Way Too Late, General Sanchez Tells It Like It Was

The mainstream media have been giving wide play to General Sanchez' remarks delivered last Friday to a group of military affairs reporters in Arlington, Virginia. What he said, based on his year commanding our forces in Iraq between June 2003 and 2004, is hot metal on target.

It is also irrelevant, except to historians.

Sanchez, who retired with three stars last year, stated that he realised the situation in Iraq was a "mess" on 15 June 03. If that is true, and the Geek believes it is, a question is called for.

What did General Sanchez, the man with ultimate responsibility for military operations in the theater, the guy on the ground, do about it?

Did he relay his complaints up the chain of command? Did he request more men? More support? An end to the divided command in the theater?

If not, why not?

If he did, what was the response from Central Command, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, the White House?

Quite explicitly he lays the blame for the "mess" at the feet of his superiors. The Geek thinks that is where it belongs, but that in no way lets General Sanchez off the hook.

If the situation in Iraq according to his best military judgement was hopeless and his superiors refused for whatsoever reason to provide the means to improve it, General Sanchez had two choices. The first, the one he took, was to shut up and soldier, to do the best he could with what he had, including the inept procounselship of Paul Bremer.

Then there was the second option. The course Sanchez didn't take. He could have asked for relief, resigned his commission, and gone public four years ago. When his assessment of the realities on the ground--and in Washington might have done some good.

Not being a psychoanalyst, the Geek is not given to inquiring as to a person's motivations, but he suspects that Sanchez was blinded by stars, particularly the four stars that would have quite probably come with his end of tour package. As a result of career considerations, the general shut up and soldiered, only to become a collateral casualty of the infamous prison torment tapes.

At one point in his remarks, Sanchez says of the political leadership of the United States in both the administration and congress. "They have unquestionably been derelict in in the performance of their duty. In my profession, these types of leaders would be immediately relieved or court-martialed."

The Geek can only wish that was a true statement. In the current wars as in so many previous ones including both the Vietnam and Korean conflicts, inept commanders have been kept in the field, rewarded with Legions of Merit and promotions when relieved, and ultimately protected from accountability.

The same has been true in the political sphere. In the opening days of the Vietnam escalation, leaders of both houses of congress from both parties were far more hawkish than the president, Lyndon Johnson. A few years later, these same figures were among the loudest of the doves.

"Why the change?" You ask.

Simple. The US was not winning. The war was a mess. There was no end in sight.

The same litany as Sanchez sang on Friday.

The reasons for the seeming failure after four or more years in both Vietnam and Iraq are the same. An improper doctrine (or theory of victory.) The lack of a clear definition of victory. The inability to properly appreciate the nature and quality of the human terrain on which the war would be fought. The failure to effectively coordinate military with non-military tools.

Ahh, it all sounds so familiar.

Sanchez' exercise in historical self-exculpation is basically right, and, as said before, irrelevant.

He failed to do the right thing when it would have mattered. Doing it now is not only quite a few days late, it has the potential of doing damage to the greatly improved efforts of the US and its allies to finally clean up the mess.

While the general pays lip service to the reality that a premature withdrawal from Iraq will have have globally disastrous consequences, his overall effect is to give ammunition to the surrender now crowd.

General Sanchez pontificates that the best military force can do is "stave off defeat."

Duhh!

That is belaboring the obvious. In all stability operations including counterinsurgency, that is all that can be expected of armed force. The role of the military is to lower the violence level to a point that normal civilian organizations can effectively provide the necessary services of a state to its citizenry.

Get a grip on this.

The military cannot build a nation. Only civilians can do that.

The military cannot make a government. Only civilians can do that.

The military cannot create an economy. Only civilians can do that.

The military can--and must--defeat hostile armed forces in the field whether these are conventional in their tactics and equipment or not.

Recent changes in doctrine show that our military is aware of what it can and cannot do. Arguably these changes would have come faster if General Sanchez had spoken out four years ago.