General Sanchez Sounds a Little Bitter
Oct 13, 2007 Military
Retired General Ricardo Sanchez, who was the commanding general of all the troops in Iraq, has spoken publicly giving his opinions about the war and the way it was handled. General Sanchez is entitled to his opinion and he knows a lot more than I do about running a war but he seems to have placed blame on everyone but himself.
General Sanchez said that the war was a “nightmare with no end in sight” and blamed Congress, the State Department, the Bush Administration and any number of other government agencies. He said we did not have enough troops and equipment going in (I agree with that) and that surge was a desperate attempt to make up for misguided policies. That might be partly true because we should have had more troops from the start. However, the assessment of General Petraeus is slightly different and a bit more optimistic, probably because he has been in Iraq recently and Sanchez has been out for a little while.
Sanchez is entitled to his opinion and I think he might be a little bitter because his was a rocky command. This is not to say that he is a bad leader, I do not know him, but he had to spend part of his time fending off the problems associated with Abu Ghraib. He was eventually cleared of any wrong doing but that had to have consumed a lot of his time, time that should have been spent leading the troops in war. I can certainly understand his sentiments and his anger at the government and while I disagree with him on what actions he could have taken while in command to let his superiors know how he felt, I certainly understand why he is bitter. The problem is, General Sanchez placed blame squarely on everyone in government. He picked the administration, Congress, and other government entities. However, the left will cherry pick his comments and make the criticism all about President Bush. This statement will be used in a Democratic political campaign to blast the right:
“From a catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan, to the administration’s latest surge strategy, this administration has failed to employ and synchronize the political, economic and military power,†Sanchez said.
And this one will be ignored:
“The administration, Congress and the entire inter-agency, especially the State Department, must shoulder the responsibility for this catastrophic failure and the American people must hold them accountable.â€
Mark my words, the first quote will be used by MorOn.org and Democratic candidates to show how terribly the administration did and will ignore the quote that places blame on everyone, including a Congress that takes decisions based upon polls and fails to actually lead. It is unwise to give the enemy anything that can be used as propaganda and Sanchez’s words can be blasted all over al Jazeera and at the DNC (the same entity).
The interesting thing is that the very groups who will latch on to the words of General Sanchez and hail him as a truth telling hero who thinks the war is a failure and use this to claim they support the troops are the ones who attacked General Petraeus because he did not say what they liked.
I wonder if General Sanchez is thinking about running for office or if he is lining up a gig as a war analyst at some cable news network because he has come out with both barrels blazing. I am not sure Sanchez would be good for political office and I would be weary about voting for him (though he would not be running in my state anyway) based upon his admitted silence about things he thought were wrong because I think leadership involves expressing those opinions.
I wish Sanchez well in whatever he does but I think he might have done the troops more good if he had spoken up a few years ago rather than wait. I also think pointing the fingers in every direction except inward is just a defense mechanism to deflect some of the blame that certainly rests upon his shoulders.
If you fail to speak up about something that you know is wrong you are just as responsible for it as the folks who did it.
Sources:
My Way News
Stars and Stripes
Tags: Abu Ghraib, Commentary, Iraq, Pace, Petraeus, Sanchez, war