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Promoting Failure
The Army gets the lead out.By Mackubin Thomas Owens Earlier this month, the Senate voted 8314 to confirm Gen. George Casey as Army chief of staff. Ten of those no votes came from Republicans, four of whom John McCain, John Ensign, Saxby Chambliss and Lindsey Graham serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC). The four grilled General Casey during his confirmation hearing, forcefully taking him to task for lack of progress in Iraq during his tenure as the commander of US ground troops there. Democratic senator Carl Levin, chairman of the committee, disagreed: It is not fair that General Casey be tagged with failures, massive failures which were caused by the false policies, the wrong policies, the deceptions, the ignorance, the arrogance, the cockiness of civilian leaders in this administration. But Republican senator John E. Sununu, who is not a member of the SASC, had an answer for Levin. There are many factors that contributed to the failure to improve the situation [in Iraq], but ultimately our military leadership has to bear some responsibility for its choices. Simply put, we shouldnt reward a lack of success on the field of command with such an important promotion. This is the central issue of civil-military relations during wartime. How much responsibility for victory or defeat does a military commander bear? Posted by: ryuge 2007-02-22 |
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