The General's Complaint

Lt. Gen. Richardo Sanchez, now retired, but recently in charge in Iraq:

If some of America’s political leaders were in the military they would have been relieved or court-martialed long ago, Sanchez told a conference of military journalists.

He thinks it was a mistake to disband the Iraqi Army, since a lot of them immediately took up arms as guerrillas. I believe we disbanded the police too, with similar results. Granted, the Iraqi army and police had been involved, collectively, in doing some very bad things. But maybe it would have been better to keep them on the payroll - where we could keep more of an eye on them!

In the last paragraph of this particular news story, it turns out that he's critical of other key players in our national debate:

Sanchez also railed on the media during his speech, saying that many people covering the war have political agendas and little concern about collateral damage when their stories are wrong. These members of the media are doing "a tremendous disservice to America," he said.

He's also unhappy with his own career running aground on the Abu Ghraib scandal:

"Is America happy with destroying the careers and the reputations of everyone in the military chain of command involved in Abu Ghraib?"

There's an old analysis of our involvement in Vietnam, by a military man, Harry G. Summers. He argued that our central mistake was assuming that we could not be defeated. From this followed a war fought by half-measures, with too little dedication of resources, lacking full commitment from the American people.

Sanchez's actual complaint seems to be along the same lines.

The military, when on the attack,
Doesn't like being asked to hold back.