thedrifter
05-06-08, 07:35 AM
General tells of shift in Fallujah strategy
Web Posted: 05/05/2008 12:52 AM CDT
By Sig Christenson
Express-News
Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez joined the White House videoconference on the second day of house-to-house fighting between 2,000 Marines and entrenched guerrillas in Fallujah.
Crafted in Washington as a brass-knuckles response to the gruesome deaths of four Blackwater security guards killed the week before and strung up on a bridge, the battle had the full support of President Bush.
Sanchez, in a memoir to be released Tuesday, said Bush “launched into what I considered a kind of confused pep talk” about the battle for Fallujah and an upcoming campaign to kill or capture radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and cripple his militia.
“Kick ass!” Bush said. “If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell!”
Fueled by images beamed by the Al-Jazeera television network, the administration quickly reversed course, stopping Operation Vigilant Resolve. Soon after, Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer dropped plans to capture or kill al-Sadr, even though the president had said during the April 7, 2003, meeting, “It is essential he be wiped out,” according to the memoir.
Sanchez, now retired at 56 and living in San Antonio, said the aborted Fallujah campaign and decision to spare al-Sadr was typical of his year as commander of coalition forces in Iraq. He contended Bremer and the administration committed a series of blunders — including Bremer's decision to disband the Iraqi army and to forbid Baath party members from holding government jobs — that crippled America's efforts to stabilize much of the country.
Bush's May 1, 2003, “Mission Accomplished” speech, he said, was among the first errors. It lulled Washington into thinking the war was over, making it harder to get support from a Pentagon refocusing on peacetime priorities. It also came as U.S. troops in the war zone packed in anticipation of coming home to victory parades.
Sanchez said he realized his situation was grave and worsening by the day after taking command in mid-June 2003. Two weeks into the job, he told his boss, Gen. John Abizaid, that Iraq was in the grips of an insurgency. They then mapped a strategy to counter it as Sanchez tried to reverse a drain of key staffers and troops from Iraq.
‘Wiser in Battle'
Critics have said Sanchez didn't have the skills to serve as coalition commander, that he was out of his depth. But he noted that no civilian or military official ever told him that he was doing a sub-par job, and that Bush praised him at the close of a May 20, 2004, White House meeting, saying, “Good job, Ric. Thanks for everything you're doing.”
The United States hadn't attempted an occupation like the one in Iraq since World War II. Sanchez said he was one of the few commanders with peacekeeping and nation-building experience, having led an international ground force in Kosovo.
White House spokesman Blair Jones said the administration would not comment on the book, but thanked Sanchez for his “service to this nation.”
Sanchez's nearly 500-page memoir, “Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story,” takes the administration to task for a series of missteps that he says have made it impossible for America to leave Iraq. He wants a 9-11-style investigation into why the United States went to war in Iraq, and also said Bush's “suspension” of the Geneva Conventions “led to putting America on the path to torture.”
Though he conceded making mistakes, Sanchez defended his role in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Sanchez said he did what he could — including issuing an order that required all lockups to grant detainees prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva Conventions. He gave that order on his own, without White House guidance, but noted that the CIA and special operations forces interrogated inmates under their own rules.
Several military investigations cleared him of wrongdoing in the affair, but Sanchez has said some see him as the “devil” behind Abu Ghraib.
“I can't change it. All I can do is tell America and the world what we did in the conventional force environment to try to contain what was going on,” he told the San Antonio Express-News last week.
Abu Ghraib ended his career. The administration refused to nominate Sanchez for his fourth star and promote him to head the U.S. Southern Command because of Congressional opposition. He retired Nov. 1, 2006, at Fort Sam Houston.
Before his fall, Iraq, ironically, had proven to be the pinnacle of an improbable life. In taking the reigns of Combined Joint Task Force 7 and becoming Iraq's top ground commander, Sanchez had defied the gravity of crushing poverty and racism in and out of the Army.
One of six children, Sanchez was born in Rio Grande City and grew up so poor he used cardboard to cover the holes in the soles of his shoes. The family's first house was a surplus military barrack that had no running water or indoor toilet.
His father was an alcoholic. Sanchez recalls buying liquor from bootleggers who filled his dad's flask. His mother took him to Mexican folk healers for years.
Sanchez's parents divorced when he was 10, but his mother pressed all her children to go to school. He excelled in math, posted a 1300 on his SAT and decided to embark on a military career after watching the funeral of a Hispanic Marine killed in the Vietnam War.
Though a high school counselor discouraged him from his dream of going to West Point, Sanchez joined JROTC and came close — being selected as fourth alternate in Texas. He spent a year at the University of Texas, transferred to Texas A&I in Kingsville and launched his career in 1973, often being promoted ahead of schedule.
Holding ground
The Fallujah campaign, designed to show American resolve in the face of bloodthirsty insurgents, was a turning point in the occupation. Both Sanchez and a former senior administration official at the April 2003 videoconference said the president favored the offensive. No one else disagreed.
“The masses are willing to come out and pile on when there is a Humvee burning. We've got to smash somebody's ass pretty quickly,” Sanchez quoted Secretary of State Colin Powell as saying. “There has to be a total victory somewhere.”
Bush expressed concern about al-Sadr's growing power and his Mahdi Army, and talked up the Fallujah offensive as well as the southern campaign.
“There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way,” Sanchez quoted the president as saying. “Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking.”
Just who called it off isn't clear. Neither the White House nor Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld answered questions about the conference, and Bremer could not be reached at his New York office. The senior administration official could not recall that session and said several were held each week.
That official and Sanchez said everyone shared Bremer's concern that the country's governing council would fracture. If that happened, they agreed, the transfer of sovereignty from the Coalition Provisional Authority to the Iraqis scheduled for later that summer might have been jeopardized, plunging the country even deeper into chaos.
But Sanchez said he is sure one other factor was in play: worries about how a political breakdown in Iraq would affect Bush's 2004 re-election hopes.
“The domestic political issue is the concern with the polls and the attitude of the American people about what has happened to us in Fallujah, and the concern with the impact that would come from our inability to transfer sovereignty,” Sanchez told the Express-News.
Two days after the offensive began, Bremer ordered Sanchez to withdraw the Marines. He refused, warning that if the Marines pulled out under fire, it would be seen as a U.S. defeat, Sanchez wrote in the book. “You've got to withdraw! The transfer of sovereignty is in danger!” Bremer said.
“I won't do it!” Sanchez replied.
They were shouting at each other. Sanchez turned to Abizaid, who oversaw wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at the time.
Abizaid, now retired, did not respond to an interview request.
“Look, sir, I am not going to issue that order,” Sanchez told him. “If you want that order issued, you will have to find another commander.”
The impasse was settled when Sanchez suggested a unilateral cease-fire. Bremer, he wrote, revealed the decision the next day — April 9. Four days after Bush's re-election that fall, the battle would be fought again at a much higher cost.
“Amid media speculation of incompetence. .. Fallujah came to stand for a failure to achieve clearly stated and defined missions,” Sanchez wrote, adding that his last orders to the Marines were to fight if attacked and eliminate resistance.
“The administration wanted us to cut and run. But from the warrior's perspective, we did not withdraw our forces under fire,” he continued. “We held our ground. In other words, we cut, but we did not run.”
Ellie
Web Posted: 05/05/2008 12:52 AM CDT
By Sig Christenson
Express-News
Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez joined the White House videoconference on the second day of house-to-house fighting between 2,000 Marines and entrenched guerrillas in Fallujah.
Crafted in Washington as a brass-knuckles response to the gruesome deaths of four Blackwater security guards killed the week before and strung up on a bridge, the battle had the full support of President Bush.
Sanchez, in a memoir to be released Tuesday, said Bush “launched into what I considered a kind of confused pep talk” about the battle for Fallujah and an upcoming campaign to kill or capture radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and cripple his militia.
“Kick ass!” Bush said. “If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell!”
Fueled by images beamed by the Al-Jazeera television network, the administration quickly reversed course, stopping Operation Vigilant Resolve. Soon after, Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer dropped plans to capture or kill al-Sadr, even though the president had said during the April 7, 2003, meeting, “It is essential he be wiped out,” according to the memoir.
Sanchez, now retired at 56 and living in San Antonio, said the aborted Fallujah campaign and decision to spare al-Sadr was typical of his year as commander of coalition forces in Iraq. He contended Bremer and the administration committed a series of blunders — including Bremer's decision to disband the Iraqi army and to forbid Baath party members from holding government jobs — that crippled America's efforts to stabilize much of the country.
Bush's May 1, 2003, “Mission Accomplished” speech, he said, was among the first errors. It lulled Washington into thinking the war was over, making it harder to get support from a Pentagon refocusing on peacetime priorities. It also came as U.S. troops in the war zone packed in anticipation of coming home to victory parades.
Sanchez said he realized his situation was grave and worsening by the day after taking command in mid-June 2003. Two weeks into the job, he told his boss, Gen. John Abizaid, that Iraq was in the grips of an insurgency. They then mapped a strategy to counter it as Sanchez tried to reverse a drain of key staffers and troops from Iraq.
‘Wiser in Battle'
Critics have said Sanchez didn't have the skills to serve as coalition commander, that he was out of his depth. But he noted that no civilian or military official ever told him that he was doing a sub-par job, and that Bush praised him at the close of a May 20, 2004, White House meeting, saying, “Good job, Ric. Thanks for everything you're doing.”
The United States hadn't attempted an occupation like the one in Iraq since World War II. Sanchez said he was one of the few commanders with peacekeeping and nation-building experience, having led an international ground force in Kosovo.
White House spokesman Blair Jones said the administration would not comment on the book, but thanked Sanchez for his “service to this nation.”
Sanchez's nearly 500-page memoir, “Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story,” takes the administration to task for a series of missteps that he says have made it impossible for America to leave Iraq. He wants a 9-11-style investigation into why the United States went to war in Iraq, and also said Bush's “suspension” of the Geneva Conventions “led to putting America on the path to torture.”
Though he conceded making mistakes, Sanchez defended his role in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Sanchez said he did what he could — including issuing an order that required all lockups to grant detainees prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva Conventions. He gave that order on his own, without White House guidance, but noted that the CIA and special operations forces interrogated inmates under their own rules.
Several military investigations cleared him of wrongdoing in the affair, but Sanchez has said some see him as the “devil” behind Abu Ghraib.
“I can't change it. All I can do is tell America and the world what we did in the conventional force environment to try to contain what was going on,” he told the San Antonio Express-News last week.
Abu Ghraib ended his career. The administration refused to nominate Sanchez for his fourth star and promote him to head the U.S. Southern Command because of Congressional opposition. He retired Nov. 1, 2006, at Fort Sam Houston.
Before his fall, Iraq, ironically, had proven to be the pinnacle of an improbable life. In taking the reigns of Combined Joint Task Force 7 and becoming Iraq's top ground commander, Sanchez had defied the gravity of crushing poverty and racism in and out of the Army.
One of six children, Sanchez was born in Rio Grande City and grew up so poor he used cardboard to cover the holes in the soles of his shoes. The family's first house was a surplus military barrack that had no running water or indoor toilet.
His father was an alcoholic. Sanchez recalls buying liquor from bootleggers who filled his dad's flask. His mother took him to Mexican folk healers for years.
Sanchez's parents divorced when he was 10, but his mother pressed all her children to go to school. He excelled in math, posted a 1300 on his SAT and decided to embark on a military career after watching the funeral of a Hispanic Marine killed in the Vietnam War.
Though a high school counselor discouraged him from his dream of going to West Point, Sanchez joined JROTC and came close — being selected as fourth alternate in Texas. He spent a year at the University of Texas, transferred to Texas A&I in Kingsville and launched his career in 1973, often being promoted ahead of schedule.
Holding ground
The Fallujah campaign, designed to show American resolve in the face of bloodthirsty insurgents, was a turning point in the occupation. Both Sanchez and a former senior administration official at the April 2003 videoconference said the president favored the offensive. No one else disagreed.
“The masses are willing to come out and pile on when there is a Humvee burning. We've got to smash somebody's ass pretty quickly,” Sanchez quoted Secretary of State Colin Powell as saying. “There has to be a total victory somewhere.”
Bush expressed concern about al-Sadr's growing power and his Mahdi Army, and talked up the Fallujah offensive as well as the southern campaign.
“There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way,” Sanchez quoted the president as saying. “Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking.”
Just who called it off isn't clear. Neither the White House nor Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld answered questions about the conference, and Bremer could not be reached at his New York office. The senior administration official could not recall that session and said several were held each week.
That official and Sanchez said everyone shared Bremer's concern that the country's governing council would fracture. If that happened, they agreed, the transfer of sovereignty from the Coalition Provisional Authority to the Iraqis scheduled for later that summer might have been jeopardized, plunging the country even deeper into chaos.
But Sanchez said he is sure one other factor was in play: worries about how a political breakdown in Iraq would affect Bush's 2004 re-election hopes.
“The domestic political issue is the concern with the polls and the attitude of the American people about what has happened to us in Fallujah, and the concern with the impact that would come from our inability to transfer sovereignty,” Sanchez told the Express-News.
Two days after the offensive began, Bremer ordered Sanchez to withdraw the Marines. He refused, warning that if the Marines pulled out under fire, it would be seen as a U.S. defeat, Sanchez wrote in the book. “You've got to withdraw! The transfer of sovereignty is in danger!” Bremer said.
“I won't do it!” Sanchez replied.
They were shouting at each other. Sanchez turned to Abizaid, who oversaw wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at the time.
Abizaid, now retired, did not respond to an interview request.
“Look, sir, I am not going to issue that order,” Sanchez told him. “If you want that order issued, you will have to find another commander.”
The impasse was settled when Sanchez suggested a unilateral cease-fire. Bremer, he wrote, revealed the decision the next day — April 9. Four days after Bush's re-election that fall, the battle would be fought again at a much higher cost.
“Amid media speculation of incompetence. .. Fallujah came to stand for a failure to achieve clearly stated and defined missions,” Sanchez wrote, adding that his last orders to the Marines were to fight if attacked and eliminate resistance.
“The administration wanted us to cut and run. But from the warrior's perspective, we did not withdraw our forces under fire,” he continued. “We held our ground. In other words, we cut, but we did not run.”
Ellie