Mid-level military officers on responsibility for Iraq

["David Farber" <dave () farber net>]

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> From: Paul Levy <plevy () citizen org>
>
> Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 16:19:41 -0400
>
> There is a fascinating article in this morning's New York Times, based on interviews with mid-level officers and 
> others, suggesting widespread discontent and debate within the military over the failure of  senior officers to give 
> candid advice to Rumseld and the Adminsitration about the reasoins why the invasion of Iraq would be a mistake.  
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/washington/23military.html?hp&ex=1145851200&en=307b714052e595e5&ei=5094&partner=homepage
>
> Officers making such comments as,
>
> "This is about the moral bankruptcy of general officers who lived through the Vietnam era yet refused to advise our 
> civilian leadership properly," said one Army major in the Special Forces who has served two combat tours. "I can only 
> hope that my generation does better someday."  and 
>
> "The history I will take away from this is that the current crop of generals failed to stand up and say, 'We cannot do 
> this mission.' They confused the cultural can-do attitude with their responsibilities as leaders to delay the start of 
> the war until we had an adequate force. I think the backlash against the general officers will be seen in the 
> resignation of officers" who might otherwise have stayed in uniform." 
>
> There was also an interesting angle on Condoleeza Rice's famous comment about "thousands of errors," casting it in a 
> light I had not considered, as a slap at the military and a deflection of responsibility for the Administration's own 
> failures:
>
> The debates are fueled by the desire to mete out blame for the situation in Iraq, a drawn-out war that has taken many 
> military lives and has no clear end in sight. A midgrade officer who has served two tours in Iraq said a number of his 
> cohorts were angered last month when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that "tactical errors, a thousand of 
> them, I am sure," had been made in Iraq.
>
> "We have not lost a single tactical engagement on the ground in Iraq," the officer said, noting that the definition of 
> tactical missions is specific movements against an enemy target. "The mistakes have all been at the strategic and 
> political levels."
>
>
>
>
> Paul Alan Levy
> Public Citizen Litigation Group
> 1600 - 20th Street, N.W.
> Washington, D.C. 20009
> (202) 588-1000
> http://www.citizen.org/litigation
>
>
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