Leadership dooms Iraq strategy: ex-commander (Reuters)

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Leadership dooms Iraq strategy: ex-commander
Sat Oct 13, 2007 12:30am EDT

By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A "catastrophic failure" in
the Bush administration's leadership of the Iraq war
has mired the United States in a nightmarish conflict
with no clear way out, the former top U.S. commander
in Iraq said on Friday.

The blistering assessment by retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo
Sanchez was one of the harshest yet by a top military
leader involved in the war.

"There has been a glaring, unfortunate display of
incompetent strategic leadership within our national
leaders," Sanchez told a group of military reporters,
according to a copy of his remarks.

-snip-

Without mentioning President George W. Bush by
name, he called the president's troop-escalation
"surge" strategy a "desperate attempt by an
administration that has not accepted the political
and economic realities of this war."

-snip-

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1241629620071013