General Odom says US has already failed in Iraq

Did anyone see Lt. Gen. William Odom on NBC's Today this morning? Odom is a real heavyweight -- former director of the National Security Agency, which is a sort of super CIA. He was a national security advisor in the Carter and Bush I ("Great Leader") administration. He is now based at the conservative, republican Hudson Institute and several universities.

He was saying this morning -- an he has repeated it to the Wall St Journal and now to UPI -- that the US has already failed in Iraq and needs to simply withdraw. Basically civil war and a failed state in Iraq would be more palatable from his perspective than what is going on now.

Strangely, he also said that Kerry would be less able to do what needs to be done than Bush II ("Dear Leader"). The guy is clearly republican and anti-Kerry, but the analysis of Bush's Iraq policy was amazingly dire.

If you saw it or read the interview, what do you think? Is the military establishment starting to revolt? I also read that a bunch of retired generals is about to come out with a devastating open letter about the failed Iraq policy to Dear Leader that will be similar to the open letter recently published by retired British diplomats to Tony Blair.

Here's an excerpt and a link

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040429-113745-2828r

Commentary: Looking for the exit
By Arnaud de Borchgrave
UPI Editor at Large
Published 4/29/2004 12:38 PM


WASHINGTON, April 29 (UPI) -- If it wasn't a quagmire, it was certainly quagmiry. And the first prominent retired general to break ranks with President Bush's Iraq war policy was a Republican who once headed the National Security Agency and also served as a deputy National Security Adviser. Gen. William E. Odom, a fluent Russian speaker who teaches at Georgetown and Yale, told the Wall Street Journal's John Harwood staying the course in Iraq is untenable.

It was hard to disagree with Odom's description of Mr. Bush's vision of reordering the Middle East by building a democracy in Iraq as a pipedream. His prescription: Remove U.S. forces "from that shattered country as rapidly as possible." Odom says bluntly, "we have failed," and "the issue is how high a price we're going to pay - less, by getting out sooner, or more, by getting out later."

At best, Iraq will emerge from the current geopolitical earthquake as "a highly illiberal democracy, inspired by Islamic culture, extremely hostile to the West and probably quite willing to fund terrorist organizations," Odom explained. If that wasn't enough to erode support for the war, Odom added, "The ability of Islamist militants to use Iraq as a beachhead for attacks against American interests elsewhere may increase."

Odom, who heads the pro-Republican Hudson Institute, also sees the sum total of what the U.S. occupation of Iraq has achieved is "the radicalization of Saudi Arabia and probably Egypt, too. And the longer we stay in Iraq, the more isolated America will become." ...

Or some choice bits... WSJ web is suscription only

And the fact that right-winger de Borchgrave wrote this in the right-wing (editorial page) WSJ, gives me great hope.
Thank you.

As opposed to Condi.