Torquemadog has been documenting the increasing number of former military commanders who are joining the ranks of Bush critics. In this installment David Kronke, TV critic for the daily news, interviews Eric Haney, "a retired command sergeant major of the U.S. Army, (and)..a founding member of Delta Force,".
Haney has fighting words for Bush.
Q: What's your assessment of the war in Iraq?A: Utter debacle. But it had to be from the very first. The reasons were wrong. The reasons of this administration for taking this nation to war were not what they stated. (Army Gen.) Tommy Franks was brow-beaten and ... pursued warfare that he knew strategically was wrong in the long term. That's why he retired immediately afterward. His own staff could tell him what was going to happen afterward.Q: What is the cost to our country?A: For the first thing, our credibility is utterly zero. So we destroyed whatever credibility we had. ... And I say "we," because the American public went along with this. They voted for a second Bush administration out of fear, so fear is what they're going to have from now on.I expect that we'll hear more from these retired military officers who are providing an increasingly dismal assessment of the direction of the war in Iraq.
Haney has just published
"Inside Delta Force."