dissent in the ranks
Washington Post - April 27, 2007
Army Officer Accuses Generals of ‘Intellectual and Moral Failures’ By Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post Staff Writer
An active-duty Army officer is publishing a blistering attack on U.S.
generals, saying they have botched the war in Iraq and misled
Congress about the situation there.
“America’s generals have repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq,”
charges Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, an Iraq veteran who is deputy
commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. “The intellectual and
moral failures . . . constitute a crisis in American generals.”
Yingling’s comments are especially striking because his unit’s
performance in securing the northwestern Iraqi city of Tall Afar was
cited by President Bush in a March 2006 speech and provided the model
for the new security plan underway in Baghdad.
He also holds a high profile for a lieutenant colonel: He attended
the Army’s elite School for Advanced Military Studies and has written
for one of the Army’s top professional journals, Military Review.
The article, “General Failure,” is to be published today in Armed
Forces Journal and is posted at http://www.armedforcesjournal.com.
Its appearance signals the public emergence of a split inside the
military between younger, mid-career officers and the top brass.
Many majors and lieutenant colonels have privately expressed anger
and frustration with the performance of Gen. Tommy R. Franks, Lt.
Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno and other top
commanders in the war, calling them slow to grasp the realities of
the war and overly optimistic in their assessments.
Some younger officers have stated privately that more generals should
have been taken to task for their handling of the abuses at Abu
Ghraib prison, news of which broke in 2004. The young officers also
note that the Army’s elaborate “lessons learned” process does not
criticize generals and that no generals in Iraq have been replaced
for poor battlefield performance, a contrast to other U.S. wars.
Top Army officials are also worried by the number of captains and
majors choosing to leave the service. “We do have attrition in those
grade slots above our average,” acting Army Secretary Pete Geren
noted in congressional testimony this week. In order to curtail the
number of captains leaving, he said, the Army is planning a $20,000
bonus for those who agree to stay in, plus choices of where to be
posted and other incentives.
Until now, charges of incompetent leadership have not been made as
publicly by an Army officer as Yingling does in his article.
“After going into Iraq with too few troops and no coherent plan for
postwar stabilization, America’s general officer corps did not
accurately portray the intensity of the insurgency to the American
public,” he writes. “For reasons that are not yet clear, America’s
general officer corps underestimated the strength of the enemy,
overestimated the capabilities of Iraq’s government and security
forces and failed to provide Congress with an accurate assessment of
security conditions in Iraq.”
Yingling said he decided to write the article after attending Purple
Heart and deployment ceremonies for Army soldiers. “I find it hard to
look them in the eye,” he said in an interview. “Our generals are not
worthy of their soldiers.”
He said he had made his superiors aware of the article but had not
sought permission to publish it. He intends to stay in the Army, he
said, noting that he is scheduled in two months to take command of a
battalion at Fort Hood, Tex.
The article has been read by about 30 of his peers, Yingling added.
“At the level of lieutenant colonel and below, it received almost
universal approval,” he said.
Retired Marine Col. Jerry Durrant, now working in Iraq as a civilian
contractor, agrees that discontent is widespread. “Talk to the junior
leaders in the services and ask what they think of their senior
leadership, and many will tell you how unhappy they are,” he said.
Yingling advocates overhauling the way generals are picked and calls
for more involvement by Congress. To replace today’s “mild-mannered
team players,” he writes, Congress should create incentives in the
promotion system to “reward adaptation and intellectual achievement.”
He does not criticize officers by name; instead, the article refers
repeatedly to “America’s generals.” Yingling said he did this
intentionally, in order to focus not on the failings of a few people
but rather on systemic problems.
He also recommends that Congress review the performance of senior
generals as they retire and exercise its power to retire them at a
lower rank if it deems their performance inferior. The threat of such
high-profile demotions would restore accountability among top
officers, he contends. “As matters stand now, a private who loses a
rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a
war,” he states.
==============
http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/05/2635198
A failure in generalship By Lt. Col. Paul Yingling
“You officers amuse yourselves with God knows what buffooneries and
never dream in the least of serious service. This is a source of
stupidity which would become most dangerous in case of a serious
conflict.”
- Frederick the Great
For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the
prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the
U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their
fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq’s
grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an
American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more
destructive regional war.
These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but
rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America’s general
officer corps. America’s generals have failed to prepare our armed
forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of
force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows
consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to
society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic
probabilities. Second, America’s generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed
to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in
American generalship requires the intervention of Congress.
[…]
Mortal Danger
This article began with Frederick the Great’s admonition to his
officers to focus their energies on the larger aspects of war. The
Prussian monarch’s innovations had made his army the terror of
Europe, but he knew that his adversaries were learning and adapting.
Frederick feared that his generals would master his system of war
without thinking deeply about the ever-changing nature of war, and in
doing so would place Prussia’s security at risk. These fears would
prove prophetic. At the Battle of Valmy in 1792, Frederick’s
successors were checked by France’s ragtag citizen army. In the
fourteen years that followed, Prussia’s generals assumed without much
reflection that the wars of the future would look much like those of
the past. In 1806, the Prussian Army marched lockstep into defeat and
disaster at the hands of Napoleon at Jena. Frederick’s prophecy had
come to pass; Prussia became a French vassal.
Iraq is America’s Valmy. America’s generals have been checked by a
form of war that they did not prepare for and do not understand. They
spent the years following the 1991 Gulf War mastering a system of war
without thinking deeply about the ever changing nature of war. They
marched into Iraq having assumed without much reflection that the
wars of the future would look much like the wars of the past. Those
few who saw clearly our vulnerability to insurgent tactics said and
did little to prepare for these dangers. As at Valmy, this one
debacle, however humiliating, will not in itself signal national
disaster. The hour is late, but not too late to prepare for the
challenges of the Long War. We still have time to select as our
generals those who possess the intelligence to visualize future
conflicts and the moral courage to advise civilian policymakers on
the preparations needed for our security. The power and the
responsibility to identify such generals lie with the U.S. Congress.
If Congress does not act, our Jena awaits us.
ARMY LT. COL. PAUL YINGLING is deputy commander, 3rd Armored Calvary
Regiment. He has served two tours in Iraq, another in Bosnia and a
fourth in Operation Desert Storm. He holds a master’s degree in
political science from the University of Chicago. The views expressed
here are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of the
Army or the Defense Department.