How Will History Treat Sanchez?

On October 12, 2007, retired General Ricardo S. Sanchez made a speech at the Military Reporters and Editors Luncheon. General Sanchez led the coalition as the top military commander from June of 2003 to June of 2004. During his shift, Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay were killed, and the second battle of Falujah was fought. Also, the Abu Ghraib defeat occurred.

I traveled to NY city the day he made his speech and heard several reports on the radio and TV. The reports expressed Sanchez's strong criticism of the Bush administration and declared the War as un-windable. I did not have a PC and access to my regular sources of information. To me, a believer in an ultimate military victory in Iraq, Sanchez sounded jaded and bitter.

As a veracious reader of military history, I could imagine future historians treating Sanchez poorly. Historians spend a major portion of their analysis on the leaders that guide the battles. In particular, Civil War historians have dedicated major segments of their discussion to the various Commanders of the Army of the Potomac (AoP). President Lincoln found himself frequently changing Commanders in an effort to defeat Lee's army. Volumes have been written about each commander and how their character and personality contributed to the failure of the AoP. Some of the failed Commanders lived very enigmatic lives after retiring from service. I imagined that a similar pattern would develop for Sanchez--that is, he was one of the many failing Commanders before General Pateaus arrived.

Michael Yon posted Sanchez's complete speech and titled it "Listen Respectfully". I was surprised because in his introduction he encouraged visitors to read the speech with an open mind:

Lieutenant General (Ret.) Ricardo S. Sanchez delivered a public speech yesterday that has been widely picked up in the media, including the New York Times. The thrust of the many articles about his speech tend to focus on LTG (Ret.) Sanchez’ view of the war in Iraq. Some of his current views are a bit dated, but out of respect for a man who served his country for decades, and who clearly is a defender of the United States, it seems just to print his entire speech. Sanchez is a man who should be heard.

This writer disagrees with much of what Sanchez says about the current state of Iraq, but what he says about the media seems spot-on.

So I read the speech and was surprised to discover that what the radio and TV media presented was but a small piece of what Sanchez had to say. My analysis of the speech reduced Sanchez distertation to four major points:

1. The journalistic profession is corrupted and without standards, which may contribute to any defeat suffered by the US and its allies.
2. The US and its allies lacked a grand strategy to win and it is the responsibility of US political leaders (Legislative as well as Executive leaders) to formulate that strategy.
3. Political and inter-agency rivalries threaten American victory in Iraq.
4. The US cannot not leave or withdraw from Iraq.

Wow! How could this be? Of 3409 words in his speech, 1369 were devoted to criticism of the press yet I heard not a word in the four days of media reporting and analysis. One third of the speech was a well thought out discussion about the role of a free press during war. I think Sanchez summed it up well with the following question:

who is responsible for maintaining the ethical standards of the profession in order to ensure that our democracy does not continue to be threatened by this dangerous shift away from your sacred duty of public enlightenment?

The balance of Sanchez's speech discussed the failure of the United States to recognize "tremendous economic and political capacity had to be mobilized, synchronized and applied if we were to achieve victory in a global war." He alluded to the total war footing the US took during WWII as the needed action by the country to win in Iraq and against the Islamic extremists. He was critical of the Bush administration but he was not specific as to what was needed to win beyond total war. He held Congress responsible as well.

How will future historians treat Sanchez? Certainly this speech will be included in their analysis.