The War In Iraq Is Already Lost

Sidney Blumenthal gathers a few quotes from people who should know.

Retired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency:

"Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse, he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost... Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends."

Retired general Joseph Hoare, the former marine commandant and head of US Central Command:

"The idea that this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong."

Jeffrey Record, professor of strategy at the Air War College:

"I see no ray of light on the horizon at all. The worst case has become true. There's no analogy whatsoever between the situation in Iraq and the advantages we had after the second world war in Germany and Japan."

W. Andrew Terrill, professor at the Army War College's strategic studies institute - and the top expert on Iraq there:

"I don't think that you can kill the insurgency... If we leave and there's no civil war, that's a victory."

Record again:

"I see no exit. We've been down that road before. It's called Vietnamisation. The idea that we're going to have an Iraqi force trained to defeat an enemy we can't defeat stretches the imagination. They will be tainted by their very association with the foreign occupier. In fact, we had more time and money in state building in Vietnam than in Iraq."

General Odom again:

"This is far graver than Vietnam. There wasn't as much at stake strategically, though in both cases we mindlessly went ahead with the war that was not constructive for US aims. But now we're in a region far more volatile, and we're in much worse shape with our allies."

General Hoare again:

"I think the president ordered the attack on Fallujah. I asked a three-star marine general who gave the order to go to Fallujah and he wouldn't tell me. I came to the conclusion that the order came directly from the White House."

Hoare thinks there could be an all-out assault on Falluja after November 2nd:

"You could flatten it. US military forces would prevail, casualties would be high, there would be inconclusive results with respect to the bad guys, their leadership would escape, and civilians would be caught in the middle. I hate that phrase collateral damage. And they talked about dancing in the street, a beacon for democracy!"

Comparing Hoare's remarks on Falluja with the onging air attacks today (while the US voters are busy watching Hurricane Ivan on CNN), the helicopter massacre last Sunday and the recent comments of a senior Army commander in the area (who criticized the decision to go back into Falluja, then set up the Falluja Brigade and now disband it), it does seem as though the citizens of Falluja are being sacrificed on the alter of Bush's electoral popularity, on the basis of a direct command from his office.