Actively Serving US Officer Condemns Iraq Strategy

by: Connecticut Man1

Fri Apr 27, 2007 at 20:50:10 PM EDT

BBC NEWS
US officer condemns Iraq strategy:

Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling said US generals had failed to prepare their troops properly and had misled Congress about the resources needed for the war.

Writing in the Armed Forces Journal, he said the US had repeated the mistakes of Vietnam and so faced defeat in Iraq."

More excerpts BELOW... But I suggest you read the entire thing here at the Armed Forces Journal  instead of the BBC "Readers Digest" version.

"For reasons that are not yet clear, America's general officer corps underestimated the strength of the enemy, overestimated the capabilities of Iraq's government and security forces, and failed to provide Congress with an accurate assessment of the security conditions in Iraq," he wrote.

The generals had gone into Iraq in 2003 with too few soldiers and no coherent plan for post-war stabilisation, having spent a decade "preparing to fight the wrong war", he said.

"The intellectual and moral failures common to America's general officer corps in Vietnam and Iraq constitute a crisis in American generalship."

Lt Col Yingling has not singled out any individual for criticism but has urged Congress to take a greater role in monitoring officers' performance and holding them accountable.

Congressional oversight.

Far right wingnuts better start questioning the patriotism of this soldier ASAP. You know they will. Speaking of which... I wonder what Joe neocon Lieberman will have to say about this?

I can see it now:
"The US troops are undermining the mission in Iraq!"

That's the Joe neocon Lieberman we know so well...

(x-pollinated here)