General Sanchez and the Blame Game

[Menning]

Time magazine ran an excerpt from ret. Lt. Gen. Sanchez's memoir, Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story.

To say I was shocked would be an understatement. I had never seen any approved CENTCOM campaign plan, either conceptual or detailed, for the post�major combat operations phase. When I was on the ground in Iraq and saw what was going on, I assumed they had done zero Phase IV planning. Now, three years later, I was learning for the first time that my assumption was not completely accurate. In fact, CENTCOM had originally called for twelve to eighteen months of Phase IV activity with active troop deployments. But then CENTCOM had completely walked away by simply stating that the war was over and Phase IV was not their job.

That decision set up the United States for a failed first year in Iraq. There is no question about it. And I was supposed to believe that neither the Secretary of Defense nor anybody above him knew anything about it? Impossible! Rumsfeld knew about it. Everybody on the NSC knew about it, including Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, and Colin Powell. Vice President Cheney knew about it. And President Bush knew about it.

In the meantime, hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were unnecessarily spent, and worse yet, too many of our most precious military resource, our American soldiers, were unnecessarily wounded, maimed, and killed as a result. In my mind, this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty.

Here's the link: http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...te-cnn-partner

[SteveMetz]

His book is due out on Thursday.

[Tom Odom]

Originally Posted by SteveMetz

His book is due out on Thursday.

So you going to buy and review it, too??

Just wondering how far your masochistic tendencies extend after Feith's novel...

[SteveMetz]

Originally Posted by Tom Odom

So you going to buy and review it, too??

Just wondering how far your masochistic tendencies extend after Feith's novel...

I yam. I figure I need to be conversant in all of these when I start doing interviews and talks on mine. On Feith, by the way, he's donating royalties to a soldiers' fund, so I don't feel guilty about buying it. Plus I'm walking on the bright side now, reading Brian Linn's The Echo of Battle.

By the way, Tom Ricks did a dust jacket blurb for me. So I have Ken Pollack, Jeff Record, Robert Steele, Paul van Riper, and Ricks. I'm pretty happy with that.

[Tom Odom]

Originally Posted by SteveMetz

I yam. I figure I need to be conversant in all of these when I start doing interviews and talks on mine. On Feith, by the way, he's donating royalties to a soldiers' fund, so I don't feel guilty about buying it. Plus I'm walking on the bright side now, reading Brian Linn's The Echo of Battle.

By the way, Tom Ricks did a dust jacket blurb for me. So I have Ken Pollack, Jeff Record, Robert Steele, Paul van Riper, and Ricks. I'm pretty happy with that.

Good for you on the dust jacket...

[SteveMetz]

Originally Posted by Tom Odom

Good for you on the dust jacket...

I'm waiting for the first review to point out that the dustjacket blurbs are the high point of the book.

[SWJED]

Originally Posted by SteveMetz

I yam. I figure I need to be conversant in all of these when I start doing interviews and talks on mine. On Feith, by the way, he's donating royalties to a soldiers' fund, so I don't feel guilty about buying it. Plus I'm walking on the bright side now, reading Brian Linn's The Echo of Battle.

By the way, Tom Ricks did a dust jacket blurb for me. So I have Ken Pollack, Jeff Record, Robert Steele, Paul van Riper, and Ricks. I'm pretty happy with that.

I bumped into Gen Van Riper yesterday and he told me he had written a blurb for your new book. He's using the money you paid him for a two-week vacation in Hawaii . Seriously, he was happy to do it!

[SteveMetz]

...or, at least, the OIF parts. So far after about 20 pages, it's worthless. At least Feith sprinkled some new information and important points into the spew of alibis. Sanchez offers an equal dose of alibis without any redeeming insights or information.

[Ken White]

is not good for you...

Not that I'm complaining too loudly, mind you -- you're saving me from having to buy two books and I appreciate that.

[J Wolfsberger]

We appreciate you taking one for the team with Feith's book, but two self serving memoirs in a row is service above and beyond.

[SteveMetz]

I'm on a run of bad books. When I went to the Heritage symposium on Colorado Springs last weekend, I took Philip Bobbit's Terror and Consent. Read 80 pages and found it so useless that I bought a Jason Bourne novel to keep me occupied on the flight.

I did just finish Brian Linn's Echo of Battle last week. That was good.

[Van]

Steve,
This repeated self-abuse is obviously a cry for help. If you find yourself in Ft. Leavenworth before the end of September, I'll front for a theraputic quantity of bourbon or High Noon Saloon beer. Sanchez, Feith, who's the next rat to leave that ship?

V

P.S. GEN Sanchez (ret) is speaking to the CGSC students tomorrow. Why are they refering to him as "Dirty Sanchez"?
V

P.P.S. (later) I searched for "Dirty Sanchez" on Wiki. Never mind.
V

[kehenry1]

Please warn me next time that looking up such things might be not for public consumption...

[Ski]

BWAAAHHAAAHAA!

I don't know what's funnier - the mental self-flagellation Steve has decided to give himself, or the ignorance of the term "dirty Sanchez."

HAHAHAHAHAHA! Made my afternoon, thanks much...