Sanchez’s embarrassing speech reveals him to be even more mediocre than I thought

Paul K. writes:

I’m attaching the whole of former Iraq Coalition commander Ricardo Sanchez’s speech from a few days ago. In the first half he discusses his problems with the press and in the second half he talks about Iraq. While he says many provocative things, it doesn’t appear that he has any clear idea what we should do, or even what we should have done. He says that one of the reasons we are failing is partisanship: “Since 2003, the politics of war have been characterized by partisanship as the Republican and Democratic parties struggled for power in Washington.”

Since Bush has gotten everything he asked for, I don’t understand this complaint.

Sanchez has that speaking manner in which sentences are strung together from buzzwords with no clear idea behind them. For example: “Congress must shoulder a significant responsibility for this failure since there has been no focused oversight of the nation’s political and economic initiatives in this war…. Achieving unity of effort in Iraq has been elusive to date primarily because there is no entity that has the authority to direct action by our interagency…. America must mobilize the interagency and the political and economic elements of power, which have been abject failures to date, in order to achieve victory.”

This sort of meaningless rhetoric makes me doubt that Sanchez could have given Bush any useful direction even if he had tried.

LA replies:

I’ve read the main part of former Lt. Gen. Sanchez’s speech and I agree with Paul’s assessment. Sanchez makes some powerful statements (much of it, frankly, sounding like VFR over the last four years) to the effect that that we have no strategy to win, and that we are doomed to keep sending our soldiers and Marines to kill and die in Iraq for decades, simply in order to stave off defeat. He says that the only way to turn this around and win victory is through the systematic application of all aspects of national power. But what this should consist of Sanchez never says, though he uses over 3,000 words in which not to say it. He condemns in the harshest terms the national leadership under which he served, but never says what exactly this leadership did wrong, except for the vague generality that it failed to apply enough power and rally the country. However, as Sen. McCain has pointed out, when Sanchez was Coalition commander in Iraq he said that we were applying enough power and he was optimistic of the outcome.

Apart from the profound offense that Sanchez is attacking the policy he supported and promoted, the speech is almost stunningly incoherent, much of it reading like a first draft by a not-very-intelligent 12 year old, with the sentences unconnected from each other and thoughts left uncompleted. I always thought Sanchez was a mediocrity who had no business being where he was; but I didn’t realize he was this bad. That the Lieutenant General in charge Coalition forces in Iraq from June 2003 to June 2004 was a man incapable of making a reasoned argument is troubling to say the least. Why did President Bush approve him for the post? Since we have plenty of non-Hispanic white generals who are also intellectually unimpressive, bureaucratic time-servers, I have no particular desire to focus on the ethnic aspect of the situation. Yet Sanchez’s intellectual abilities are so poor that it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that Bush picked him for this extremely important job for the same reason that he wanted to nominate Alberto Gonzales for the Supreme Court.

Take in the meaning of that. The U.S. had invaded and occupied Iraq two months earlier, and had a swelling terror insurgency at hand, and challenges of the greatest difficulty and sensitivity to cope with; and the man Bush chose to lead in this situation was an Affirmative Action pick. It’s one thing to use minority racial preferences when hiring people for lower priority positions such as the head of a personnel department; it’s another thing to use minority preferences when hiring a brain surgeon or the general of an army at war. A society that does things like the latter shows that it is doomed, unless it radically changes course.

Below are the latter 2,200 words of Sanchez’s 3,400 word speech.

LtG (ret) Ricardo S. Sanchez
12 October 2007
Military reporters and editors address, Washington D.C.

… Let me now transition to our current national security condition. As we all know, war is an extension of politics, and when a nation goes to war it must bring to bear all elements of power in order to win. Warfighting is not solely the responsibility of the military commander unless he has been given the responsibility and resources to synchronize the political, economic and informational power of the nation. So who is responsible for developing the grand strategy that will allow America to emerge victorious from this generational struggle against extremism?

After more than four years of fighting, America continues its desperate struggle in Iraq without any concerted effort to devise a strategy that will achieve “victory” in that war torn country or in the greater conflict against extremism. From a catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan to the administration’s latest “surge” strategy, this administration has failed to employ and synchronize its political, economic and military power. The latest “revised strategy” is a desperate attempt by an administration that has not accepted the political and economic realities of this war and they have definitely not communicated that reality to the American people. An even worse and more disturbing assessment is that America cannot achieve the political consensus necessary to devise a grand strategy that will synchronize and commit our national power to achieve victory in Iraq. Some of you have heard me talk about our nation’s crisis in leadership. Let me elaborate. While the politicians espouse their rhetoric designed to preserve their reputations and their political power, our soldiers die.

Our national leadership ignored the lessons of WW II as we entered into this war and to this day continues to believe that victory can be achieved through the application of military power alone. Our forefathers understood that tremendous economic and political capacity had to be mobilized, synchronized and applied if we were to achieve victory in a global war. That has been and continues to be the key to victory in Iraq. Continued manipulations and adjustments to our military strategy will not achieve victory. The best we can do with this flawed approach is stave off defeat. The administration, congress and the entire interagency, especially the Department of State, must shoulder the responsibility for this catastrophic failure and the American people must hold them accountable. There has been a glaring, unfortunate, display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders. As a Japanese proverb says, “action without vision is a nightmare.” There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight.

Since 2003, the politics of war have been characterized by partisanship as the Republican and Democratic parties struggled for power in Washington. National efforts to date have been corrupted by partisan politics that have prevented us from devising effective, executable, supportable solutions. At times, these partisan struggles have led to political decisions that endangered the lives of our sons and daughters on the battlefield. The unmistakable message was that political power had greater priority than our national security objectives. Overcoming this strategic failure is the first step toward achieving victory in Iraq—without bipartisan cooperation we are doomed to fail. There is nothing going on today in Washington that would give us hope. If we succeed in crafting a bipartisan strategy for victory, then America must hold all national agencies accountable for developing and executing the political and economic initiatives that will bring about stability, security, political and economic hope for all Iraqis. That has not been successful to date.

Congress must shoulder a significant responsibility for this failure since there has been no focused oversight of the nation’s political and economic initiatives in this war. Exhortations, encouragements, investigations, studies and discussions will not produce success—this appears to be the nation’s only alternative since the transfer of sovereignty. Our continued neglect will only extend the conflict. America’s dilemma is that we no longer control the ability to directly influence the Iraqi institutions. The sovereign Iraqi government must be cooperative in these long-term efforts. That is not likely at the levels necessary in the near term. Our commanders on the ground will continue to make progress and provide time for the development of a grand strategy. That will be wasted effort as we have seen repeatedly since 2003. In the meantime our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines will continue to die.

Since the start of this war, America’s leadership has known that our military alone could not achieve victory in Iraq. Starting in July 2003, the message repeatedly communicated to Washington by military commanders on the ground was that the military alone could never achieve “victory” in Iraq. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines were destined to endure decades of fighting and killing people without the focused, synchronized application of all elements of national power. This was a necessary condition to stabilize Iraq. Any sequential solutions would lead to a prolonged conflict and increased resistance. By neglect and incompetence at the National Security Council level, that is the path our political leaders chose and now America, more precisely the American military, finds itself in an intractable situation. Clearly, mistakes have been made by the American military in its application of power but even its greatest failures in this war can be linked to America’s lack of commitment, priority and moral courage in this war effort. Without the sacrifices of our magnificent young men and women in uniform, Iraq would be chaotic well beyond anything experienced to date. What America must accept as a reality at this point in the war is that our army and Marine Corps are struggling with the deployment schedules. What is clear is that the deployment cycles of our formations has been totally disrupted, the resourcing and training challenges are significant and America’s ability to sustain a force level of 150,000(+) is nonexistent without drastic measures that have been politically unacceptable to date. The drawdown of the surge to presurge levels was never a question. America must understand that it will take the army at least a decade to fix the damage that has been done to its full spectrum readiness. The president’s recent statement to America that he will listen to military commanders is a matter of political expediency.

Our army and Marine Corps will execute as directed, perform magnificently and never complain—that is the ethic of our warriors and that is what America expects of them. They will not disappoint us. But America must know the pressures that are being placed on our military institutions as we fight this war. All Americans must demand that these deploying formations are properly resourced, properly trained and we must never allow America’s support for the soldier to falter. A critical, objective assessment of our nation’s ability to execute our national security strategy must be conducted. If we are objective and honest, the results will be surprising to all Americans. There is unacceptable strategic risk.

America has no choice but to continue our efforts in Iraq. A precipitous withdrawal will unquestionably lead to chaos that would endanger the stability of the greater Middle East. If this occurs it would have significant adverse effects on the international community. Coalition and American force presence will be required at some level for the foreseeable future. Given the lack of a grand strategy we must move rapidly to minimize that force presence and allow the Iraqis maximum ability to exercise their sovereignty in achieving a solution. At no time in America’s history has there been a greater need for bipartisan cooperation. The threat of extremism is real and demands unified action at the same levels demonstrated by our forefathers during World War I and World War II. America has failed to date.

This endeavor has further been hampered by a coalition effort that can be characterized as hasty, un-resourced and often uncoordinated and unmanaged. Desperately needed, but essentially ignored, were the political and economic coalitions that were the key to victory and stability in the immediate aftermath of the conventional war. The military coalition which was hastily put together in the summer of 2003 was problematic given the multitude of national caveats, inadequate rules of engagement and other restrictions on the forces deployed. Even so, the military coalition was the most extensive, productive and effective deployment of forces in decades. Today, we continue our inept coalition management efforts and, in fact, we are facing ever-decreasing troop commitments by our military coalition partners. America’s “revised” strategy does not address coalition initiatives and challenges. We cannot afford to continue this struggle without the support of our coalition partners across all elements of national power. Without the political and economic elements of power complementing the tremendous efforts of our military, America is assured of failure. We continue on that path. America’s political leadership must come together and develop a bipartisan grand strategy to achieve victory in this conflict. The simultaneous application of our political, economic, information and military elements of power is the only course of action that will provide a chance of success. Achieving unity of effort in Iraq has been elusive to date primarily because there is no entity that has the authority to direct action by our interagency. Our national security council has been a catastrophic failure. Furthermore, America’s ability to hold the interagency accountable for their failures in this war is non-existent. This must change. As a nation we must recognize that the enemy we face is committed to destroying our way of life. This enemy is arguably more dangerous than any threat we faced in the twentieth century. Our political leaders must place national security objectives above partisan politics, demand interagency unity of effort, and never again commit America to war without a grand strategy that embraces the basic tenets of the Powell doctrine.

It seems that congress recognizes that the military cannot achieve victory alone in this war. Yet they continue to demand victory from our military. Who will demand accountability for the failure of our national political leaders involved in the management this war? They have unquestionably been derelict in the performance of their duty. In my profession, these type of leaders would immediately be relieved or courtmartialed. America has sent our soldiers off to war and they must be supported at all costs until we achieve victory or until our political leaders decide to bring them home. Our political and military leaders owe the soldier on the battlefield the strategy, the policies and the resources to win once committed to war. America has not been fully committed to win this war. As the military commanders on the ground have stated since the summer of 2003, the U.S. military alone cannot win this war. America must mobilize the interagency and the political and economic elements of power, which have been abject failures to date, in order to achieve victory. Our nation has not focused on the greatest challenge of our lifetime. The political and economic elements of power must get beyond the politics to ensure the survival of America. Partisan politics have hindered this war effort and America should not accept this. America must demand a unified national strategy that goes well beyond partisan politics and places the common good above all else. Too often our politicians have chosen loyalty to their political party above loyalty to the constitution because of their lust for power. Our politicians must remember their oath of office and recommit themselves to serving our nation and not their own self-interests or political party. The security of America is at stake and we can accept nothing less. Anything short of this is unquestionably dereliction of duty. These are fairly harsh assessments of the military and press relationship and the status of our war effort. I remain optimistic and committed to the enabling of media operations under the toughest of conditions in order to keep the world and the American people informed. Our military must embrace you for the sake our democracy but you owe them ethical journalism. Thank you for this opportunity. May God bless you and may God bless America. Praise be to the Lord my rock who trains my fingers for battle and my hands for war. Thank you.

- end of Sanchez speech -

- end of initial entry -

Gerald M. writes:

You are right to condemn Sanchez as worse than mediocre. During my time in the Army I briefed a fair number of generals and found most of them to be, in your words, “intellectually unimpressive time-servers,” but few were as inept in their use of language as Sanchez. He is obviously a product of affirmative action, something which was hinted at in Thomas Ricks’ book, Fiasco, his indictment of the mess we’ve made in Iraq. Ricks recounts (in a somewhat mystified tone) how Sanchez, the most junior three star general in the Army, was given the all-important post of ground commander, a selection which surprised everyone, especially his peers. It is quite possible that Bush’s notorious hispanophilia played a role, though I suspect it was Rumsfeld, a poor picker of commanders to start with, who was trying to curry favor with W., rather than a directive from the great War Lord himself.

As for Sanchez’s incoherence—I’m convinced that after they’re selected for flag rank, freshly minted generals are sent to a secret Defense Department School of Jargon and Gibberish, where any remaining traces of plain English are erased and replaced with bureaucratese.

LA writes:

On the question of the number of troops used in Iraq, I’ve been reading Cobra II, by Michael R. Gordon (of the New York Times) and Gen. Bernard E. Trainor. The central drama of this book consists of the repeated—numbingly repeated—encounters between Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Gen. Tommy Franks of Central Command in the 18 months preceding the invasion of Iraq, in which Franks would say a certain number of troops were needed for the job, and Rumsfeld would insist that the numbers be reduced, and Franks kept giving way to Rumsfeld. Bit by bit the number of troops to be assigned to Iraq was lowered from around 500,000 in September 2001 to around 150,000 at the time of the invasion.

JS writes:

Regarding General Sanchez, I read most of the speech you posted but had to stop before I got to the end. The stupidity evinced by his remarks was totally, completely and irrevocably insulting my intelligence (to imitate his witless writing style). As one of your commenters said, this stringing together of jargon and buzz phrases is how Sanchez attempts to hide the fact the he is not very bright. Never having seen his picture, I googled Sanchez’ picture and was astounded to see a type more suited to be a landscaper than a military commander.

Affirmative action no longer means that one doesn’t get the job or the college admission desired; affirmative action now kills.

Mark Jaws writes:

With the exception of the last paragraph, which bordered on incoherence, I thought Sanchez’s speak was pretty good, and was uttered in words comprehensible by the average soldier. While it is no secret that he is no towering intellect or master or military operational art, Sanchez, who is no doubt a product of affirmative action, does fit in nicely with his patron, Presidente Boosh, that grand master of strategery. This administration has insulted my intelligence almost as many times as Clinton did, and I am convinced it could not think its way out of a second grade math word problem.

James P. writes:

Paul K. wrote: “This sort of meaningless rhetoric makes me doubt that Sanchez could have given Bush any useful direction even if he had tried.”

Come on, we don’t expect our generals and admirals to do strategy! That’s much too important to leave to them. They are all carefully raised to be ticket-punching, non-boat-rocking yes men. You guys focus on what toys you’d like to buy, and leave the strategy stuff to your civilian masters …

Appointment of a moron like Sanchez is yet further proof that we never intended to win in the first place.

LA replies:

“Appointment of a moron like Sanchez is yet further proof that we never intended to win in the first place.”

How can anyone gainsay this statement?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 16, 2007 01:56 AM | Send