General Ricardo Sanchez's Book Slams Bush, Iraq Handling

The Washington Post points out that in the hubbub of the McClellan book, another scathing memoir has come out exposing the truth behind Iraq.

Getting lost in the media furor over McClellan's memoir is the new autobiography of retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the onetime commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, who is scathing in his assessment that the Bush administration "led America into a strategic blunder of historic proportions."

Among the anecdotes in "Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story" is an arresting portrait of Bush after four contractors were killed in Fallujah in 2004, triggering a fierce U.S. response that was reportedly egged on by the president.

During a videoconference with his national security team and generals, Sanchez writes, Bush launched into what he described as a "confused" pep talk:

"Kick ass!" he quotes the president as saying. "If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can't send that message. It's an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal."

"There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!"

A White House spokesman had no comment.

Comments

[jpshotwheels]

Whats amazing to me is this, after all the things that have come out about this Administration of pure corruption, we still have people in this Country that back Bush and still believe him and the pundits on Fox News & MSNBC Morning Joe.

The media is absolutely disgusting anymore, they have dropped to the lowest level of any kind of American Integrity we had left.

[lisakaz2]

Lt Gen Sanchez: you're a few years tardy. Whaddya we do NOW? Why didn't you arrest this p.o.s. and throw him into the brig?

[avraamjack]

.
All the people deleriously dancing on Bush's political grave should keep in mind that if Bush had allowed the Iraqi army to stay together he would have had a quick easy victory and he would be more popular today.
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The sentiment of the electorate can turn on a nanodime. Avoid swaggering hubris unless you want to follow in his footsteps.
.

[lisakaz2]

Where do you see hubris? I see outrage.

[research]

Bremmer ordered the De-bathification,not Sanchez.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Paul_Bremer#.22De-Ba.27thification.22_of_the_Iraqi_civil_service

[alkamm]

If Bush had allowed the Iraqi army to stay together who knows what the outcome would be. We'd probably have gotten even more involved in their civil war by attacking the army at will.

[ManyColored]

Sir/Madam: That is total nonsense. There is no way you can occupy a hostile country with a totally different culture and expect it to be stable. You can't enforce democracy at the point of a gun. The Iraq War was wrong in every way possible even before it became a reality.

[qdog112]

WELL SAID.

[gnomic]

And if pigs had wings, we'd need bigger windshield wipers. But if you want to play what if, I suspect that if we weren't bogged down in this war, Bush would have been impeached, removed from office, and tried for the crimes he has commited.

[guntotinganglion]

First and foremost, NOT A BLUNDER, A CRIME!!! This is not a failed policy, or a mistake, this all was a very carefully planned crime, for which great profits were in the offing. Many have become fabulously wealthy from the ocean of blood that this President has spilled in the Middle East. And this General (Sanchez) was amongst the enablers.

Sanchez should be one of the insiders to the abuse at Abu Ghraib, to go before the International Criminal Court, to answer for crimes against humanity. Per the part of the article below, he clearly was one of those who signed off on torture at Abu Ghraib...which should earn him a front row seat at the ICC.

"General Granted Latitude At Prison
Abu Ghraib Used Aggressive Tactics

By R. Jeffrey Smith and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, June 12, 2004; Page A01

Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior U.S. military officer in Iraq, borrowed heavily from a list of high-pressure interrogation tactics used at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and approved letting senior officials at a Baghdad jail use military dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns, sensory deprivation, and diets of bread and water on detainees whenever they wished, according to newly obtained documents."

[research]

Agreed. Sanchez: thanks for the testimony, but I don't thinks it's enough to grant you immunity. You'll still have to do some time for torture...unless you have something better?

[fourex]

What brave talk from this personal coward. Dr. Frank are you listening?

[Blivet]

It's not unheard of to have a general disagree with his commander in chief. But it can be hazardous in a fascist regime. Look what happened to one of the greatest military strategists of all times, General Erwin Rommel. We all know how he ended up.
I hope General Sanchez has a bomb proof house and a remote starter system for his car.

[PuritanDescendant]

Take a minute to go back to another general... interestingly enough, a McClellan. During the Civil War General McClellan had publicly disparaged Lincoln and questioned the cause of the War. Lincoln did not care, as long as he thought McClellan was performing militarily.

Lincoln would go with a disloyal McClellan whom he thought competent. We now learn from a disloyal (laudibly) McClellan that today's president is all about propaganda, hence he fired competent outspoken generals like Sanchez...

[CAPTAINSKIPPY]

gWb, still not able to hear the generals that he "listens" to.

[NotGuilty]

A White House spokesman had no comment.

You don't want to upstage FOX Noise do you?

[blueshield]

WH:

This does not sound like the General Sanchez we knew.

[hmmmmm]

LOL yea, and. . . we're so PUZZLED! The Iraq war, the economy, the under-armored military. . . .we TOTALLY know what we're doing with that stuff. It's just these CRAZY, DISGRUNTLED employees we're baffled by!

BTW. . . These are the SAME employees that were SO perfectly sane while they were loyalists!

[ranger5]

Bush sounds is a megalomaniac, and worse, a "confused" one. It sounds as if this rambling histrionic diatribe was made under the influence of something, like maybe alcohol. Doesn't matter. The military, the press, most of the Congress, and most of the American people, lined up like lemmings behind this irresponsible man-child who has never had to deal with the consequences of his actions. Now, the whole nation, and the world, must deal with the consequences. It's a tragedy of breathtaking proportions. Whether this nation can pull itself from the brink of fascism is anybody's guess.

[Saganslegacy]

He is a dry drunk.

Go read what it says about dry drunks, Katherine van Wormer:

polarized thinking and obsessive repetition,
* Exaggerated self-importance and pomposity
* Grandiose behavior
* A rigid, judgmental outlook
* Impatience
* Childish behavior
* Irresponsible behavior
* Irrational rationalization
* Projection
* Overreaction

Fits pretty well.

A dry drunk steering the most powerful nation in the world.
Into the ditch.
The American people deserve better, by far.

[Lisette]

Dry or wet he fits the description

[walsenberg]

that was good... fits bush to the T

[Chillinout]

A little off topic here:

Here is some good news, if it turns out to be true. The talking heads on MSNBC said that the fact that McClennan says that the MSM didn't ask the right questions, or even buried stories that were critical of the war, they will start asking the "right questions" and not burying the stories, especially where it pertains to John McCain and his Iraq War policies.

They are going to start going after McCain now! Bring him into the light of day and his poll numbers are going to drop dramatically.

[javagirl322]

This won't be the last book about this corrupt administration....unfortunately, it has cost thousands of lives.

[Vinca]

To javagirl322: It is really SAD what this admin ha done to our soldiers, young boys and girls, the ones that make it home, many will NEVER have a normal life, BUSH AND CHENEY, MUST BE FORCED TO RESIGN,IF NOT IMPRISONED

[omop]

"Its generally known that In 1996 a group of then opposition U.S. policy agitators, including Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, presented a paper entitled 'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm' to incoming Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The 'clean break' was from the prevailing peace process, advocating that Israel pursue a combination of roll-back, destabilization and containment in the region, including striking at Syria and removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.' The Israeli horse they backed then was not up to the task. Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith and their neoconservative friends have justifiably earned a reputation as awesome wielders of foreign-policy influence under Bush."

" the Syria Accountability Act was principally the work of Bush advisers Richard Perle and Douglas Feith. 'Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil,' they wrote, calling for 'striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove insufficient, striking at select targets in Syria proper.' No wonder Perle was delighted by the Israeli strike. 'It will help the peace process,' he told the Washington Post, adding later that the United States itself might have to attack Syria. Perle intent by 'helping the peace process' is not resolving the conflict by bringing about a viable, sovereign Palestinian state but rather - as underscored in 'A Clean Break' - 'transcending the Arab-Israeli conflict' altogether by forcing the Arabs to accept most, if not all, of Israel's territorial conquests and its nuclear hegemony in the region."

[Fez]

It's about time that the people who were against this misguided, misbegotten war from the beginning be apologized to by the losers, cowards, and traitors who ran their mouths off against us in the runup to the war. Only after 7+ years of murder and mayhem are the "insiders" coming out with their memoirs to whine that they did not really agree with what they saw and heard every day. How pathetic! Colin Powell was on track to run for President until he pimped for The Evil Empire. Same story for Condaleeza Rice. How ironic that two very intelligent and talented black leaders sold their souls to cowards who weren't even qualified to shine their shoes. I suppose we should say, "better late than never" but I would like to think that all of this madness could have been avoided if we had even one public servant like Sen. Sam Ervin or "Deep Throat"... people who stood up to the bullies and bigots and told the truth.

[biwee]

Well said.......but, sadly, even now in Jun of 2008, there are morons who are still drinking the NeoCon kool aid. The mere fact that Surge McBomb is perceived by some to have a chance at all to beat Obama speaks loudly.

[michiganfan]

"Same story for Condaleeza Rice."

Umm, no. Condi has been fighting to take Ben Stein's title as "The world's dumbest smart person" since the very beginning.

[esquire07]

No shit... just read some History of the Middle East over the last century, and any idiot would be able to tell you it was never "winable" - whatever that means.

The purpose of the "war" was simply to maximize profits for the Oil companies, Arms dealers, and other War Profitiers - including of course the Bush and Cheney Crime families.

DEAD US TROOPS = HALLIBURTON PROFITS = MONEY IN DICK CHENEY'S BLOOD SOAKED CRIMINAL POCKETS.

A "blunder?" Lol. Expect the killing to continue nonstop and for the "War" to eventually Bankrupt the United States.

Military Industrial Complex - US Tax dollars Hard at Work.