By William E. Odom
diane@hudson.org

Good morning, this is Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army, retired.

I am not now nor have I ever been a Democrat or a Republican.  Thus, I do not speak for the Democratic Party.  I speak for myself, as a non-partisan retired military officer who is a former Director of the National Security Agency.  I do so because Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, asked me.

In principle, I do not favor Congressional involvement in the execution of U.S. foreign and military policy.  I have seen its perverse effects in many cases.  The conflict in Iraq is different.  Over the past couple of years, the President has let it proceed on automatic pilot, making no corrections in the face of accumulating evidence that his strategy is failing and cannot be rescued.

Thus, he lets the United States fly further and further into trouble, squandering its influence, money, and blood, facilitating the gains of our enemies.  The Congress is the only mechanism we have to fill this vacuum in command judgment.

To put this in a simple army metaphor, the Commander-in-Chief seems to have gone AWOL, that is 'absent without leave.'  He neither acts nor talks as though he is in charge.  Rather, he engages in tit-for-tat games.

Some in Congress on both sides of the aisle have responded with their own tits-for-tats.  These kinds of games, however, are no longer helpful, much less amusing.  They merely reflect the absence of effective leadership in a crisis.  And we are in a crisis.

Most Americans suspect that something is fundamentally wrong with the President's management of the conflict in Iraq.  And they are right.

The challenge we face today is not how to win in Iraq; it is how to recover from a strategic mistake: invading Iraq in the first place.  The war could never have served American interests.

But it has served Iran's interest by revenging Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran in the 1980s and enhancing Iran's influence within Iraq.  It has also served al Qaeda's interests, providing a much better training ground than did Afghanistan, allowing it to build its ranks far above the levels and competence that otherwise would have been possible.

We cannot 'win' a war that serves our enemies interests and not our own.  Thus continuing to pursue the illusion of victory in Iraq makes no sense.  We can now see that it never did.

A wise commander in this situation normally revises his objectives and changes his strategy, not just marginally, but radically.  Nothing less today will limit the death and destruction that the invasion of Iraq has unleashed.

No effective new strategy can be devised for the United States until it begins withdrawing its forces from Iraq.  Only that step will break the paralysis that now confronts us.  Withdrawal is the pre-condition for winning support from countries in Europe that have stood aside and other major powers including India, China, Japan, Russia.

It will also shock and change attitudes in Iran, Syria, and other countries on Iraq's borders, making them far more likely to take seriously new U.S. approaches, not just to Iraq, but to restoring regional stability and heading off the spreading chaos that our war has caused.

The bill that Congress approved this week, with bipartisan support, setting schedules for withdrawal, provides the President an opportunity to begin this kind of strategic shift, one that defines regional stability as the measure of victory, not some impossible outcome.

I hope the President seizes this moment for a basic change in course and signs the bill the Congress has sent him.  I will respect him greatly for such a rare act of courage, and so too, I suspect, will most Americans.

This is retired General Odom.  Thank you for listening.

Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.), a frequent contributor to NiemanWatchdog, died May 30, 2008, apparently of a heart attack. Odom in recent years had been an aggressive critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and was one of the first to call for removing American troops from Iraq. For many years a highly popular professor at Yale, he had been director of the National Security Agency under President Reagan from 1985 to 1988.

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Posted by Kash Figueroa - Former Loral Electronics Sytems, Senior Engineer (now p/o Lockheed-Martin) 06/03/2007, 03:34 PM My son is a Lance Corporal with the USMC, deployed in Ramadi. You have no idea of my state of mind now, unless one is a parent to understand. Specially since we are in contact frequently via PC technologies. Having his life risked on those convoys just to give Iran the biggest present in several thousand years, gives me the creeps. It looks like the Marines in Anbar are dealing with the Sunni insurgents against Al Qaeda, which by the way, were not in Iraq until GWB and Co decided to invade a nation that did not attack us. Now you see US taking sides eith the Sunnis, because the Sunnis do not want to be either a puppet of Iran, or the US for that matter. Looks like Iraq may end end up with a strongman after all, stronger than the fighting factions. Looks like the US needs another Saddam that can be better controlled. Otherwise, Iran will be the major power in the region with nukes and the willingness and insanity to use them. They will get the nukes anyway, Iraq or no Iraq. Sounds like the way world wars begin, with an economically and militarily weakened USA. The prospects are not good for the foreseeable future. If the US wants to regain military power to the max, it will have to introduce a draft and do major changes in its skewed economy. Otherwise China, India, Russia will have to take the slack and become bigger economic, military powers to offset the vacumm left by the decline of the USA. They will anyway. I am not a military strategist, but I wonder in what dreamworld this group of rogue, neo cons live. Talk touch and act stupid. The GWB administration is so pathetic in this way of acting that one can predict what they will do when confronted by any peril....talk tough and act stupid and help our enemies. Thanks Submit a comment - Jump to top of list