to the Iraqi government, but also the rise of the insurgency and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

While cleared of any wrongdoing, one report found that Sanchez and his deputy, "failed to ensure proper staff oversight of detention and interrogation operations."

Abu Ghraib was a sore subject Friday for Sanchez, who lambasted the media for using phrases like "dictatorial and somewhat dense," "liar" and "torturer" to describe him.

"I also refused to talk to the European Stars and Stripes for the last two years of my command in Germany, for their extreme bias and single-minded focus on Abu Ghraib," he said.

But Sanchez reserved most of his venom Friday for U.S. officials, saying the U.S. government still has not brought all the resources needed to win in Iraq.

“From a catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan, to the administration’s latest surge strategy, this administration has failed to employ and synchronize the political, economic and military power,” Sanchez said.

More here:

http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=49460

 

[MobBoss]

Funny...I dont feel like I am living a nightmare....

 

[Neomega]

Funny...I dont feel like I am living a nightmare....

Might have something to do with you living over here, whilst General Sanchez was top commander of US troops in Iraq for over a year, and was actually over there the whole time.

 

[MobBoss]

Might have something to do with you living over here, whilst General Sanchez was top commander of US troops in Iraq for over a year, and was actually over there the whole time.

Ah...so is he referring to the America living in Iraq?

I do believe the location he mentioned was 'america' was it not?

My boss, who spent a year in Iraq and his wife just had a baby....very happy and not in any 'nightmare' that I can see.

Sounds to me like another old bitter general who was mistreated by the press and now wants to offer something more media-esqe.

Does he have a book coming out?

 

[Ecofarm]

Strange, that article does not have something that others do:

Sanchez went on to offer a pessimistic view on the current U.S. strategy against extremists will make lasting gains, but said a full-scale withdrawal also was not an option.

"The American military finds itself in an intractable situation ... America has no choice but to continue our efforts in Iraq," said Sanchez, who works as a consultant training U.S. generals.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071013/D8S83AD80.html

It is strange that 'stars and stripes' seems to try to make a case for cut-and-run by not mentioning that he is against a withdrawl. I do not consider stars and stripes to be liberal, but they sure come across like it by leaving out his statements that the US needs to remain in Iraq.


Anyway, he's probably just pissed about immigration policy.

Spoiler :

 

[Mountain-God]

Funny...I dont feel like I am living a nightmare....

I recall a saying, 'we don't know how lucky we are mate' - but would suggest something of a reversal ie 'You don't know how unlucky you are mate'.

 

[angeleyes]

Funny...I dont feel like I am living a nightmare....

Which means you don't give a damn about the hundreds of thousands of death in Iraq and the civil war going on there, for which your country is responsible, as long as you can drink your beer.

 

[Elgalad]

It's difficult to believe that a career officer who was more or less drubbed out of the military due to his own lack of control over his command is capable of giving a reliable, objective assessment of the overall strategic situation in Iraq. Particularly when he has spent the final two years of his career in Germany, and Not Iraq.

Assuming he does not simply have an axe to grind, one has to wonder what his motivations are for speaking out now. He's been retired for nearly a year, so it can't be that he fears his career will be sidelined. In any case, he did that to himself already during the Abu Ghraib scandal.

It's just too easy actually, to speculate on what he plans to get out of this, particularly during a campaign season..



-Elgalad

 

[woody60707]

Which means you don't give a damn about the hundreds of thousands of death in Iraq and the civil war going on there, for which your country is responsible, as long as you can drink your beer.

huh? I am pretty sure he didn't mean that. Also what he said is very true. Really, the Iraq war has very little noticeable impact on the day to day lives of most the people living in the US.

"America is living in denial" would be better wording, but living a nightmare, huh???

On that same token, is the UK also living in this nightmare as well?

 

[FriendlyFire]

Scanchez also was aparty to what went down in Iraq. Though to be fair he did inheriet the delusional and non-existant post war plan from Rumsfield. By that time however the postwar "window" had closed.

 

[Rik Meleet]

US general damns Iraq 'nightmare'

A former US military chief in Iraq has condemned the current strategy in the conflict, which he warned was "a nightmare with no end in sight".


Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez said the US currently was only delaying defeat

Link

Spoiler The article :

US general damns Iraq 'nightmare'

A former US military chief in Iraq has condemned the current strategy in the conflict, which he warned was "a nightmare with no end in sight".

Retired Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez also labelled US political leaders as "incompetent" and "corrupted".

He said they would have faced courts martial for dereliction of duty had they been in the military.

The best the US could manage under the current approach in Iraq was to "stave off defeat", Gen Sanchez warned.

"There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight," he said, addressing journalists at Arlington, near Washington.

'Desperate'

A catalogue of political misjudgements had paved the way for the insurgency after the fall of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, according to Gen Sanchez.

He blamed the US disbanding of the Iraqi military as well as the failure to set up swiftly civilian government and cement ties with tribal leaders.

The White House this year injected an extra 30,000 US troops into Iraq in the hope of stemming sectarian violence and sowing some political stability.

But Gen Sanchez branded this so-called "surge" strategy a "desperate attempt" to make up for years of shortcomings.

"The best we can do with this flawed approach is stave off defeat," he warned.

The White House responded by pointing to the report by current commander Gen David Petraeus and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who said the situation was difficult but marked by gradual improvements.

White House spokesman Trey Bohn said: "We appreciate his (Gen Sanchez's) service to the country... As General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker have said, there is more work to be done, but progress is being made in Iraq."

Gen Sanchez was commander of coalition forces in Iraq for a year from mid-2003.

He retired last year in the aftermath of the scandal over detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. He was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Well, if even a commander of coalition forces in Iraq for a year says it's bad ...

 

[ArneHD]

ArneHD strikes for the first time ever!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=247066

 

[TrailblazingScot]

All this fuss cos we wanted to stay after doing the business of removing Saddam...all those promises not to just cut and run, why did we do that to ourselves?

In and out and shake it about was my preferred strategy, if the Iraqis then wanted a civil war, that is their concern.

 

[BasketCase]

The OP isn't really giving us a clear picture of what Sanchez is saying. The following is Sanchez' closing statement from a news article on CNN:

"National efforts to date have been corrupted by partisan politics that have prevented us from devising an effective, executable and supportable strategies," he said. "At times, these partisan struggles have led us to political decisions that endangered the lives of our sons and daughters on the battlefield. The unmistakable message was that political power had greater priority than our national security objectives."

"Overcoming this strategic failure is the first step toward achieving victory in Iraq," he said. "Without bipartisan cooperation, we are doomed to fail. There is nothing going on today in Washington that would give us hope."

At least in part, Sanchez is blaming partisan politics for our (alleged) problems in Iraq. In other words he's pointing the finger at both parties.

 

[BasketCase]

I already posted this in the other Sanchez thread, but worth repeating here.

Other article about Sanchez

"National efforts to date have been corrupted by partisan politics that have prevented us from devising an effective, executable and supportable strategies," he said. "At times, these partisan struggles have led us to political decisions that endangered the lives of our sons and daughters on the battlefield. The unmistakable message was that political power had greater priority than our national security objectives."

"Overcoming this strategic failure is the first step toward achieving victory in Iraq," he said. "Without bipartisan cooperation, we are doomed to fail. There is nothing going on today in Washington that would give us hope."

At least in part, Sanchez is blaming partisan politics.

 

[Red Door]

At least in part, Sanchez is blaming partisan politics for our (alleged) problems in Iraq. In other words he's pointing the finger at both parties.

And he'd be correct.

 

[Bast]

Which means you don't give a damn about the hundreds of thousands of death in Iraq and the civil war going on there, for which your country is responsible, as long as you can drink your beer.

You need to do some reading. America removed Saddam Hussein which is what the Iraqis wanted. The current fighting is not because of Americans or America's fault. It's because of other countries like Iran and people in Saudi Arabia inciting violence in Iraq.

 

[MobBoss]

Which means you don't give a damn about the hundreds of thousands of death in Iraq and the civil war going on there, for which your country is responsible, as long as you can drink your beer.

No...it means I dont feel like I am living in a nightmare. Lets face it, living in the USA isnt living in a nightmare. Living somewhere like Darfur would be living in nightmare. As you even indicate, living in Iraq would probably be a nightmare as well.

But lets be honest. America doesnt have the problems that Darfur and Iraq have currently. People are literally streaming to live in the USA because the place where they currently live sucks so bad.

So, is living in america a nightmare? Or did the general simply grossly overstate a point to grab a few more headlines?

 

[Erik Mesoy]

You need to do some reading. America removed Saddam Hussein which is what the Iraqis wanted.

Except for the Iraqis who didn't want it, of course.

The current fighting is not because of Americans or America's fault. It's because of other countries like Iran and people in Saudi Arabia inciting violence in Iraq.

Bollocks. This is like saying that if I push a glass off a table, then it breaking won't be because of my fault. It'll be because of other forces like gravity and the ground inciting breakage in the glass.

Obviously they're responsible too. Now you've already shown that you can understand the concept of multiple actors (Iran and Saudi Arabia) being responsible; is it really all that difficult to understand that the US is also responsible?

 

[Che Guava]

Why do we take a statement like that and interpret it so literally? Maybe he just meant a collective nightmare, as a nation, rather than a personal one felt by all americans every day.