Topic of the Day: The US Army's Mea Culpa in the Iraq war fiasco.

Today the US Army released a 720 pages official report based on interviews with more than 200 senior Army officers involved in the invasion of Iraq. The main conclusion,  in the Army's report, says its senior leaders failed to properly plan for the aftermath of the 2003 invasion.

It is an honest attempt to expose the mistakes that were made. Retired General Scales says the report is very candid and calls it a " chronicle of  failure".

The fingers seem to be pointing at General Franks ( US commander in the Middle-East) and his decision, after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, to order the team that led the invasion to leave Baghdad and move to.....Kuwait.

This is what General Keane says about General Franks' decision: " The team executed the invasion, and now they were going to move to Kuwait and essentially just be a support headquarter. It seemed to be, in my judgment, very ill-advised to do something like that "

The man left to " hold the bag " in Baghdad was Lt. Gen. Sanchez and his Army's Fifth Corps. Gen. Sanchez's headquarters couldn't handle the situation unfolding in Iraq. This is what Sanchez said: " It was a very conscious decision that was made by General Franks to do that, because in my assessment, he believed that the war was over and that most of the forces would be out by August. And therefore he just needed a caretaker headquarter. It did put us on a path, during the first 18 to 24 months of having tremendous difficulties. It led to the enhanced insurgency, and the tremendous instability that we faced in the country. "

At least  the US Army has the courage and honesty of  admitting a great deal of mistakes as oppose to the Bush Administration, and ultimately, the man that made the decision to take America to war on false pretenses: George W. Bush.

To read the complete report go to: http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/CSI/OnPointII.pdf

Note: I am a French filmmaker/photojournalist based in the US since 1983. To view my main photo/editorial web site got to : http://www.digitalrailroad.net/Mercier

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