More Revolting Generals Discussion

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Revolt of the generals: "
The denunciation of the administration's handling of Iraq by former US army chiefs is unprecedented

Sidney Blumenthal
Friday April 21, 2006
The Guardian

The analogy between Iraq and Vietnam has proved to be most compelling to the generals who planned and conducted the Iraq invasion. They kept to themselves their profound disquiet about the rapid rejection of the original plan for invasion that took 10 years to develop, the inadequate downsized force, the absence of preparation for the occupation, and the disastrous decision to disband the Iraqi military.

Almost all voted for Bush in 2000. Serving their civilian neoconservative superiors, they endured contempt. Donald Rumsfeld's closest aide, the undersecretary of defence for intelligence, Stephen Cambone, joked that the army's problems 'could be solved by lining up 50 of its generals in the Pentagon and gunning them down', according to Michael Gordon and General Bernard Trainor in their new book on the Iraq invasion, Cobra II. In September 2001, Rumsfeld held a Pentagon meeting where he declared the 'bureaucracy' - the career professionals - to be 'a serious threat to the security of the United States'. . ."