On a trouvé le “czar wars”, et il n’est pas loin d’être anti-war

L’extraordinaire et rocambolesque aventure de dénicher un général qui accepte la fonction de superviser deux guerres perdues d’avance et caractérisées par un foutoir immensément globalisé s’achève par la désignation d’un général trois étoiles notoirement opposé à la “stratégie” de “surge” suivie par GW Bush en Irak. Il s’agit du lieutenant-général Douglas Lute.

L’article de Robert Parry, sur ConsortiumNews.com le 17 mai, nous restitue l’essentiel de cette affaire, selon une approche enrichissante. Il est manifeste qu’on trouve là, une fois de plus démontrés, la faiblesse du pouvoir civil à Washington et le désordre régnant par conséquent dans la hiérarchie militaire et dans les élites.

«How should the American people interpret the extraordinary fact that George W. Bush couldn’t convince a single retired four-star general to sign up as the new “war czar” for coordinating the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan – and finally had to settle for an active-duty three-star general who had opposed Bush’s “surge” in Iraq?

»After an embarrassing failure to convince at least five former generals, including one of the original “surge” architects, retired Army Gen. Jack Keane, to take the new high-powered job, Bush finally gave the “war czar” role to Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, a known critic of Bush’s troop escalation in Iraq.

»Though Bush insists that he’s “a commander guy” who follows the advice of experienced generals, the appointment of Lute belies Bush’s claim. The reality is that last December Bush and his neoconservative advisers overruled the judgments of the two field commanders for Iraq and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in ordering the “surge.”

»Bush then replaced the field commanders, Gens. John Abizaid and George Casey, with Admiral William Fallon and Gen. David Petraeus. That allowed the President to resume the fiction, at least temporarily, that he listens to his commanders while castigating his Democratic critics as “politicians in Washington” who think they know best.

»Abizaid, Casey, the Joint Chiefs, and new “war czar” Lute opposed the “surge” because they felt it would prove counterproductive, easing the pressure on the Iraqi army to take responsibility and on Iraq’s government to make necessary political concessions.

»In August 2005, Lute, the chief operation officer for the Joint Chiefs, argued for a significant reduction in U.S. troop levels. “You simply have to back off and let the Iraqis step forward,” Lute told the Financial Times. “You have to undercut the perception of occupation in Iraq.”

»In January 2006, Lute told PBS interviewer Charlie Rose that the U.S. military wanted “to see a smaller, lighter, less prominent U.S. force structure in Iraq,” both to deflect concerns about the U.S. occupation and to avoid a “dependency syndrome” inside Iraq’s government. [Washington Post, May 16, 2007]

»The views of Lute and many other U.S. commanders were reflected in the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which reported in December 2006 that the situation in Iraq was “grave and deteriorating” and recommended a drawdown of U.S. military forces combined with a stronger commitment to train Iraqi forces and renewed diplomatic talks with Iraq’s neighbors.

Bush bristled at the implied criticism of his work as “war president,” declaring: “This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it whatsoever.”»

Mis en ligne le 17 mai 2007 à 15H37