The legacy that "war critic" Gen. Ricardo Sanchez left to his country
War critics, understandably, have been happily noting that Gen. Ricardo Sanchez is criticizing the Iraq War now that he's retired: Sanchez, former U.S. commander in Iraq, calls war 'a nightmare with no end in sight' by Jeff Schogol Stars and Stripes Mideast edition 10/13/07. Stars and Stripes is a newspaper for servicepeople funded by the Pentagon. I'm not sure to what extent it could be fairly described as "independent". But they do print real news, not just the hack propaganda strategic communications that you get at the CENTCOM and Air Force "news" sites.
But I'm afraid my reaction to reading about Sanchez' criticisms was more like, "Well, cry me a [Cheney]ing river." Because look at what he's saying: "The administration, Congress and the entire inter-agency, especially the State Department, must shoulder the responsibility for this catastrophic failure and the American people must hold them accountable." God forbid that the commanding generals like Sanchez should ever come in for any criticism over losing the Iraq War!
Sanchez has a particular reason to look for alibis and duck responsibility for his actions and failures. In a word, "torture". Or, if you're feeling long-winded, two words, "Abu Ghuraib."
Schogol's Stars and Stripes piece reports, starting with paragraph three:
Sanchez commanded U.S. troops in Iraq from June 2003 to July 2004. His controversial tenure saw the capture of Saddam Hussein and the handover of sovereignty to the Iraqi government, but also the rise of the insurgency and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.
While cleared of any wrongdoing, one report found that Sanchez and his deputy, "failed to ensure proper staff oversight of detention and interrogation operations."
Abu Ghraib was a sore subject Friday for Sanchez, who lambasted the media for using phrases like "dictatorial and somewhat dense," "liar" and "torturer" to describe him.
"I also refused to talk to the European Stars and Stripes for the last two years of my command in Germany, for their extreme bias and single-minded focus on Abu Ghraib," he said. (my emphasis)
I have no sympathy for this guy. He screwed up on this torture business, at the very best. More likely, he was complicit in war crimes.
And what does he have to say about it? Why, he whines about how that awful anti-American Liberal Press! Liberal Press! Liberal Press! was mean to him and even reported that people criticized him over the criminal, sadistic torture that was exposed at Abu Ghuraib. Including those pro-terrorist leftwing America-haters at Stars and Stripes.
How did an irresponsible whiner like this get to be a commanding general?
Gen. Antonio Taguba, on the other hand, who received the duty to investigate the torture occurring under Sanchez' command, found that his career hit an immediate dead-end. Because our honorable, divinely-inspired generals like Sanchez who are too sacrosanct to be criticized (so our Congress told us in a bipartisan vote) don't like it when a guy like Taguba comes in and investigations serious crimes and tries to do so with a serious intent to uphold his duty under the law, his oath as an officer, probably his personal religious convictions, and, hell - maybe even that concept called "honor".
In Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (2004), Seymour Hersh described Sanchez' role in the Abu Ghuraib torture:
Taguba [during his investigation] also got access to a classified report by General Geoffrey Miller, the Guantánamo commander. In late August 20093, Miller had brought a team of experts to Iraq to review the Army program.
His recommendations, filed in September, were radical: that Army prisons be geared, first and foremost, to interrogations and the gathering of information needed for the war effort. "Detention operations must act as an enabler for interrogation ... to provide a safe, secure and humane environment that supports the expeditious collection of intelligence," Miller wrote. The military police on guard duty at the prisons should make support of military intelligence a priority.
General Sanchez agreed, and on November 19, 2003, his headquarters issued an order formally giving the 2O5th Military Intelligence Brigade tactical control over the prison. General Taguba fearlessly took issue with the Sanchez orders, which, he wrote in his report, "effectively made an MI [military intelligence] Officer, rather than an MP [military police] officer, responsible for the MP units conducting detainee operations at that facility. This is not doctrinally sound due to the different missions and agenda assigned to each of these respective specialties."
Miller's concept, as it emerged in later Senate hearings, was to "Gitmoize" the prison system in Iraq - to make it more focused on interrogation. While in Iraq, he briefed military commanders on the interrogation methods used in Cuba [Guantánamo]. A complete version of Miller's classified report, provided to some reporters in August 2004, made it clear that it had an ambitious goal: to turn Abu Ghraib into a center of intelligence for the Bush Administration's global war on terrorism. General Sanchez, he wrote, envisioned a system that could "drive the rapid exploitation of internees to answer ... theater and national level counter terrorism requirements" and respond to the "needs of the Global War on Terrorism." Miller apparently believed that the prisoners in Iraq, if interrogated correctly, could provide strategic intelligence relevant to operations around the world. If his recommendations were put into effect immediately, the general claimed, "a significant improvement of actionable intelligence will be realized within thirty days." (my emphasis)
Of course, even if Sanchez were fool enough to believe that, it would still have been a criminal act on his part to approve the torture that was actually implemented at Abu Ghuraib. As Hersh goes on to explain, though, the idea that locals swept up haphazardly along with common criminals that were also in the Abu Ghuraib population could provide intelligence on worldwide operations of Al Qa'ida was just plain goofy on the face of it.
What is going on in our armed forces that men like Sanchez get to senior positions like that? This guy should have been writing press releases for the American Legion and making speeches at John Birch Society meetings, not commanding an army in an exceptionally difficult situation like the Iraq War. (Although the Spanish surname probably limits the Bircher gig option.)
I think war critics need to be alert to the fact that scoundrels like Sanchez are trying to make themselves into victims to avoid historical and possibly future legal consequences for their failures and misdeeds. I understand the temptation to highlight their criticisms of the war. But it's time that war critics distinguish clearly between serious criticism and alibis like the ones Sanchez is tossing out. Because the alibis are only aimed at deflecting criticism from our infallible generals. And that would be ridiculous to give characters like Sanchez a free pass.
The legacy that "war critic" Gen. Ricardo Sanchez left to his country
