[NYTr] Sanchez: Bush's "catastrophic failure" in Leadership dooms Iraq

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Reuters - Oct 13, 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1241629620071013?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&sp=true

Leadership dooms Iraq strategy: ex-commander

By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A "catastrophic failure" in the Bush
administration's leadership of the Iraq war has mired the United States
in a nightmarish conflict with no clear way out, the former top U.S.
commander in Iraq said on Friday.

The blistering assessment by retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez was one
of the harshest yet by a top military leader involved in the war.

"There has been a glaring, unfortunate display of incompetent strategic
leadership within our national leaders," Sanchez told a group of
military reporters, according to a copy of his remarks.

"America continues its desperate struggle in Iraq without any concerted
effort to devise a strategy that will achieve 'victory' in that
war-torn country or in the greater conflict against extremism," he said.

Without mentioning President George W. Bush by name, he called the
president's troop-escalation "surge" strategy a "desperate attempt by
an administration that has not accepted the political and economic
realities of this war."

"There is no question America is living a nightmare with no end in
sight," he said.

Sanchez commanded the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq from June 2003 until
July 2004 as the anti-U.S. insurgency took hold. He retired in 2006 and
blamed the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal for wrecking his career.

NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL

He aimed his sharpest attacks at the White House National Security
Council, headed during his Iraq tenure by now-Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice. "Our National Security Council has been a
catastrophic failure," he said, blaming the council for adopting a
strategy that overly relied on the military and failed to effectively
mobilize the government.

A spokeswoman for the council responded by saying progress is being
made in Iraq. "We appreciate his service to the country," National
Security Council spokeswoman Kate Starr said of Sanchez.

"As Gen. (David) Petraeus and Ambassador (Ryan) Crocker have said,
there is more work to be done, but progress is being made in Iraq and
that's what we're focused on now," Starr said in a statement, referring
to the U.S. military commander in Iraq and the U.S. ambassador to that
country.

Sanchez also spread blame to Congress, the State Department and
politicians in general.

"America has not been fully committed to win this war," he said.
"Partisan politics have hindered this war effort."

Sanchez said military commanders on the ground would continue to make
progress in Iraq, providing time in which a "grand strategy" could be
developed. But he predicted the effort would be wasted and in the
meantime U.S. troops "will continue to die."

He urged that the U.S. force presence be quickly reduced "given the
lack of a grand strategy." But the United States had no choice but to
stay in Iraq, given the prospects of regional instability if it
withdrew suddenly, he said.

"There is nothing going on today in Washington that would give us
hope," he said.

(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle)