Who are we to believe: Troops at every level who are in the midst of the fight, or, a lying, draft-dodging, drunk, coke-snorting frat boy



"War is a dreadful thing, and unjust war is a crime against humanity.
But it is such a crime because it is unjust, not because it is a war.
The choice must ever be in favor of righteousness, and this is
whether the alternative be peace or whether the alternative be war.
The question must not be merely, Is there to be peace or war?
The question must be, Is it right to prevail?"

Theodore Roosevelt

October 18, 2007 -- The word on Iraq from the troops



Did you ever see a movie in which a group of Marines or soldiers or
sailors or airmen were addressed by a superior passing along important
information and who prefaced his remarks with -- "All right, listen
up. Here's the latest word. Pass it on to anyone who isn't present."
-- and wonder if it's done that way?

Well, yeah, it's done that way, although it's not the only way that
word is passed in the armed services. But millions of Americans who
have served in the Army or Navy or Air Force or Marine Corps or Coast
Guard have got the word by being told before they got it that they
were going to get the word -- or latest word.
This is the latest word -- the word on Iraq from the troops in the
form of the word from a general who was in charge of the troops there
-- and in the form of the word from captains who were there -- and in
the form of the word from noncommissioned officers (mostly sergeants),
one of whom was wounded there and two of whom died there.

When it comes to Iraq, who you gonna believe? Troops without a
political agenda and not representing the Iraq-occupation's
proponents? Or someone with a political or financial agenda or
political ambitions tied to the occupation of Iraq? Someone
representing the person who most defends and promotes the debacle that
he and his political lieutenants created [1]?

This is a long post and is chock full of the word on Iraq from the
troops in the form of commentary, news, and speech transcript. The
troops' word rings true, quite unlike that of politicians and
microphone marines [2] who promote the war for ideological and profit
motives -- personal and political and financial.

Don't miss the postscript, with complementary analysis of the Iraq
debacle by a military writer whom a former top U.S. general in Iraq
considers to represent "the epitome of journalistic professionalism"
and calls "one of the greatest military correspondents of our time."
It sensibly reviews the bottom line of Bush's Iraq debacle -- that it
should never have been undertaken to begin with.

[1] -- See "In the wake of Petraeus" at http://tinyurl.com/2olnxb

[2] -- Microphone marines? For some see Republican "Pundits &
Preachers" at http://tinyurl.com/37q6zl




Dissent from the front lines

By Robert Scheer
Truthdig
October 16, 2007

WHEN WILL we listen to the troops? I'm not talking about soldiers used
as props for a George Bush photo op, telling reporters what Washington
wants to hear. The military is disciplined and thus accustomed, from
Gen. David Petraeus on down, to toeing the official line. But the Iraq
war has also produced brilliant messages of dissent from the ranks
that should cause us to stop in our tracks and reconsider what we have
wrought. First, a group of sergeants came forward, and on Tuesday it
was the captains' turn to speak out.

In "The War as We Saw It," an eloquent op-ed article published in The
New York Times in August, seven sergeants (six and a specialist)
summarized the futility of their 15 months of fighting in Iraq: "To
believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived
its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population
and win this counterinsurgency is farfetched." After penning that crie
de cour, two of the soldiers died in Iraq and a third was severely
wounded.

Advice from Veterans

On Tuesday, The Washington Post printed "The Real Iraq We Knew" by 12
former Army captains, all of whom served in Iraq. It begins: "Today
marks five years since the authorization of military force in Iraq,
setting Operation Iraqi Freedom in motion. Five years on, the Iraq war
is as undermanned and under-resourced as it was from the start. And,
five years on Iraq is in shambles. As Army captains who served in
Baghdad and beyond, we've seen the corruption and the sectarian
division. We understand what it's like to be stretched too thin. And
we know when it's time to get out."

How come those brave veterans know it's time to get out, but leading
Democrats, who voted for the war to be authorized, are still
pussyfooting about quickly removing the troops from this ever-
deepening quagmire? They're jockeying for political advantage, knowing
that drawing out the war hurts the Republicans. It is a deeply cynical
ploy that works only because with our all-volunteer military, most
Americans don't have to face the choice of sacrificing themselves or
their loved ones in a futile and losing war.

Yes, it costs the taxpayers, but so do the "Halo 3" video games they
are purchasing in record numbers, and for most Americans, Iraq is a
make-believe war. Even the cost seems unreal, as Bush is the first
president in U.S. history to cut taxes in a time of war, with the
result that more than a trillion dollars in long-term obligations will
not come due while his administration has to foot the bills.

Fraudulent Neocon Claims

If there was a draft, people would be in the streets demanding an end
to this carnage, which now threatens to go on for decades. That is
precisely what the neocon ideologues who got us into this mess built
their fantasies on a volunteer force, supplemented by hundreds of
thousands of contractors (including 50,000 mercenary troops like those
from Blackwater [1]) and the purchase of largely irrelevant but highly
profitable high-tech weaponry, although they forgot about simple armor
for the troops.

The most fraudulent neocon claim was that pro-Western, even pro-Israel
Iraqis, like their favorite, the now totally discredited Ahmed
Chalabi, would police the country as surrogates for the U.S., and that
Iraqi oil sales would pay for it all. The 12 captains, who worked with
the locals, are very clear as to the forlorn outcome of that plan:
" . . . many of us witnessed the exploitation of U.S. tax dollars by
Iraqi officials and military officers. Sabotage and graft have had a
particularly deleterious impact on Iraq's oil industry which still
fails to produce the revenue that Pentagon war planners hoped would
pay for Iraq's reconstruction."

Ongoing Illusion

As for that other ongoing illusion - that we are turning power over to
Iraqi forces we have trained - the captains write: "Iraqi soldiers
quit at will. The police are effectively controlled by militias.
And . . . corruption is debilitating. U.S. tax dollars enrich self-
serving generals and support the very elements that will battle each
other after we're gone."

Building an empire on the cheap and by proxy doesn't work. If you want
one, and of course most of us don't, since only a few fat cats benefit
from such imperial adventures, you need a vast conscript army.

As the captains put it: "There is only one way we might be able to
succeed in Iraq. To continue an operation of this intensity and
duration, we would have to abandon our volunteer military for
compulsory service. Short of that, our best option is to leave Iraq
immediately." Enough said.

Copyright © 2007 Truthdig, L.L.C.

http://www.truthdig.com:80/report/item/20071016_dissent_from_the_front_lines/

[1] -- See "War for fun and profit" at http://tinyurl.com/34dygc



The war as we saw it

By Specialist Buddhika Jayamaha, Sergeant Wesley D. Smiith, Sergeant
Jeremy Roebuck, Sergeant Omar Mora, Sergeant Edward Sandmeier, Staff
Sergeant Yance T. Gray, and Staff Sergeant Jeremy A. Murphy, U.S. 82nd
Airborne Division
The New York Times
August 19, 2007

BAGHDAD -- Viewed from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment,
the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal.
Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents
and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To
believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived
its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population
and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible
infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne
Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press
coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel
it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we
see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not
be seen as official within our chain of command.)

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in
Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered
framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are
offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the "battle space"
remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with
actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda
terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This
situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-
faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained
and armed at United States taxpayers' expense.

Near-Routine Duplicity

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American
soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-
piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and
a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators
that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped
plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: Had
they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi
Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their
families.

As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports
that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can
be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion
commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the
thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of
command, who are really loyal only to their militias.

Transient Loyalties

Similarly, Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the new Iraqi
armed forces, now find themselves forming militias, sometimes with our
tacit support. Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have
against Shiite militias and the Shiite-dominated government is to form
their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against Al
Qaeda.

However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a
counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the
center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become
effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their
loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself
working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is
justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the
Americans leave.

In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies
and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground
remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this
fact became all too clear: one of us, Staff Sergeant Jeremy Murphy, an
Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head
during a "time-sensitive target acquisition mission" on Aug. 12; he is
expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the
United States. [1]) While we have the will and the resources to fight
in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the
ground require measures we will always refuse - namely, the widespread
use of lethal and brutal force.

Insecure Iraqis

Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an
American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers
to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a
resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of
the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we
take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel
increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has
failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly
unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.

Coupling our military strategy to an insistence that the Iraqis meet
political benchmarks for reconciliation is also unhelpful. The morass
in the government has fueled impatience and confusion while providing
no semblance of security to average Iraqis. Leaders are far from
arriving at a lasting political settlement. This should not be
surprising, since a lasting political solution will not be possible
while the military situation remains in constant flux.

Consequences of Grave Mistakes

The Iraqi government is run by the main coalition partners of the
Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, with Kurds as minority
members. The Shiite clerical establishment formed the alliance to make
sure its people did not succumb to the same mistake as in 1920:
rebelling against the occupying Western force (then the British) and
losing what they believed was their inherent right to rule Iraq as the
majority. The qualified and reluctant welcome we received from the
Shiites since the invasion has to be seen in that historical context.
They saw in us something useful for the moment.

Now that moment is passing, as the Shiites have achieved what they
believe is rightfully theirs. Their next task is to figure out how
best to consolidate the gains, because reconciliation without
consolidation risks losing it all. Washington's insistence that the
Iraqis correct the three gravest mistakes we made - de-Baathification,
the dismantling of the Iraqi Army and the creation of a loose
federalist system of government - places us at cross purposes with the
government we have committed to support.

Miserable Failures

Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence
or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms
when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the
political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please
every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers.
The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying
to please every party in the conflict - as we do now - will only
ensure we are hated by all in the long run.

At the same time, the most important front in the counterinsurgency,
improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we
have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in
bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally
displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular
electricity, telephone services and sanitation. "Lucky" Iraqis live in
gated communities barricaded with concrete blast walls that provide
them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of
security we would consider normal.

In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets,
engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act.
Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while
we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist,
militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of
average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can
hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us
a few days ago with deep resignation, "We need security, not free
food."

Lost Self-Respect

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released
Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of
their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain
dignity is to call us what we are - an army of occupation - and force
our withdrawal.

Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let
Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced
policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve
their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be
defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible
policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see
this mission through.

Buddhika Jayamaha is an Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a
sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant.
Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant.
Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

http://tinyurl.com/34faou

[1] -- Not only was Murphy shot, but three weeks after this commentary
appeared in The NYT, Mora and Gray were killed when the truck they
were riding in overturned. See http://tinyurl.com/2lou4w



The real Iraq we knew

By 12 former Army captains
The New York Times
October 16, 2007

TODAY MARKS five years since the authorization of military force in
Iraq, setting Operation Iraqi Freedom in motion. Five years on, the
Iraq war is as undermanned and under-resourced as it was from the
start. And, five years on, Iraq is in shambles.

As Army captains who served in Baghdad and beyond, we've seen the
corruption and the sectarian division. We understand what it's like to
be stretched too thin. And we know when it's time to get out.

What does Iraq look like on the ground? It's certainly far from being
a modern, self-sustaining country. Many roads, bridges, schools and
hospitals are in deplorable condition. Fewer people have access to
drinking water or sewage systems than before the war. And Baghdad is
averaging less than eight hours of electricity a day.

Widespread Corruption

Iraq's institutional infrastructure, too, is sorely wanting. Even if
the Iraqis wanted to work together and accept the national identity
foisted upon them in 1920s, the ministries do not have enough trained
administrators or technicians to coordinate themselves. At the local
level, most communities are still controlled by the same autocratic
sheiks that ruled under Saddam. There is no reliable postal system. No
effective banking system. No registration system to monitor the
population and its needs.

The inability to govern is exacerbated at all levels by widespread
corruption. Transparency International ranks Iraq as one of the most
corrupt countries in the world. And, indeed, many of us witnessed the
exploitation of U.S. tax dollars by Iraqi officials and military
officers. Sabotage and graft have had a particularly deleterious
impact on Iraq's oil industry, which still fails to produce the
revenue that Pentagon war planners hoped would pay for Iraq's
reconstruction. Yet holding people accountable has proved difficult.
The first commissioner of a panel charged with preventing and
investigating corruption resigned last month, citing pressure from the
government and threats on his life.

Vulmerable Targets

Against this backdrop, the U.S. military has been trying in vain to
hold the country together. Even with "the surge," we simply do not
have enough soldiers and marines to meet the professed goals of
clearing areas from insurgent control, holding them securely and
building sustainable institutions. Though temporary reinforcing
operations in places like Fallujah, An Najaf, Tal Afar, and now
Baghdad may brief well on PowerPoint presentations, in practice they
just push insurgents to another spot on the map and often strengthen
the insurgents' cause by harassing locals to a point of swayed
allegiances. Millions of Iraqis correctly recognize these actions for
what they are and vote with their feet -- moving within Iraq or
leaving the country entirely. Still, our colonels and generals keep
holding on to flawed concepts.

U.S. forces, responsible for too many objectives and too much "battle
space," are vulnerable targets. The sad inevitability of a protracted
draw-down is further escalation of attacks -- on U.S. troops, civilian
leaders and advisory teams. They would also no doubt get caught in the
crossfire of the imminent Iraqi civil war.

Iraqi security forces would not be able to salvage the situation. Even
if all the Iraqi military and police were properly trained, equipped
and truly committed, their 346,000 personnel would be too few. As it
is, Iraqi soldiers quit at will. The police are effectively controlled
by militias. And, again, corruption is debilitating. U.S. tax dollars
enrich self-serving generals and support the very elements that will
battle each other after we're gone.

Suffering Troops and Families

This is Operation Iraqi Freedom and the reality we experienced. This
is what we tried to communicate up the chain of command. This is
either what did not get passed on to our civilian leadership or what
our civilian leaders chose to ignore. While our generals pursue a
strategy dependent on peace breaking out, the Iraqis prepare for their
war -- and our servicemen and women, and their families, continue to
suffer.

There is one way we might be able to succeed in Iraq. To continue an
operation of this intensity and duration, we would have to abandon our
volunteer military for compulsory service. Short of that, our best
option is to leave Iraq immediately. A scaled withdrawal will not
prevent a civil war, and it will spend more blood and treasure on a
losing proposition.

America, it has been five years. It's time to make a choice.

This column was written by 12 former Army captains: Jason Blindauer
served in Babil and Baghdad in 2003 and 2005. Elizabeth Bostwick
served in Salah Ad Din and An Najaf in 2004. Jeffrey Bouldin served in
Al Anbar, Baghdad and Ninevah in 2006. Jason Bugajski served in Diyala
in 2004. Anton Kemps served in Babil and Baghdad in 2003 and 2005.
Kristy (Luken) McCormick served in Ninevah in 2003. Luis Carlos
Montalván served in Anbar, Baghdad and Nineveh in 2003 and 2005.
William Murphy served in Babil and Baghdad in 2003 and 2005. Josh
Rizzo served in Baghdad in 2006. William "Jamie" Ruehl served in
Nineveh in 2004. Gregg Tharp served in Babil and Baghdad in 2003 and
2005. Gary Williams served in Baghdad in 2003.

© Copyright 1996-2007 The Washington Post Company

http://tinyurl.com/yolwv4



Former top general in Iraq faults Bush administration

By David S. Cloud
The New York Times
October 12, 2007

WASHINGTON -- In a sweeping indictment of the four-year effort in
Iraq, the former top commander of American forces there called the
Bush administration's handling of the war "incompetent" and said the
result was "a nightmare with no end in sight."

Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who retired in 2006 after being replaced
in Iraq after the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, blamed the Bush
administration for a "catastrophically flawed, unrealistically
optimistic war plan" and denounced the current addition of American
forces as a "desperate" move that would not achieve long-term
stability.

"After more than four years of fighting, 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," General Sanchez said at a
gathering of military reporters and editors in Arlington, Va.

Senior-Officer War Critics

He is the most senior war commander of a string of retired officers
who have harshly criticized the administration's conduct of the war.
While much of the previous condemnation has been focused on the role
of former Defense Secretary Donald L. Rumsfeld, General Sanchez's was
an unusually broad attack on the overall course of the war.

But his own role as commander in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib scandal
leaves him vulnerable to criticism that he is shifting the blame from
himself to the administration that ultimately replaced him and
declined to nominate him for a fourth star, forcing his retirement.

Though he was cleared of wrongdoing in the abuses after an inquiry by
the Army's inspector general, General Sanchez became a symbol - with
civilian officials like L. Paul Bremer III, the head of the Coalition
Provisional Authority - of ineffective American leadership early in
the occupation.

Incompetent Strategic Leadership

General Sanchez said he was convinced that the American effort in Iraq
was failing the day after he took command, in June 2003. Asked why he
waited until nearly a year after his retirement to voice his concerns
publicly, he responded that it was not the place of active-duty
officers to challenge lawful orders from the civilian authorities.

General Sanchez, who is said to be considering writing a book,
promised further public statements criticizing officials by name.

"There has been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent
strategic leadership within our national leaders," he said, adding
that civilian officials have been "derelict in their duties" and
guilty of a "lust for power."

Silent White House

White House officials would not comment directly on General Sanchez's
remarks. "We appreciate his service to the country," said Kate Starr,
a White House spokeswoman.

She noted that Gen. David H. Patraeus, the current top commander in
Iraq, and Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador to Baghdad, said in
their testimony to Congress last month that "there's more work to be
done, but progress is being made in Iraq. And that's what we're
focused on now." [1]

General Sanchez has been criticized by some current and retired
officers for failing to recognize the growing insurgency in Iraq
during his year in command and for failing to put together a plan to
unify the disparate military effort, a task that was finally carried
out when his successor, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., took over in
mid-2004.

General Sanchez included the military and himself among those who made
mistakes in Iraq, citing a failure by top commanders to insist on a
better post-invasion stabilization plan. He offered a tepid compliment
to General Petraeus. The general, he said, could use American troops
to gain time in Iraq but could not achieve lasting results.

Main Criticism

General Sanchez's main criticism was leveled at the Bush
administration, which he said failed to mobilize the entire United
States government, not just the military, to contribute meaningfully
to reconstructing and stabilizing Iraq.

"National leadership continues to believe that victory can be achieved
by military power alone," he said. "Continued manipulations and
adjustments to our military strategy will not achieve victory. The
best we can do with this flawed approach is stave off defeat."

Asked after his remarks what strategy he favored, General Sanchez
ticked off a series of steps - from promoting reconciliation among
Iraq's warring sectarian factions to building effective Iraqi army and
police units - that closely paralleled the list of tasks frequently
cited by the Bush administration as the pillars of the current
strategy.

General Sanchez, now a Pentagon consultant who trains active-duty
generals, said the administration's biggest failure had been its lack
of a detailed strategy for achieving those steps and "synchronizing"
the military and civilian contributions.

Catastrophic Failure

"The administration, Congress and the entire inter-agency, especially
the State Department, must shoulder responsibility for the
catastrophic failure, and the American people must hold them
accountable," he said.

His talk on Friday at the annual convention of the Military Reporters
and Editors Association was not the first time that General Sanchez
has been critical of the administration.

He said in an interview in June with Agence France-Presse that the
best the United States could achieve in Iraq would be stalemate. And
he drew a standing ovation at a gathering of veterans last month when
he argued that the country's problems in Iraq were the result of a
"crisis in national political leadership."

Though General Sanchez remained on active duty after leaving Iraq in
2004, he never received a fourth star, in part because, though he was
popular with Mr. Rumsfeld, the Bush administration feared that his
nomination hearings in the Senate would turn into a bitter partisan
fight and a public replay of the details of the Abu Ghraib scandal.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/13/washington/13general.html

[1] -- See "In the wake of Petraeus" at http://tinyurl.com/3ytuwz



Address to Military Reporters and Editors Association annual
convention

By Lieutenant General (Ret.) Ricardo S. Sanchez
Washington, D. C., October 12, 2007
Transcript provided by Scoop Independent News

SOME OF YOU may not believe this but I am glad to be here. When Sig
(Christensen) asked me if I would consider addressing you there was no
doubt that I should come into the lion's den. This was important
because I have firmly believed since desert shield that it is
necessary for the strength of our democracy that the military and the
press corps maintain a strong, mutually respectful and enabling
relationship. This continues to be problematic for our country,
especially during times of war. One of the greatest military
correspondents of our time, Joe Galloway, made me a believer when he
joined the 24th Infantry Division during Desert Storm.

Today, I will attempt to do two things: First, I will give you my
assessment of the military and press relationship and then I will
provide you some thoughts on the current state of our war effort.

As all of you know I have a wide range of relationships and
experiences with our nation's military writers and editors. There are
some in your ranks who I consider to be the epitome of journalistic
professionalism: Joe Galloway [1], Thom Shaker, Sig Christensen, and
John Burns immediately come to mind. They exemplify what America
should demand of our journalists -- tough reporting that relies upon
integrity, objectivity and fairness to give accurate and thorough
accounts that strengthen our freedom of the press and in turn our
democracy. On the other hand, unfortunately, I have issued ultimatums
to some of you for unscrupulous reporting that was solely focused on
supporting your agenda and preconceived notions of what our military
had done. 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.

Descriptive Phrases

Let me review some of the descriptive phrases that have been used by
some of you that have made my personal interfaces with the press corps
difficult:

-- "dictatorial and somewhat dense",

-- "not a strategic thought",

-- liar,

-- "does not get it" and

-- "The most inexperienced lieutenant general."

In some cases I have never even met you, yet you feel qualified to
make character judgments that are communicated to the world. My
experience is not unique and we can find other examples. This is the
worst display of journalism imaginable by those of us that are bound
by a strict value system of selfless service, honor and integrity.

.. . .

Other major challenges are your willingness to be manipulated by "high
level officials" who leak stories and by lawyers who use hyperbole to
strengthen their arguments. Your unwillingness to accurately and
prominently correct your mistakes and your agenda-driven biases
contribute to this corrosive environment. All of these challenges
combined create a media environment that does a tremendous disservice
to America.

Freedom of the Press

There is no question in my mind that the strength our democracy and
our freedoms remain linked to your ability to exercise freedom of the
press. I adamantly support this basic foundation of our democracy and
completely supported the embedding of media into our formations up
until my last day in uniform. The issue is one of maintaining
professional ethics and standards from within your institution.

Military leaders must accept that these injustices will happen and
whether they like what you print or not they must deal with you and
enable you, if you are an ethical journalist.

Finally, I will leave this subject with a question that we must ask
ourselves: Who is responsible for maintaining the ethical standards of
the profession in order to ensure that our democracy does not continue
to be threatened by this dangerous shift away from your sacred duty of
public enlightenment?

Let me now transition to our current national security condition.

As we all know war is an extension of politics and when a nation goes
to war it must bring to bear all elements of power in order to win.
War-fighting is not solely the responsibility of the military
commander unless he has been given the responsibility and resources to
synchronize the political, economic and informational power of the
nation. So who is responsible for developing the grand strategy that
will allow America to emerge victorious from this generational
struggle against extremism?

Flawed, Unrealistic War Plan

After more than four years of fighting, 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. From a catastrophically
flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan to the administration's
latest "surge" strategy, this administration has failed to employ and
synchronize its political, economic and military power.

The latest "revised strategy" is a desperate attempt by an
administration that has not accepted the political and economic
realities of this war and they have definitely not communicated that
reality to the American people. An even worse and more disturbing
assessment is that America cannot achieve the political consensus
necessary to devise a grand strategy that will synchronize and commit
our national power to achieve victory in Iraq. Some of you have heard
me talk about our nation's crisis in leadership. Let me elaborate.

While the politicians espouse their rhetoric designed to preserve
their reputations and their political power, our soldiers die! Our
national leadership ignored the lessons of WWII as we entered into
this war and to this day continue to believe that victory can be
achieved through the application of military power alone. Our
forefathers understood that tremendous economic and political capacity
had to be mobilized, synchronized and applied if we were to achieve
victory in a global war. That has been and continues to be the key to
victory in Iraq.

Continued manipulations and adjustments to our military strategy will
not achieve victory. The best we can do with this flawed approach is
stave off defeat. The Administration, Congress and the entire
interagency, especially the Department of State, must shoulder the
responsibility for this catastrophic failure and the American people
must hold them accountable.

Incompetent Strategic Leadership

There has been a glaring, unfortunate, display of incompetent
strategic leadership within our national leaders. As a Japanese
proverb says, "action without vision is a nightmare." There is no
question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight.

Since 2003, the politics of war have been characterized by
partisanship as the Republican and Democratic parties struggled for
power in Washington. National efforts to date have been corrupted by
partisan politics that have prevented us from devising effective,
executable, supportable solutions. At times, these partisan struggles
have led 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 -- without
bipartisan cooperation we are doomed to fail. There is nothing going
on today in Washington that would give us hope.

If we succeed in crafting a bipartisan strategy for victory, then
America must hold all national agencies accountable for developing and
executing the political and economic initiatives that will bring about
stability, security, political and economic hope for all Iraqis. That
has not been successful to date.

Congress must shoulder a significant responsibility for this failure
since there has been no focused oversight of the nation's political
and economic initiatives in this war. Exhortations, encouragements,
investigations, studies and discussions will not produce success -this
appears to be the nation's only alternative since the transfer of
sovereignty. Our continued neglect will only extend the conflict.
America's dilemma is that we no longer control the ability to directly
influence the Iraqi institutions. The sovereign Iraqi government must
be cooperative in these long term efforts. That is not likely at the
levels necessary in the near term.

Our commanders on the ground will continue to make progress and
provide time for the development of a grand strategy. That will be
wasted effort as we have seen repeatedly since 2003. In the mean time
our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines will continue to die.

Missing Elements for Success?

Since the start of this war, America's leadership has known that our
military alone could not achieve victory in Iraq. Starting in July
2003, the message repeatedly communicated to Washington by military
commanders on the ground was that the military alone could never
achieve "victory" in Iraq.

Our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines were destined to endure
decades of fighting and killing people without the focused,
synchronized application of all elements of national power. This was a
necessary condition to stabilize Iraq. Any sequential solutions would
lead to a prolonged conflict and increased resistance. By neglect and
incompetence at the national security council level, that is the path
our political leaders chose and now America, more precisely the
American military, finds itself in an intractable situation.

Clearly, mistakes have been made by the American military in its
application of power but even its greatest failures in this war can be
linked to America's lack of commitment, priority and moral courage in
this war effort. Without the sacrifices of our magnificent young men
and women in uniform, Iraq would be chaotic well beyond anything
experienced to date.

What America must accept as a reality at this point in the war is that
our army and marine corps are struggling with the deployment
schedules. What is clear is that the deployment cycles of our
formations has been totally disrupted, the resourcing and training
challenges are significant and America's ability to sustain a force
level of 150,000(+) is nonexistent without drastic measures that have
been politically unacceptable to date. The drawdown of the surge to
pre-surge levels was never a question. America must understand that it
will take the army at least a decade to fix the damage that has been
done to its full spectrum readiness. The president's recent statement
to America that he will listen to military commanders is a matter of
political expediency.

Our Army and Marine Corps will execute as directed, perform
magnificently and never complain. That is the ethic of our warriors
and that is what America expects of them. They will not disappoint us.
But America must know the pressures that are being placed on our
military institutions as we fight this war. All Americans must demand
that these deploying formations are properly resourced, properly
trained and we must never allow America's support for the soldier to
falter. A critical, objective assessment of our nation's ability to
execute our national security strategy must be conducted. If we are
objective and honest, the results will be surprising to all Americans.
There is unacceptable strategic risk.

.. . .

Political Hinderances

America has sent our soldiers off to war and they must be supported at
all costs until we achieve victory or until our political leaders
decide to bring them home. Our political and military leaders owe the
soldier on the battlefield the strategy, the policies and the
resources to win once committed to war. America has not been fully
committed to win this war. As the military commanders on the ground
have stated since the summer of 2003, the U.S. military alone cannot
win this war.

America must mobilize the interagency and the political and economic
elements of power, which have been abject failures to date, in order
to achieve victory. Our nation has not focused on the greatest
challenge of our lifetime. The political and economic elements of
power must get beyond the politics to ensure the survival of America.
Partisan politics have hindered this war effort and America should not
accept this. America must demand a unified national strategy that goes
well beyond partisan politics and places the common good above all
else.

Too often our politicians have chosen loyalty to their political party
above loyalty to the Constitution because of their lust for power. Our
politicians must remember their oath of office and recommit themselves
to serving our nation and not their own self-interests or political
party. The security of America is at stake and we can accept nothing
less. Anything short of this is unquestionably dereliction of duty.

These are fairly harsh assessments of the military and press
relationship and the status of our war effort. I remain optimistic and
committed to the enabling of media operations under the toughest of
conditions in order to keep the world and the American people
informed. Our military must embrace you for the sake our democracy but
you owe them ethical journalism.

Thank you for this opportunity.

The entire speech can be read at the following link.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0710/S00369.htm

[1] -- Joseph Galloway, Knight-Ridder cum McClatchy military
columnist, has criticized Bush's debacle in Iraq since the get-go. See
the following article for a recent example.





Bush still refuses to admit he was wrong
By Joseph L. Galloway
McClatchy Newspapers
September 14, 2007

WELL, NOW we've heard from General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan
Crocker and George W. Bush, and it appears that the Surge has
succeeded - succeeded in guaranteeing that the Iraq War will drag on
for the last 16 months of the Bush presidency at a cost of another
1,600 American dead and $13 billion a month.

Extending the war, kicking that can down the road, was Bush's only
strategic objective last January when he came up with the idea of
escalating the number of American troops in Iraq from 130,000 to
today's 170,000. Put simply, the Decider wants to hand off the
decision to pull the plug on his unwinnable war to someone else,
anyone else.

Four and a half years after Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in a
gross act of arrogance and ignorance based on faulty, bogus and
politically twisted intelligence - and after repeatedly changing the
rationales and objectives of the war as each has failed in turn -
we're going to continue this war because George W. Bush is incapable
of admitting that he was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Failed Surge

Leaving aside all the happy talk we heard this week about how much
better the security picture is in Baghdad, the fact is that the
escalation or surge has failed utterly. The stated purpose of this
exercise was to buy breathing room for the faltering government of
Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki and the paralyzed Iraqi parliament to
make progress toward national reconciliation.

The Iraqi government's job was to use this breathing room, bought at
the cost of American lives and American treasure, to step back from
sectarian murder and civil war, which it's failed to do, may be
totally incapable of doing and may not even be interested in doing.

Every American commander in Iraq has stated the obvious from Day One:
This war cannot be won militarily. It cannot be won by American
troops. It cannot be won by wishful thinking. It can only be won by
the Iraqis themselves, and their definition of victory is built on
dreams of bloody revenge and the slaughter of innocents.

Mistakes and Confusion

When our president talks of peace returning to the streets of Baghdad,
he mistakes the silence of empty, abandoned homes and sectarian
cleansing for progress. He confuses the segregation of Shia and Sunni,
each in their own ghettos behind tall concrete walls, for progress.
More than 3 million Iraqis have been driven from their homes and
neighborhoods into exile, internal or external, and this he calls
success.

He and the two yes-men, Petraeus and Crocker, crowed about victory in
Anbar province as though American tactics and strategy had something
to do with a revolutionary turnaround among Sunni tribal sheiks who,
long after even the U.S. Marines were admitting defeat in Anbar, acted
in their own self-interest and struck against the al Qaeda in Iraq
operatives who were killing their people, their own children.

This week, one of the key authors of that change, a man whom Bush
singled out on his secret fly-by-night visit to Anbar, was blown apart
by the enemy near his own home.

Shia vs. Sunnis

All the while, Prime Minister Maliki and his majority Shia government
grit their teeth at the spectacle of their American allies supporting
and financing and even recruiting the hated Sunnis into the army and
police forces, thus making them a harder nut to crack when the night
of the long knives, the dark night of Shia revenge, eventually
arrives.

The president announced that he was taking Gen. Petraeus' advice and
ordering the beginning of 10-month gradual drawdown of the extra
30,000 troops of the surge - a drawdown that everyone knew was
inevitable simply because our Army and Marine Corps cannot sustain
that level of troops in Iraq beyond next March.

On the schedule the president laid down this week, we'll still have
some 138,000 troops on the ground in Iraq next July, and 100,000 on
January 20, 2009, when Bush's successor will take office, and he made
it clear that he hopes to have agreements in place to ensure an
American military presence there for many years to come.

Spineless Congressional Democrats

Will Bush get away with this? From all the evidence at hand, the
answer, sadly, is yes. Only the Democrats in Congress stand in his
way, and they have yet to find their spines, or a semblance of moral
courage, or even a sufficient understanding of the Constitution and
its clauses on war making and war-financing, to override The Decider.

It's a long journey from now to January 20, 2009, and the blood of
many Americans and even more Iraqis will flow freely and stain the
hands of those who allow this insane war to continue at the behest of
a stubborn, unseeing, unthinking man from Crawford, Texas.

General H. Norman Schwarzkopf has called Joseph L. Galloway, a
military columnist for McClatchy Newspapers, "The finest combat
correspondent of our generation - a soldier's reporter and a soldier's
friend." Galloway is the co-author, with Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, of We
Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young, a story of the first large-scale
ground battle of the Vietnam War. The book was made into a movie of
the same name. Galloway was portrayed in the movie by actor Barry
Pepper.

© 2007 McClatchy Newspapers

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/galloway/story/19708.html

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