Twelve captains speak out today from the Op-Ed pages of the Washington Post.
The inability to govern is exacerbated at all levels by widespread corruption. Transparency International ranks Iraq as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. And, indeed, many of us witnessed the exploitation of U.S. tax dollars by Iraqi officials and military officers. Sabotage and graft have had a particularly deleterious impact on Iraq's oil industry, which still fails to produce the revenue that Pentagon war planners hoped would pay for Iraq's reconstruction. Yet holding people accountable has proved difficult. The first commissioner of a panel charged with preventing and investigating corruption resigned last month, citing pressure from the government and threats on his life. ...
U.S. forces, responsible for too many objectives and too much "battle space," are vulnerable targets. The sad inevitability of a protracted draw-down is further escalation of attacks -- on U.S. troops, civilian leaders and advisory teams. They would also no doubt get caught in the crossfire of the imminent Iraqi civil war.
Iraqi security forces would not be able to salvage the situation. Even if all the Iraqi military and police were properly trained, equipped and truly committed, their 346,000 personnel would be too few. As it is, Iraqi soldiers quit at will. The police are effectively controlled by militias. And, again, corruption is debilitating. U.S. tax dollars enrich self-serving generals and support the very elements that will battle each other after we're gone. ...
There is one way we might be able to succeed in Iraq. 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. A scaled withdrawal will not prevent a civil war, and it will spend more blood and treasure on a losing proposition.
As testvet6778 asks in his Recommended Diary on this subject: "Will Congress listen now?" Listening isn't the problem. Taking action is.
After all, it's not as if these are the first people in uniform who have dared speak up in public. Last April, there was The Night of the Generals. Two months ago, the sergeants - two of them now dead - wrote The War as We Saw It. VoteVet.org began its campaign 20 months ago. And they aren't the only critics in uniform, or who recently wore one.
While their insider point of view is valuable - proven by the efforts of the Foxagandists and Rush-Republicans to stifle and smear them - it should be remembered that "incompetence," "mismanagement" and "lack of planning," aren't the most essential critiques of the Iraq attack. What matters - what must be remembered whichever party controls the reins in the future - is that the war was wrong from the get-go, the rationale for it was concocted and America is weaker diplomatically, economically and militarily as a consequence. Not surprisingly, this has not stopped those who see an American empire as a good thing from continuing to dream their dreams.