So say US military commanders, both active duty and retired:
Debating issues of war and peace and America's role in the world aren't off limits in this fourth year of war in Iraq, and they aren't a sign of anything but the health and vibrancy of our democracy, however much President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld might wish otherwise in a tough election season.
In hopes of furthering that debate, this week I asked more than a dozen top Army and Marine Corps generals - active duty and retired, dissidents and administration loyalists - to address what we should do now in Iraq.All of them agreed that America's strategy and tactics in Iraq have failed, and that President Bush's policy of "staying the course" in Iraq isn't likely to produce anything but more frustration, more and greater problems for the United States in a dangerous world, and more and bloodier surprises for the 135,000 American troops in Iraq.
"Lack of security and lack of governance have pushed Iraq into the rise of a civil war," said one retired senior general. "The message is clear: We have a failed strategy, and we need new leadership and a new strategy to secure (our) interests in the region." The U.S. has important issues in the Middle East - not least of them Iran, he said, "but we cannot do much while bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan."
I'm still in the process of writing my review of Fiasco (my final semester of grad school just got underway, so please cut me some slack here!), but in the meantime this article will have to do. In a much compressed form, it hits on most of the major themes of the book. Leadership matters, particularly in military matters. And in the early years of this war, our leadership has been a disaster. But its not too late to make this one work. More soon...
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