The military is most unimpressed with neocon strategery:
The U.S. mission in Iraq is a “nightmare with no end in sight” because of political misjudgments after the fall of Saddam Hussein that continue today, a former chief of U.S.-led forces said Friday.
Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded coalition troops for a year beginning June 2003, cast a wide net of blame for both political and military shortcomings in Iraq that helped open the way for the insurgency — such as disbanding the Saddam-era military and failing to cement ties with tribal leaders and quickly establish civilian government after Saddam was toppled.
He called current strategies — including the deployment of 30,000 additional forces earlier this year — a “desperate attempt” to make up for years of misguided policies in Iraq.
I noticed that there was what appeared to be a strategic flaw back in April 2004, before I’d figured out that the broken ceasefire agreement which justified the war was, in fact, not even an agreement to which the USA was a party.
“Still, the defeat of two minor military powers by the greatest military machine history has ever known does not make George Bush a great wartime president. Indeed, the jury is far from in on the question of whether he can even be considered successful at this juncture. It is even possible that he will come to be judged a complete failure in the execution, just as Bill Clinton failed at the preparation.
The primary reason for my concern about the conduct of this so-called war – still undeclared – stems from this quote from Clausewitz, the military theorist:
Our position, then, is that a theater of war, be it large or small, and the forces stationed there, no matter what their size, represent the sort of unity in which a single center of gravity can be identified. That is the place where the decision should be reached; a victory at that point is in its fullest sense identical with the defense of the theater of operations.“