Retired U.S. Army Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was relieved as the top U.S. commander in Iraq by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld after the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal became public in 2004, is blasting back in a new memoir, Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story.
In an excerpt published in the latest edition of Time, Sanchez recounts what he contends was an attempt by Rumsfeld to involve him in rewriting the history of the invasion of Iraq by shifting to the ground commanders the blame for the failure to deploy a sufficient number of occupation troops.
Sanchez writes that Rumsfeld insisted that he was never told about an order issued by former Gen. Tommy Franks, then head of CENTCOM, for a drawdown of U.S. troops that countermanded the original plan for a 12-18 month occupation. The order directed that all but 30,000 U.S. troops should be out of Iraq by September 2003, only five months after the fall of Baghdad. Sanchez rejects Rumsfeld's version of what happened, which is indeed hard to believe given Rumsfeld's notorious micro-managing of the invasion.
"That decision set up the United States for a failed first year in Iraq. There is no question about it," writes Sanchez. "And I was supposed to believe that neither the secretary of defense or anybody above him knew anything about it? Impossible! Everybody on the NSC knew about it, including Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet and Colin Powell. Vice President Cheney knew about it. And President Bush knew about it."
"In my mind," he writes, "this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty."
This is hardly suprising news. It's a shame that absolutely nothing will be done about this example of incompetence and dereliction of duty, just as nothing has been done about the many other crimes of this administration.
Posted by: Charles | May 02, 2008 at 04:18 PM
I guess what I worry about most is the long-term, structural damage Rumsfeld and his ilk have done to military-civilian relations. If the military sees that they are left holding the bag (think about everything from war planning to Abu Ghraib), what does that do to the trust and willingness to obey orders that are essential in the command structure.
Civilian control over the military means that the military carries out war policies designed by civilian leaders, without interfering in the policy decisions, with the understanding being that if the policies are bad, the civilians take the heat. With the crowd in power now, mistakes are the responsibility of those who follow orders, not those who give them.
Posted by: jrw | May 02, 2008 at 08:13 PM
Given the fact that Sanchez was the commanding officer of Colonel Karpinski (former BG) and the commander of the MP brigade at Abu Ghurayb, I think he has a hell of a lot of nerve commenting about anyone's competence.
Posted by: Nick | May 02, 2008 at 10:57 PM
I wonder why we never hear anything from folks that actually supported this administration. Never a word of regret from those truly responsible, namely those that voted them in. That is true sociopathic behavior.
Posted by: Claude Crider | May 04, 2008 at 08:05 AM
I think that the entire story on Abu Ghurayb has yet to be told and that Sanchez needed a fall (gal) and chose General Karpinski. what's a reserve flag officer to a Pointer anyway?
If he felt the way he wrote the honorable thing to have done, was retire..... others did....
Posted by: Rob | May 04, 2008 at 05:15 PM
"this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty."
I agree and I have been writing for years that it is the military's responsiblity to follows its procedures to remove Bush from his command, failing that to follow its procedures and refuse to follow illegal and militarily faulty orders.
He would still be the cheated into office civilian President, but not longer the highest ranking military commander.
How about a court martial?
Posted by: Marnie | May 04, 2008 at 07:57 PM