Remember Gen. Eric Shinseki? The General that, before the Iraq war began, said the US would need "something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers" to win? The General whose authority was undercut and who was pushed out shortly after making that comment?
Well, it looks like General Shinseki wasn't the final casualty in the "War on Truth".
From the "New York Times":
"The original plan, championed by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Baghdad, and backed by Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, called for turning over responsibility for security to the Iraqis, shrinking the number of American bases and beginning the gradual withdrawal of American troops. But the plan collided with Iraq’s ferocious unraveling, which took most of Mr. Bush’s war council by surprise...
Over the past 12 months, as optimism collided with reality, Mr. Bush increasingly found himself uneasy with General Casey’s strategy. And now, as the image of Saddam Hussein at the gallows recedes, Mr. Bush seems all but certain not only to reverse the strategy that General Casey championed, but also to accelerate the general’s departure from Iraq, according to senior military officials.
General Casey repeatedly argued that his plan offered the best prospect for reducing the perception that the United States remained an occupier — and it was a path he thought matched Mr. Bush’s wishes."
Apparently, the only thing that can get you fired from the Bush Administration (without a medal of freedom, of course) is telling the truth.
In July, Bush stated:
"General Casey will make the decisions as to how many troops we have there. He'll decide how best to achieve victory and the troop levels necessary to do so. I've spent a lot of time talking to him about troop levels. And I've told him this: I said, 'You decide, General.' "
According to an interview published in today's "New York Times", Casey said, "It’s always been my view that a heavy and sustained American military presence was not going to solve the problems in Iraq over the long term."
Now that Casey isn't in lockstep with the direction Bush wants to take, and feels that adding more troops would make the U.S. look like an occupier (i.e., "the truth"), his "departure from Iraq" has been accelerated.
Casey will follow in the footsteps of General Shinseki now that he has told the truth not only to the Bush Administration, but to the world. Bush on the other hand, remains content with lying to the American people and trying to cover up his own mistakes by sacrificing the lives and careers others.
Here's to General Casey: the latest victim in Bush's "War on Truth."
|