His book is due out on Thursday.
General Sanchez and the Blame Game
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.Here's the link: http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...te-cnn-partnerIn 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.
His book is due out on Thursday.
So you going to buy and review it, too??Originally Posted by SteveMetz
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.
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.
I was beginning to wonder....
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
Should be an interesting read. Reminds me of a direct fire plan for a company defense with multiple sectors of blame, redundant fall back positions, and a reserve pot of blame to dole out as gaps appear in the main defensive arguments. As I said on the Feith thread, this period is resulting in a truly remarkable run of accounts that all have at their core a defense for incompetence based on ignorance. They did no wrong because they did not know."This left General Sanchez in charge of operations in Iraq with a staff that had been focused at the operational and tactical level, but was not trained to operate at the strategic/operational level." He went on to write that neither he nor anyone higher in the Administration knew these orders had been issued, and that he was dumbfounded when he learned that Gen. McKiernan was out of the country and in Kuwait, and that the forces would be drawn down to a level of about 30,000 by September. "I did not know that Sanchez was in charge," he wrote.
Tom
Boy, you got that right...
Unfortunately, it seems to be true -- incompetence due to ignorance, I mean -- what's wrong with that picture???
Dust Jacket
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!
Interlocking fields of ignorance?
Last edited by Shek; 05-06-2008 at 08:18 PM.
Deadly crossfire of incompetence in a zone beaten with stupidity
...a truly remarkable run of accounts that all have at their core a defense for incompetence based on ignorance. They did no wrong because they did not know.
...
Interlocking fields of ignorance?[RANT]General officers are not allowed to say it is above their paygrade. 'Ignorance' in a general officer is a failure to complete adequate reconnaisance, and as such is negligence bordering on the criminal.[/RANT]Deadly crossfire of incompetence in a zone beaten with stupidity
Sorry about that, had to be said.
You mean, we wuz trained???"This left General Sanchez in charge of operations in Iraq with a staff that had been focused at the operational and tactical level, but was not trained to operate at the strategic/operational level."
News to me....
One would hope that a general had been educated, and knew the difference between education and training.
whats that old saying
IT's great to hope but might want to go ahead and bring the shovel and your rifle to; just in case
Any man can destroy that which is around him, The rare man is he who can find beauty even in the darkest hours
Cogitationis poenam nemo patitur
So I'm Trying to Read the Sanchez Book
...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.
Steve, seek help. This masochism
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.
Steve, Ken's right...
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.
John Wolfsberger, Jr.
An unruffled person with some useful skills.
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.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks