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Today's Must Read
Five years after the invasion of Iraq, there seems to have been a rash of accounting lately.
Consider: in March, the Joint Forces Command released (after a pathetic attempt at squelching it) a report definitively proving that there were no operational links between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Al Qaeda. That same month, The New York Times provided a detailed account of Paul Bremer's infamous decision to disband the Iraqi Army. And then of course there's Doug Feith's book, which purports to show how things would have gone so much better if everyone had just listened to Doug Feith -- a thesis that's necessarily met incredulity in a number of brutal interviews.
Some of this is just because enough time has passed that the players feel safe giving interviews. But then there's also the case of suppressed information that's finally seeing the light of day. In February, for example, the Times revealed that a 2005 report by the publicly-funded RAND Corporation had been buried because its conclusions were inconvenient. The report faulted just about everyone in the administration for not adequately preparing for securing postwar Iraq.
And here's what appears to be another example of a buried report. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of U.S. Forces in Iraq from the beginning of the occupation until 2004, has written a memoir. And he has a couple scores to settle. One, to be sure, is that he thinks he was scapegoated for the abuses at Abu Ghraib. The other has to do with how he was left in command of Iraq with far too few troops.
In an excerpt from the book published in Time, Sanchez tells how Rumsfeld, two years after that disastrous year in Iraq, called Sanchez into his office to try to diffuse blame. Rumsfeld hadn't known that Sanchez, commander of the Army's V Corps, was left in charge while CENTCOM and CFLCC [coalition land forces] staffs had pulled out, he said, and he'd written a memo of that official version to prove it.
But Sanchez wasn't buying it, he writes, and told Rumsfeld, "I just can't believe you didn't know." Rumsfeld flipped out. The meeting ended, Sanchez writes, with Rumsfeld saying that he was going to order a report to find out what happened. But that didn't go so well:
[Adm. Ed Giambastiani, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs] assigned the task to the Joint Warfighting Center and gave them a pretty tight timeline. So it wasn't long before I was giving the investigative team a complete rundown of everything that had happened in Iraq between May and June 2003. I later learned that Gen. Tommy Franks, however, had refused to speak with them.A few months later, I was making a presentation at the Joint Warfighting Center and ran across several of the people involved with the study. "Say, did you guys ever complete that investigation?" I asked.
"Oh, yes sir. We sure did," came the reply. "And let me tell you, it was ugly."
"Ugly?" I asked.
"Yes, sir. Our report validated everything you told us -- that Franks issued the orders to discard the original twelve-to-eighteen-month occupation deployment, that the forces were drawing down, that we were walking away from the mission, and that everybody knew about it. And let me tell you, the Secretary did not like that one bit. After we went in to brief him, he just shut us down. 'This is not going anywhere,' he said. 'Oh, and by the way, leave all the copies right here and don't talk to anybody about it.'"
"You mean he embargoed all the copies of the report?" I asked.
"Yes, sir, he did."
From that, my belief was that Rumsfeld's intent appeared to be to minimize and control further exposure within the Pentagon and to specifically keep this information from the American public.
Update: Here's William Arkin's take on Sanchez.
Comments (16)
Shocked! Shocked! to learn that Rumsfeld is not an honest man committed to the truth and taking responsibility for failures of decision-making. I thought the "adults were in charge," not pusillanimous lying boobs. Oh well, maybe the US will have competency, freedom & democracy right after we bring it to Iraq.
May 5, 2008 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'll be buying that book tomorrow morning.
May 5, 2008 11:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think Arkin gets it exactly right. It's fun to pin all the blame on Rumsfeld and Feith, they deserve a lot of it, but until the generals on the ground are willing to man up to their own mistakes and complicity, why should we take them seriously?
May 5, 2008 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
I disagree. Arkin has passed on to the public yet another of the now traditional Administration "Nothing to see here, move along" fogfarts. What does it take to look up some of the people who prepared the report Rumsfeld apparently shitcanned and see if they corroborate Sanchez' story? How many times do they have to be shown to be outright liars before a reporter/bloviator finally gets the clue that s/he should be more than a stenographer?
May 5, 2008 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
The truth is every military officer has to comply with the political administration's commands and share their views to a certain extent or their careers are over. What we've seen over the past few years is one officer after another being a yes man to get the job and then struggling to find some line between selling out their troops and doing what Bush & Co. wants. That struggle always ends in a resignation if they're lucky. If they are out of the loop or lower on the totem they could get worse.
Its not like these officers had any real choices in how to operate things with the constraints placed on them by Rumsfeld and others.
I do blame them for not resigning when they were first given orders to wage war based upon fraudulent intelligence. That is not service to our nation, that is service to Bush.
In the end, I think all these guys were a little egotistical(who makes General without that though) in thinking that they were the special guy who would convince Rummy/Cheney/Bush etc of the correct way to wage the war. As much politicking it takes to make General in the first place, I guess I doubt they were naive enough to think that would happen anyway and were just lining up to pad the resume before retirement/resignation.
I haven't heard any of these guys crying over the 700,000 Iraqis they've killed so they get no sympathy from me.
Come to think of it, maybe I'll download a pirated e-book version of his memoirs.
May 5, 2008 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wrote about this last week, on Fri., over at DailyKos. Sanchez's wife had this to say about Rummys job offers after that fact. "Ricardo, they are just trying to buy you off and keep you silent,"
You can read more ... http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/2/94518/98733/840/507670
May 5, 2008 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
As a former Army staff officer, I always felt uncomfortable about the manner in which General Sanchez communicated, and with the swagger he displayed while in theater. Clearly, he was not my kind of commander, and I find his disclosures rather disingenuous to say the least.
He is also irreparably damaged by his direct ties to the reprehensible conduct at Abu Ghraib and to its ensuing cover up. While it is interesting to hear him offer his observations, he has—or should have—little or no credibility. General Sanchez was then, as he is now, a part of the problem - not a part of the solution.
May 5, 2008 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dumsfield...has alot more problems and criminal liability for what HE DID WHILE RUNNING HIS SECRET MILITARY GESTAPO called CIFA.
CIFA was the guys violating the Posse Comitatus Act.
Dumsfield punk excuses for creating CIFA include:
1) protecting military bases (an allusion to my visit at OREGON NATIONAL GUARD IN TILLAMOOK COUNTY where I was invited on the base by guys who had the keys...got a packet of info that included the RCMP arrest warrant for MIAMI FBI AGENT TERRY NELSON'S DRUG PIPELINE IN MONTANA wi Racicot covering up and laundering money into GOP campaigns...with FBI HITMAN MIKE CHUCKIE PETERS MURDERING WITNESSES.
2) Protecting SIGINT security (an allusion to my knowledge and writing of MY DASCHLE CAMPAIGN MEMO alerting Democrats to the USE OF CALEA WIRETAPPING FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES including the HARASSMENT OF RICH GORDON by SD AG who also committed more overt acts as part of conspiracies to OBSTRUCT JUSTICE when Don Srstka at SD AG colluded to OBSTRUCT JUSTICE WHEN MY SD MED BD COMPLAINT was round filed....this complaint alleged that DRS CHAD CARDA AND JENNIGER BURGER hid my xrays and gave false test reporting to mislead a medical patient seeking a course of medical care to remove the RFID NSA MIND CONTROL CHIP that was involuntarily inserted in my skull while I was asleep.
This surgery...occurred after....AFTER I CONTACTED US SEN JUD COMM MEMBER CHARLES GRASSLEY WITH A TEN PAGE MEMO...and after I signed a US DOJ OIG/FBI OPR Complaint.
TAMPERING WITH A CONG. WITNESS?...OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE?...OBSTRUCTING THE US SENATE?
THE DEMS ARE TOTALLY ASLEEP ON THIS....AND THEY KNOW...AND THEY DID NOTHING?
DUMSFIELD also supervised three POLITICAL MURDERS OF MY KNOWN ASSOCIATES.......AND ATTEMPTED MURDERS OF FIVE OTHERS WHO HAD MY FACT PATTERN AFTER I CONTACTED THEM.
SD US Senator Tim Johnson...was hospitalized after his Sioux Falls, SD, staff got a copy of my stuff.
Others also....were hospitalized with brain strokes caused by Dumsfield's use of DIRECTED ENERGY WEAPONS in target's home.
They call it Torture...and it is psuedo legal under THE WAR COMMISSIONS ACT that was passed by the appeasing little whores in Congress?
May 5, 2008 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
anyone who knows anything about the complete vertical and horizontal penetrations of utter corruption into local, state, and federal governments, and how mafiosi tactics and blood-oath strategies are the modus operandi of these corrupt players, know that what this man is saying is true, even if he might appear to be freaked out in fear for his life.
he has good reason.
Mexico and even the old Soviet Union had nothing on the total corruption of the levers of power in the U.S.
From the economy at large, including all the major financial and industrial moving parts, to the directly connected invasions/shakedowns overseas perpetrated under orders by the U.S. military, the U.S. is in big trouble as long as this mercenary bunch of conscienceless war criminals runs things, of either party really, though as a Democrat I hate to say it.
God save the whole world.
May 6, 2008 7:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
"General Sanchez was then, as he is now, a part of the problem - not a part of the solution."
Agreed -- but not sufficiently part of the problem to be awarded a Medal of Freedom.
And those not a part of the problem are at best froced t retired, and at near-worst, demoted in rank, as was the woman general who was "in charge" of Abu Ghraib but sidelined out of the authority of that position.
All in all, the upper echelons of the military vioalted their oaths to protect and defend Constitution and laws by being politica, and by implementing the Bushit politicization of the military. They clearly forgot the Founders' concerns and debates concerning the danger of a [politically biased] standing army.
At the same time: in all the finger pointing between and among the many incompetents and frauds in this enormous mess, we will get some anger-induced, damning, truthtelling. There will be those who fall on their sword not for Bushit, et al., but because they deserve to do so.
Sanchez was in the chain of command sufficently high up to know what was happening, and to be required to implement the orders -- including those implementing the war crime of torture. He simply didn't care; figured it wouldn't be that big a deal; and apparently promised promotion was more important than those who were subjected to the war crime of torture -- including women and children -- without first having been found guilty of ANYTHING but being Iraqis to be "liberated" -- from their health and lives.
Look in the dictionary for the word "nastiest criminal motherfuckers in world history" and you'll see a group portrait of the Bushit criminal enterprise. And Sanchez will be among them, at minimum for being a fuck-up.
May 5, 2008 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, criminal conspiracy
and war crimes
crimes against humanity and nature
hostage-taking of an entire empire and much of the world
these irredeemable mercenary private mafiosi running the government, and their private enterprise/monopoly goon freak accomplices, are criminals of the worst kind
Love,
News Nag
May 6, 2008 7:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Real journalism is a 24/7 job. Bloviating is 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, outside of which nothing newsworthy happens, thus no effort at anything more strenuous than lifting a martini is worth it.
Arkin is a bigger joke than notions of his being worthy of publication.
Why did he not attempt to find those who might corroborate Sanchez' claims? Because that might require working outside the 9 to 5, Monday through Friday comfort zone.
The honorable having any relation to the disaster that has been the Bushit criminal enterprise, since at latest 12/12/2000, can be counted on less than five fingers:
Joe Wilson
Gen. Taguba.
The former Guantanamo Militiary Commissions prosecutor.
May 5, 2008 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Congress, still comatose despite the promised change, does not have the competence to creatively dance with this elephant disguised as a 100-lb gorilla.
The Sanchez story smells of, "What else do we not know, and how else have things spiraled out of control." There's no reason for Rumsfeld's "damage control" unless (a) there was damage, (b) Rumsfeld knew the damage was awful, and (c) Rumsfeld knew he needed to do something about it. More to follow.
Rumsfeld is the target of an international war crimes indictment. The Time's story is one of chaos, mismanagement, and recklessness in a war of choice. There was no imminent threat, the President and other chose to do this, but the situation in 2008 is essentially what we had since 2001-2006: Bungling.
May 5, 2008 11:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
If and when the real progressives ( you know the one not apparently complict in the war crimes of bushCheney-and who still wish to defend our Constitution ) take back the majority in the Senate & the House - I pray then the hearings will be held that allows Gen Tagube to say what he really found out about how directly involved Rumsfeld was with the atrocities at Abu Gharib .
We can start with that hearing -then we move forward with questioning Madam Speaker & Congresswoman Harmon "what did they know & when did they know it " regarding torturing committed by our government . Also then might be a goood time to explore how much of the Harmon family business was involved with bad actors like Wilkes & Foggo - and what -if any - direct connection that might exist with Harmon business interest and the CIFA contracts being awarded by Rumsfield 's office.
Would it be a good thing to have Mr Comey OR Mr fITZPATRICK CO-ORDINATE ALL THESE EFFORTS TO HOLD ACCOUNTABLE THE WRONG DOERS IN gwb43 ?
We are going to need a wholistic approach to ridding ourselves of the neocon legacy !
May 6, 2008 5:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
If, in the mid 1970s, I hadn't experienced contact with a 1960s U.S. military veteran, who'd had drug and enhanced radiation weapons systems experimented on him, thought him a bit disoriented and nutty at the time, and later read exact descriptions of what had been done to him in Pentagon documents that had been released due to FOI requests (such as microwave radiation experimentation to manipulate bodily functions, disturb sleep, and control thought patterns, all shown to have actually taken place in Army experiments in V.A. hospitals), then I would have thought your post ludicrous.
However, the outright and utter corruption of every kind permeating the U.S. ruling party (mainly Republican-controlled but with Democratic hangers-on as well), deeper and more thorough than even Mexico's entrenched narco-corruption or the old Soviet Union's ideologically focused corruption, makes me believe you first and want details later.
In the U.S., huge-scale drug and other organized-crime corruption of local, state, and federal governments, concomitant with and hand-in-hand with Wall Street/banking corruption, and the interdisciplinary corruptions of the mammoth weapons industry, privatization of military functions even inside the U.S., and tainted private prison industry/security guard industry, has a very tight hold on almost every aspect of our society, most especially the political system, and especially also the economy.
We will be fortunate to get back our democracy, such as it was, more or less as barely intact as it was before Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush.
YOU know what I'm talking about!
Love,
News Nag
May 6, 2008 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
History will soberly record that Rumsfeld is a snake, a bully, a self-agrandizing belittler, and and a scheming backstabber of immense scope.
If Sanchez says Rumsfeld lied, intentionally prepared phony reports, and twisted reality, that is merely like breathing for Rumsfeld. So Arkin can be as snide as he likes, but what Sanchez says about Rumsfeld *must* be correct, whatever else one may think about Sanchez.
May 7, 2008 1:36 AM | Reply | Permalink