Rolling Stone asked seven retired military leaders what has gone wrong in Iraq.
Gen. Merrill "Tony" McPeak
Air Force chief of staff, 1990-94
The people in control in the Pentagon and the White House live in a fantasy world.Adm. Stansfield Turner
NATO Allied commander for Southern Europe, 1975-77; CIA director, 1977-81
Iraq is a failure of monumental proportions.Lt. Gen. William Odom
Director of the National Security Agency, 1985-88
It's a huge strategic disaster, and it will only get worse.Gen. Anthony Zinni
Commander in chief of the United States Central Command, 1997-2000
But the military was unprepared for the aftermath. Rumsfeld and others thought we would be greeted with roses and flowers.Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy
Army deputy chief of staff for intelligence, 1997-2000
Iraq is a blood bath, and we need to be dealing with this in a much more sophisticated way than the cowboy named Bush.Gen. Wesley Clark
NATO supreme Allied commander for Europe, 1997-2000
But let's ask this question: Have you seen an American strategic blunder this large? The answer is: not in fifty years.Adm. William Crowe
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1985-89
We screwed up.
Read the whole thing.
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Posted by dave at November 29, 2004 01:15 PM | TrackBackWell, Iraq definitively isn't going to be "Denmark with oil" -- just love Gen McPeak's phrase.
Gen Zinni wondered: "Did we have to do this? I saw the intelligence right up to the day of the war, and I did not see any imminent threat there. If anything, Saddam was coming apart."
I've long suspected that Saddam's weakening -- not threatening -- position was the real reason for the rush into Iraq. In some ways, it just makes more sense. Of course, it's hard to convince the American public to wage war because your sworn enemy is weakening, so other reasons had to be supplied (are we still officially at 27 stated reasons?). I still don't understand the incredibly bad math behind the troop strength decisions, however. I guess incompetent is as incompetent does.
Posted by: Miss Authoritiva at November 29, 2004 05:19 PM