POLITICS OVER POLICY

Just as John Dilulio and others have written, the criminal Bush regime puts politics over policy almost all the time. And now former Gen. Ricardo Sanchez writes that this also applied to the Iraq Fiasco. Raw Story has the video and here's the transcript from Lexis-Nexis. It's in two parts.¹

ROBERTS: Three minutes to the top of the hour. The former commander of coalition forces in Iraq is slamming the Bush administration for its handling of post invasion operations. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez whose tenure saw the capture of Saddam Hussein as well as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, now says billions of taxpayer dollars were wasted and previous lives lost because of what he calls the Bush administration's gross incompetence. He makes his criticisms clear in a new memoir "Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story." And Lieutenant General Sanchez joins us now. Welcome, sir. Thanks for being with us.

LT. GEN. RICARDO SANCHEZ (RET.), FMR. COMMANDER OF COALITION FORCES: Thank you very much.

ROBERTS: Let me ask you something about the current situation in Iraq. April was the deadliest month for U.S. forces since September of last year. It comes at a time when the surge forces are beginning to draw down. Is that an indication that any security progress that was made could easily be reversed by bringing these troops up? What are your thoughts about it?

SANCHEZ: Absolutely. I think what we're seeing is what has been reflected over and over again over the course of this war, that the military is able to achieve windows of opportunity for the political and the economic elements of power to be applied to this country. We have failed in taking advantage of those windows of opportunity and then we revert back to periods of increased violence.

ROBERTS: So, how does that apply to the surge that we have seen going on over the last year. Was this a missed window of opportunity? Should those troops have stayed?

SANCHEZ: Well, I believe that in fact what we should have done was surge our political power in order to be able to improve the governing ability of the country. Also have surged our economic power to be able to build the jobs into businesses and give the Iraqis some economic hope for the future. And short of us doing that, there is no real solution to this war.

ROBERTS: In terms of these windows of missed opportunity, in your book you cite they happened in the first few months after the invasion, particularly on the issue of de-baathification. Here's what you said in the book, "De-baathification conceived in the halls of the Pentagon and the White House by neoconservative ideologues marked the beginning of an incremental dismantling of the original U.S. strategic plan for Iraq. That order assured that the United States would be tied up in Iraq for an indeterminate number of years."
If these mistakes have not been made in the early going, would we still be tied up in Iraq now?

SANCHEZ: Well, it's kind of hard to say whether we'd still be there. I think if we had been able to take advantage of those windows of opportunity and specifically, we had implemented de-baathification effectively as envisioned, then we would have been able to achieve greater security and we probably would have been able to reduce the number of forces that we have there.

ROBERTS: It was Paul Bremer, the head of the CPA who instituted a lot of these policies. It's pretty clear in the book that you and he don't have a lot of love lost for each other. Was he solely responsible for a lot of these mistakes?

SANCHEZ: No, absolutely not. I think what is reflected in the book and the purpose of this memoir is to be able to capture the totality of the nation's mistakes both at the political and military level in order that future military leaders and political leaders will not go down this way again.

ROBERTS: You are there through 2003, 2004. Of course, that was right in the height of the re-election. And you say, "It was now crystal clear that a major success had to occur in Iraq before the presidential elections. Critical decisions affecting Iraq would be tied directly to ensuring the success of President Bush's reelection campaign."

Could you quantify it for us, General? How much of our Iraq policy at that time was politically driven to get President Bush reelected?

SANCHEZ: Well, I think we have to go back and really understand. Every American has to understand that wars are fought based on political objectives. And in fact, what we have here, during this period of time, is the politics of the country and the politics of Iraq are taking a greater role and they are impacting on the security situation.

And you know, what I describe in the book is that I'm fighting two different wars. I'm fighting the actual war on the ground and I'm also fighting the war back in the United States, where the administration is attempting to get reelected.

The decisions are clear for us on the ground especially in Fallujah that we stop the Fallujah attack because it will have a detrimental effect on the transfer of sovereignty. It would probably have collapsed and we would not have been able to accomplish it. And in turn, it would have been a major failure for our plan for Iraq.

ROBERTS: And also that another huge event that happened during that time, of course, was the Abu Ghraib scandal. Right in the middle of that election year. After appearing on Capitol Hill, you wrote in your memoir that you thought that you're going to be scapegoats. Do you believe you were a scapegoat at the Abu Ghraib scandal?

SANCHEZ: No, actually what I have come away from this experience with is that the most challenging task for a military leader is the politics of war. Many political and military decisions are made in the course of the execution of a war. And what I am faced with in the end is a situation where it is impossible for me to continue and the forced retirement is -- is a logical consequence.

ROBERTS: The book is called "Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story." It's a great read. I mean, it fills in a lot of detail about what's happened in Iraq in the last four years.
General Sanchez, thanks very much for being with us this morning. Good luck on the book tour, sir. Good to see you.

SANCHEZ: Absolutely. Thanks.

¹CNN
May 5, 2008 Monday
SHOW: AMERICAN MORNING 7:00 AM EST
Presidential Candidates Campaign in Indiana and North Carolina
BYLINE: Suzanne Malveaux, John Roberts, Alina Cho, Ali Velshi, Elizabeth Cohen, Ed Lavandera, Marciano
GUESTS: Hillary Clinton, Ricardo Sanchez
SECTION: NEWS; Domestic
LENGTH: 7718 words


CNN
May 5, 2008 Monday
SHOW: AMERICAN MORNING 8:00 AM EST
Killer Cyclone Hits Myanmar; Deadly Riots in Somalia; Fresh Calls for Change in Horseracing
BYLINE: John Roberts, Alina Cho, Suzanne Malveaux, Ali Velshi, Rob Marciano, Gerri Willis, Polly Labarre, Ed Lavandera, Kareen Wynter
GUESTS: Ricardo Sanchez, Rick Arthur
SECTION: NEWS; International