Print

Mail

wiki links

Former Pentagon official pans Bush's Iraq strategy

"There is nothing going on today in Washington that would give us hope."

Ricardo Sanchez, retired US military commander in Iraq

A former top US military commander in Iraq said the current White House strategy in Iraq will not achieve victory in the four-and-a-half-year war, which he described as "a nightmare with no end in sight" in a hard-hitting speech.

In the bluntest assessment of Iraq by a former senior Pentagon official yet, retired Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez also lambasted US political leaders as "incompetent," "inept," "derelict in the performance of their duty" and suggested they would have been court-martialed had they been members of the US military.

"There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight," Sanchez said on Friday, addressing military correspondents in Arlington, Virginia.

He blasted President George W. Bush's "surge" strategy which calls for maintaining more than 160,000 US troops in Iraq until the end of the year in the hope of reducing sectarian violence.

The strategy has since been adjusted, with the current plan calling for the withdrawal of about 21,500 combat troops by next July to bring the total to the "pre-surge" level of 130,000 servicemen.

But Sanchez said he did not believe these changes would prove effective.

"Continued manipulations and adjustments to our military strategy will not achieve victory," he said. "The best we can do with this flawed approach is stave off defeat."

Sanchez retired from the military in November last year, part of the fallout from the scandal over abuse of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

Reacting on Friday to his comments, the White House evoked a report last month to Congress by the US military commander in Iraq General David Petraeus, and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

"We appreciate his service to the country," White House spokesman Trey Bohn said of Sanchez. "As General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker have said, there is more work to be done, but progress is being made in Iraq."

Sanchez had a different view.

"There is nothing going on today in Washington that would give us hope," he said in his speech.

Also see story:
Democrats issue warning to Rice

This story has been viewed 1651 times.