U.S. officer criticizes generals for Iraq war
Reuters
Fri Apr 27, 2:12 PM ET
An active-duty U.S. Army officer criticized U.S. generals in a journal article published on Friday for failing to prepare the military and the country for war in Iraq, and urged Congress to intervene.
In a rare public airing of a vigorous debate within the U.S. military, Lt. Col. Paul Yingling compared generals' management of Iraq to their conduct in Vietnam and warned of a crisis facing the armed forces due to the "intellectual and moral failures" of U.S. generals broadly.
"For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency," wrote Yingling, an Iraq war veteran and commander of an Army unit. "These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps."
Yingling did not single out any general for criticism.
The mid-ranking officer's cover article in the May issue of Armed Forces Journal reflects the debate among officers about the conduct of the Iraq war as well as the decisions and public statements made by commanders advising civilian policymakers.
Yingling repeated, for example, a widely voiced criticism that generals did not raise publicly the concerns held privately about the level of U.S. troops being committed by policymakers to secure Iraq in the early stages of the war.
(Continued here.)
Fri Apr 27, 2:12 PM ET
An active-duty U.S. Army officer criticized U.S. generals in a journal article published on Friday for failing to prepare the military and the country for war in Iraq, and urged Congress to intervene.
In a rare public airing of a vigorous debate within the U.S. military, Lt. Col. Paul Yingling compared generals' management of Iraq to their conduct in Vietnam and warned of a crisis facing the armed forces due to the "intellectual and moral failures" of U.S. generals broadly.
"For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency," wrote Yingling, an Iraq war veteran and commander of an Army unit. "These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps."
Yingling did not single out any general for criticism.
The mid-ranking officer's cover article in the May issue of Armed Forces Journal reflects the debate among officers about the conduct of the Iraq war as well as the decisions and public statements made by commanders advising civilian policymakers.
Yingling repeated, for example, a widely voiced criticism that generals did not raise publicly the concerns held privately about the level of U.S. troops being committed by policymakers to secure Iraq in the early stages of the war.
(Continued here.)
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1 Comments:
Many comparisons have been made to how the Vietnam conflict was managed, but the key difference here is that today’s military leaders are speaking out. The first wave was the retired Generals – Wesley Clarke, Barry McCaffrey (April 25 he stated
“But collectively the American people have said that the conduct of the war has been so incompetent that we’ve come to disbelieve the administration has the ability to carry this off.”), Bernard Trainor (see COBRA II), William Odom ( April 28 stated
“The conflict in Iraq is different. Over the past couple of years, the President has let it proceed on automatic pilot, making no corrections in the face of accumulating evidence that his strategy is failing and cannot be rescued.”) etc.
Now, a new wave … the active lower ranking officers – once again, like, Paul Yingling, by Lieutenant Colonels. I am currently reading a great book Hope Is Not A Plan – The War in Iraq From Inside the Green Zone (which is available through the North Mankato library). The book is written as an assessment of the strategy from people who were on the ground in Iraq.
Bush has argued that Congress must not interfere with how General David Petraeus is waging the war. Does Bush say that Petraeus must be supported because the previous mission leadership of Casey and Abizaid failed to implement the Commander-in-Chief’s strategy? Now even lower level Lt. Colonels are recognizing the failure of strategy. Changing the quarterback, but not changing the play that is being run, does not change the outcome. The strategy is not working.
Sadly, in 1997 Major H.R. McMaster wrote in Dereliction of Duty : Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam “ The failings were many and reinforcing : arrogance, weakness, lying in the pursuit of self-interest, and above all, the abdication of responsibility to the American people.”
It’s the pursuit of self-interest that concerns me most. When will we learn from history ?
If you want to read Yingling’s article, here is the link.
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