In an Associated Press article, retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez who drove the bus in Iraq, said that the US mission in Iraq is a "nightmare with no end in sight". Sanchez knows of what he speaks, as he commanded the coalition troops for a year, beginning in June 2003.
The condensed version of his comments are that the US State Department, the National Security Council, the Idiot Boy Administration and most of the other players had no clue what to do with a fractured, invaded country. The extra 30,000 troops are a "desperate attempt" to make up for years of misguided policies in Iraq.
One could claim a degree of bitterness in Sanchez’s comments, as the Abu Ghraib School of Photography was opened on his watch and he had to work with Paulie Bremner, of the Coalition Provision Authority. Bremner was the hand-picked fixer of the President Jo Jo The Idiot Boy and Bremner needed nearly 800,000 pounds of cash, by the pallet load, shipped to Iraq to pay for photocopies and pencils.
Nonetheless, Lt. Gen. Sanchez has nailed it. When asked by a reporter when he knew the mission was going pear-shaped, he replied "about the 15th of June, 2003" This would be the day he got off the plane in Baghdad to take the keys to the bus.
At a strategic and conceptual level, the Iraq deal should have been over by 2005 at the latest. Go in, kick Saddam off the chair, set up the new government, get out. That didn’t happen because the private industries associated with the invasion saw exactly how much money they could make.
Supposedly the whole Iraq reconstruction was going to be funded by oil revenues. Oil revenue is a fickle thing. An Iraq government ministry could cut the US private interests out of the money stream. It would be much better to have a US government source of cash, as the US government isn’t known for cutting their buddies out of the profits.
Therefore the US government must continue their reconstruction efforts. Rather than relying on pallet-loads of cash Bremner-style, the private interests change where they send the invoices: That would be the GSA in Washington DC. Much closer than some office in Baghdad.
In the end, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez is right, the US mission in Iraq is a "nightmare with no end in sight" As long as the United States is funding it, the nightmare won’t end. The Military-Industrial Complex, in the United States (not Iraq, not Iran, not Saudi Arabia) won’t let it.
Shut off the money and it ends. Is there someone with the stones to do that?
RoadDave 