MILITARY'S BRAVE FACE BEGINS TO CRACKWASHINGTON -- During this whole excruciating war in Iraq, one of the journalist's few acts of creativity has been reading the tea leaves left in whatever our generals have been swigging before getting us into such a disaster.
At first, they were still filled with the positive passions of our establishment-obedient military bureaucrats. Months later there were cracks in the facade, and a few courageous souls shook the very medals on their jackets by expressing the slightest disillusion. Now, my friends, watch the papers carefully, for every day there is some new shocker from military lips that, we were told in earlier wars, would somehow "sink ships."
The most amazing -- and honest -- quote by far came last week from Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., commander of the 1st Cavalry Division in Baghdad, when he ruminated in an interview with The Washington Post: "My nightmare -- the thing that keeps me up at night -- is a failure of Iraqi security forces, somehow, catastrophically, mixed with a major Samarra mosque-type catastrophe." Indeed, in his picture in the papers, he looked as though he'd been up all night.
Adm. Michael G. Mullen, choice for the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, curiously entered into his new job, not triumphally ("greatest military in the world," etc.), but making it clear to friends that he was concerned that Iraq and Afghanistan were dangerously straining the U.S. military. Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, until recently leader of the U.S. military's training effort in Iraq, told Congress that Iraq will remain incapable of taking full responsibility for its security for five years -- at least.
http://www.uexpress.com/georgieannegeyer/?uc_full_date=20070614
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