General failure

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General failure

Some of our finest military combat leaders have commanded our troops in Iraq. Although they do not control the war's purse strings, Baghdad' political leadership or sway Congress'support, Yet they must share the blame for the mess in the Middle East — in large part for their lack of candor.

By Ralph Peters

There is only one test for a generation of generals: Did the men with stars on their shoulders win or lose their war? No matter the mitigating circumstances and political restrictions military leaders face, there is no "gentleman's C" in warfare. The course is pass-fail.

(Illustration by Alejandro Gonzales, USA TODAY)

Despite including many fine combat commanders, our military leadership could fail in Iraq, defeated by terrorists, rough-hewn insurgents and shabby militiamen who understood America's limitations better than the generals did.

The generals point out that they don't control the strategic decisions, that all they can do is to follow orders, that then-secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wouldn't listen to anyone, that Congress undercut the military, that the media's behavior has been pernicious, and that Iraq's political leaders have failed their country.

Each claim is true. Even so, as the Army taught me, "The maximum effective range of an excuse is zero meters." Our generals must shoulder their share of the blame for the mess in Iraq.

An ability to disagree

Our current system of selecting generals produces George Pattons in bulk. But it hasn't produced another George Marshall, the general who had the ethical force to disagree — respectfully — with his president when victory was at stake.

Decades of observation of our generals taught me that battlefield lions turn to jellyfish in Washington. Our elected leaders, ever fewer of whom have served in uniform, do not get frank, direct and routine military advice.

Sixty years of misguided "reforms" emplaced multiple buffers between the president and his top generals. Given the number of White House gatekeepers today, the relationship that Gen. Marshall had with FDR would be impossible — unless the president wanted it, which today's presidents don't.

For their part, the generals are happy when left to their sandbox. In February 2003, when then-Army chief of staff Gen. Eric Shinseki, an honorable soldier, told the truth when asked how many troops an occupation of Iraq would require (hundreds of thousands), Rumsfeld sidelined him. (Thereafter, Rumsfeld took care to appoint weaker men to the Joint Chiefs.)

Retired from the Army and writing newspaper columns, I received no end of personal messages from officers who shared Shinseki's views. But not one of those who believed that Shinseki was right stood up to be counted.

When Gen. Tommy Franks failed to stand up to Rumsfeld and his ideology-driven deputies over professional issues as we prepared for war, I again heard endless complaints. Yet, even when Franks appeared to lose all interest in his mission, no fellow general called for his removal.

When Gen. Ricardo Sanchez — a deer caught in the headlights of history — made one fateful blunder after another as our senior commander in Baghdad, no generals insisted on his removal. Even now, when you ask another general about Sanchez, you get the Manchurian-candidate answer: "Rick Sanchez is one of the finest officers I've ever known."

We expected generals who would not police their own ranks to police Iraq.

A bold Army lieutenant colonel, Paul Yingling, recently published an article in Armed Forces Journal pointing out that a soldier who loses a rifle suffers a greater penalty than a general who loses a war. Yingling also suggests that many mid-level officers have lost confidence in their senior leaders.

The generals dismissed him, claiming that the Iraq veteran lacked their perspective.

Yet, who is more apt to have an accurate view of a conflict, the midlevel officer out in the streets, or the general in his air-conditioned office? That lieutenant colonel's article — admittedly couched in extremes — reflected what I've heard from hands-on officers for years. Insulated by staff sycophants, the generals are in denial (a humble general is as rare as a bashful porn star).

Our generals are members of a private club whose cardinal rule is that one general never criticizes another publicly. (Incest is OK, though. It always irked my peers and me that the general's aide was inevitably another general's son.) When a half-dozen retired generals belatedly criticized Rumsfeld's ghastly management of the war in 2006, the mass of generals closed ranks against them. It was fine for retired generals to do PR for defense contractors, but when a few spoke out against a disastrous policy, they were ostracized.

Country before career

The generals' greatest shortcoming, though, is that they failed in their duty to inform decision-makers as to what war means and requires, to give honest advice — and to keep on giving it, even at the cost of their careers.

A recent experience brought this point home painfully. In the course of a private discussion with a general who had performed brilliantly in combat, he blurted out that "Iraq is over. I'm worried about the Army after Iraq."

I was so startled that I failed to ask him the obvious questions: If he believes Iraq is lost, how can he remain silent as our soldiers continue to die? And why doesn't he share his conclusion with civilian decision-makers?

The tragedy — and travesty — is that we finally have a competent chain of command in Iraq. Gen. David Petraeus is doing the tough but necessary things that should've been done in 2003 and 2004. His immediate subordinates, Lt. Gens. Martin Dempsey and Ray Odierno, are remarkably effective officers and men of integrity. We have the best lineup of division commanders — the two-stars — we've ever had. Our troops are making meaningful progress on the ground.

War finally sorted the good generals from the bad.

But it could be too late. Congress might find the votes to pull the plug. And this generation of generals will face the verdict of history.

Ralph Peters is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors and author of Wars of Blood and Faith: The Conflicts That Will Shape the Twenty-First Century. Peters retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1998 after a 22-year career in the U.S. Army.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/07/general-failure.html

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So what do you have to add to that? Bush should take up arms himself and go fight in Iraq. That's my opinion.

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Every day you amaze me. Every day I think you can't possibly say anything more stupid than you already have. Almost every day you surprise me.