Lt. Gen. Ricardo SanchezOur best hope is to "stave off defeat"...I am absolutely convinced that America has a crisis in leadership at this time."
http://www.examiner.com/a-748161~Former_general_says_best_hope_in_Iraq_is__to_stave_off_defeat_.htmlColin Powell"The US Army is about broken.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1974803,00.htmlLt. Gen. Clyde VaughnbUsh has “piecemealed our forces to death.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/04/AR2006110401160_pf.htmlGen. Barry McCafreyTestified to the US Senate that the U.S. military is "in peril"; "the Army will unravel."
http://defensenews.com/story.php?F=2660463&C=americaCol. Andy BacevichOnly a third of the regular Army’s brigades qualify as combat-ready. In the reserve components, none meet that standard. When the last of the units reaches Baghdad as part of the president’s strategy of escalation, the US will be left without a ready-to-deploy land force reserve.”
http://www.mainandcentral.org/archives/military_affairs/index.htmlBut who could have known??! Well gee, let's see...Brent Scowcroft, one of the Republican Party’s most respected foreign policy advisors, and national security adviser under President Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush:
Don't Attack Saddam It would undermine our antiterror efforts. "Our pre-eminent security priority--underscored repeatedly by the president--is the war on terrorism. An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken."
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002133James Webb, former Sec. of Navy under Ronald Reagan, Decorated Marine Veteran:"Do we really want to occupy Iraq for the next 30 years? …In Japan, American occupation forces quickly became 50,000 friends.
In Iraq, they would quickly become 50,000 terrorist targets…. Nations such as China can only view the prospect of an American military consumed for the next generation by the turmoil of the Middle East as a glorious windfall." http://www.sftt.org/article09302002a.html Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former Head of Central Command for U.S.: "It's pretty interesting that all the generals see it the same way, and all the others who have never fired a shot, and are hot to go to war, see it another…
We are about to do something that will ignite a fuse in this region that we will rue the day we ever started."Hawks in the Bush administration may be making deadly miscalculations on Iraq, says Gen. Anthony Zinni, Bush's Middle East envoy.
"I'm not sure which planet they live on"
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/10/17/zinni Republican Dissent on Iraq
Full page ad in Wall Street Journal by major GOP contributors: "Mr. President, …The candidate we supported in 2000 promised a more humble nation in our dealings with the world. We gave him our votes and our campaign contributions. That candidate was you. We feel betrayed. We want our money back. We want our country back….
A Billion Bitter enemies will rise out of this war." - Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2003
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/001444.html 62 percent thought that the threat of terror would increase if the U.S. takes military action against Iraq.http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/07/opinion/meyer/main539846.shtmlGeneral 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."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091704Y.shtml Col. David Hackworth: "Should the president decide to stay the war course, hopefully at least a few of our serving top-uniformed leaders - those who are now covertly leaking that
war with Iraq will be an unparalleled disaster - will do what many Vietnam-era generals wish they would have done:
stand tall and publicly tell the America people the truth about another bad war that could well lead to another died-in-vain black wall. Or even worse." http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29786Knoxville News Sentinel, January 24, 2003
Bush Hasn't Made Case for War in Iraqhttp://www.commondreams.org/views03/0124-04.htm December 17, 2002
Poll: Bush hasn't made case for Iraq warhttp://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-12-17-iraq-poll_x.htmJanuary 13, 2003
Poll: Majority of Americans oppose unilateral action against IraqA robust majority of Americans - 83 percent - would support going to war if the United Nations backed the action and it was carried out by a multinational coalition. But without U.N. approval and allies, only about a third of the public would support a war with Iraq.
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/001415.html US Public Want to Give UN Inspectors More TimeSeven in 10 Americans would give U.N. weapons inspectors months more to pursue their arms search in Iraq, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll that found growing doubts about an attack on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A23564-2003Jan21CIA to Bush: 'No clear Evidence of WMD'http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/120103A.shtml Why the CIA thinks Bush is wrongThe president says the US has to act now against Iraq. The trouble is, his own security services don't agree.
http://www.sundayherald.com/28384 CIA in blow to Bush attack plansThe letter also comes at a time when the CIA is competing with the more hawkish Pentagon, which is also supplying the White House with intelligence on the Iraqi threat.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,808970,00.htmlPublic opinion polls indicate that the most Britons strongly oppose an invasion of Iraqhttp://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0908-04.htm Eighty-one percent of Britons opposed U.S. actions in Iraqhttp://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070123/NEWS/70123057/-1/archivePresident GHW Bush, 1998;"Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish.
Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land." http://www.thememoryhole.org/mil/bushsr-iraq.htmDick Cheney in April 1991, then Defense Secretary:"If you're going to go in and try to topple Saddam Hussein,you have to go to Baghdad. Once you've got Baghdad, it's not clear what you do with it. It's not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that's currently there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime or a Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the Baathists, or one that tilts toward the Islamic fundamentalists?
How much credibility is that government going to have if it's set up by the United States military when it's there? How long does the United States military have to stay to protect the people that sign on for that government, and what happens to it once we leave?
http://slate.msn.com/?id=2072479 Guess someone shoulda told George W. bUsh.