Endless nightmare: Iraq

By
Max J. Castro                                                                    Read Spanish Version
majcastro@gmail.com

In
Iraq the United States is “living a nightmare with no end in
sight."

The
statement does not come from the mouth of Dennis Kucinich or Cindy
Sheehan, longtime and fierce opponents of the Iraq war. It was
uttered on October 12, by Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez, the top
commander of U.S. forces in Iraq in the period following the
invasion.

Sanchez’s
assessment is further proof that almost everyone, except Bush and
those inside the administration’s ideological bunker, can now see
Iraq for the disaster it is.

But
calling Iraq a nightmare is not all that Sanchez, now retired, had to
say at a recent journalists’ conference held just outside of
Washington, DC, and attended by reporters who cover the military. The
general placed the blame for that nightmare squarely on the shoulders
of the top levels of the Bush administration who he said had a
“catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan.”

“There
has been a glaring unfortunate display of incompetent strategic
leadership within our national leaders,” said Sanchez. The American
people should hold these leaders accountable, Sanchez said. According
to the general, in the military such negligence could lead to a
court-martial.

Sanchez
is not the first; many high-ranking retired military officers have
criticized the Bush administration on the Iraq war. But never has
such a senior military officer, or one with such intimate and
high-level knowledge of the war’s operations and strategy,
delivered such a harsh and sweeping indictment. It is a fresh
indication of the breadth and intensity of dissatisfaction with the
Iraq war and the current U.S. administration.

Sanchez
directed especially tough criticism at the National Security Council,
faulting it for negligence and incompetence. He said the Bush
administration had failed to communicate effectively to the American
people that the United States in Iraq is destined to fail in the
absence of bipartisan support for the war effort. The administration,
Sanchez said, had thrust the American military into an “intractable
position.” He held out little hope for the future. “The best we
can do with this flawed approach is stave off defeat,” Sanchez
stated.

The
Sanchez speech comes at a particularly inopportune time for the Bush
administration, which has been waging a ferocious public relations
campaign to convince the American people that there is progress in
Iraq and that the surge is a success. Addressing the issue directly,
the general said the surge is “a desperate attempt by the
administration that has not accepted the political and economic
realities of this war.”

Chief
among those realities that the administration has been unwilling to
acknowledge but surely realize is the fact that the war is
economically ruinous and politically unsustainable. In this light,
Bush’s strategy now appears to be two-fold: a) to create a façade
of progress leading to eventual success given sufficient patience and
determination; and b) to run out the clock and hand off a war that
cannot be won to the next administration in order to blame it for
defeat. Such a strategy implies that the administration is conceding
defeat in Iraq and in the next election but is working hard to
prevent the Republican Party from becoming a permanent minority as a
result of the disaster in Iraq. In this scenario, the continuing
viability of the GOP comes at the cost of the sacrifice of countless
lives and the expenditure of enormous sums of American treasure. 

Exposing
the fallacy of Bush’s claims about progress and making the
Republicans pay for their president’s war are tremendously
important. The statements of the leading GOP presidential candidates
indicate that the continuation of Republican rule in the White House
likely means prolonging the war in Iraq. It also may mean an
increased likelihood of war with Iran. That is one reason why the
strong dose of reality that General Sanchez brings is welcome even if
it is belated and despite the fact that it comes from someone who is
deeply implicated in the Iraq war and its perversities.