US ex-military brass call for Iraq withdrawal
Friday, 19 October 2007
WASHINGTON, Oct 18 (AFP): American ex-military men spoke out this week against the management of the war in Iraq, opening a rare schism between those whose duty is to serve and the politicians who give them marching orders.
Over the past several days, a retired general and numerous former army captains in Iraq took their message to the media, attacking the strategic faults of a war that in four years has cost more than 3,800 military lives.
Twelve ex-captains from the US army who served in Iraq between 2003 and 2006 wrote a rare editorial Tuesday calling for either a US withdrawal or a return to the draft in order to beef up the military presence there.
"To continue an operation of this intensity and duration, we would have to abandon our volunteer military for compulsory service. Short of that, our best option is to leave Iraq immediately," they wrote in the Washington Post.
"A scaled withdrawal will not prevent a civil war, and it will spend more blood and treasure on a losing proposition," they wrote in response to the administration's plan to bring home around 30,000 troops by summer.
Days earlier, a former top US commander in Iraq, retired lieutenant general Ricardo Sanchez, assailed President George W. Bush's strategy, lamented that the war was "a nightmare with no end in sight," and denounced US political leaders as "incompetent."
Sanchez retired from the military in the wake of the fallout from the 2004 scandal over abuse of detainees by US military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.
While the active military is normally required to refrain from expressing political opinions in public, these ex-soldiers' criticisms have raised eyebrows particularly at a time when the Iraq war is increasingly unpopular among Americans.
Over the past several days, a retired general and numerous former army captains in Iraq took their message to the media, attacking the strategic faults of a war that in four years has cost more than 3,800 military lives.
Twelve ex-captains from the US army who served in Iraq between 2003 and 2006 wrote a rare editorial Tuesday calling for either a US withdrawal or a return to the draft in order to beef up the military presence there.
"To continue an operation of this intensity and duration, we would have to abandon our volunteer military for compulsory service. Short of that, our best option is to leave Iraq immediately," they wrote in the Washington Post.
"A scaled withdrawal will not prevent a civil war, and it will spend more blood and treasure on a losing proposition," they wrote in response to the administration's plan to bring home around 30,000 troops by summer.
Days earlier, a former top US commander in Iraq, retired lieutenant general Ricardo Sanchez, assailed President George W. Bush's strategy, lamented that the war was "a nightmare with no end in sight," and denounced US political leaders as "incompetent."
Sanchez retired from the military in the wake of the fallout from the 2004 scandal over abuse of detainees by US military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.
While the active military is normally required to refrain from expressing political opinions in public, these ex-soldiers' criticisms have raised eyebrows particularly at a time when the Iraq war is increasingly unpopular among Americans.