Military
reporters and editors luncheon address washington d.c.
Ltg
(ret) ricardo s. Sanchez
12
october 2007
Military
reporters and editors address washington d.c.
12
october 2007
Good
afternoon ladies and gentlemen
.
Some
of you may not believe this but I am glad to be here. When Sig asked me if I
would consider addressing you there was no doubt that I should come into the
lion's den. This was important because I have firmly believed since Desert
Shield that it is necessary for the strength of our democracy that the military
and the press corps maintain a strong, mutually respectful and enabling
relationship. This continues to be problematic for our country, especially
during times of war. One of the greatest military correspondents of our time,
Joe Galloway, made me a believer when he joined the 24th infantry Division
during Desert Storm.
Today,
I will attempt to do two things - first I will give you my assessment of the
military and press relationship and then I will provide you some thoughts on
the current state of our war effort.
As
all of you know I have a wide range of relationships and experiences with our
nations military writers and editors. There are some in your ranks who I
consider to be the epitome of journalistic professionalism - Joe Galloway, Thom
Shanker, Sig Christensen, and John Burns immediately come to mind. They
exemplify what America should demand of our journalists - tough reporting that
relies upon integrity, objectivity and fairness to give accurate and thorough
accounts that strengthen our freedom of the press and in turn our democracy. On
the other hand, unfortunately, I have issued ultimatums to some of you for
unscrupulous reporting that was solely focused on supporting your agenda and
preconcieved notions of what our military had done. I also refused to talk to
the European Stars and Stripes for the last two years of my command in Germany
for their extreme bias and single minded focus on Abu Ghraib.
Let
me review some of the descriptive phrases that have been used by some of you
that have made my personal interfaces with the press corps difficult:
"dictatorial
and somewhat dense",
"not
a strategic thought",
Liar,
"does
not get it" and
The
most inexperienced ltg.
In
some cases I have never even met you, yet you feel qualified to make character
judgments that are communicated to the world. My experience is not unique and
we can find other examples such as the treatment of Secretary Brown during
Katrina. This is the worst display of journalism imaginable by those of us that
are bound by a strict value system of selfless service, honor and integrity.
Almost invariably, my perception is that the sensationalistic value of these
assessments is what provided the edge that you seek for self agGrandizement or
to advance your individual quest for getting on the front page with your
stories! As I understand it, your measure of worth is how many front page
stories you have written and unfortunately some of you will compromise your
integrity and display questionable ethics as you seek to keep America informed.
This is much like the intelligence analysts whose effectiveness was measured by
the number of intelligence reports he produced. For some, it seems that as long
as you get a front page story there is little or no regard for the
"collateral damage" you will cause. Personal reputations have no
value and you report with total impunity and are rarely held accountable for
unethical conduct.
Given
the near instantaneous ability to report actions on the ground, the responsibility
to accurately and truthfully report takes on an unprecedented importance. The
speculative and often uninformed initial reporting that characterizes our media
appears to be rapidly becoming the standard of the industry. An Arab proverb
states - "Four things come not back: the spoken word, the spent arrow, the
past, the neglected opportunity." once reported, your assessments become
conventional wisdom and nearly impossible to change. Other major challenges are
your willingness to be manipulated by "high level officials" who leak
stories and by lawyers who use hyperbole to strengthen their arguments. Your
unwillingness to accurately and prominently correct your mistakes and your
agenda driven biases contribute to this corrosive environment. All of these challenges
combined create a media environment that does a tremendous disservice to
America. Over the course of this war tactically insignificant events have
become strategic defeats for America because of the tremendous power and impact
of the media and by extension you the journalist. In many cases the media has
unjustly destroyed the individual reputations and careers of those involved. We
realize that because of the near real time reporting environment that you face
it is difficult to report accurately. In my business one of our fundamental
truths is that "the first report is always wrong." Unfortunately, in
your business "the first report" gives Americans who rely on the
snippets of CNN, if you will, their "truths" and perspectives on an
issue. As a corollary to this deadline driven need to publish "initial
impressions or observations" versus objective facts there is an additional
challenge for us who are the subject of your reporting. When you assume that
you are correct and on the moral high ground on a story because we have not
respond to questions you provided is the ultimate arrogance and distortion of
ethics. One of your highly respected fellow journalists once told me that there
are some amongst you who "feed from a pig's trough." If that is who I
am dealing with then I will never respond otherwise we will both get dirty and
the pig will love it. This does not mean that your story is accurate.
I do
not believe that this is what our forefathers intended. The code of ethics for
the society of professional journalists states:
...Public enlightenment is
the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the
journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and
comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all
media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty.
Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility
the
basic ethics of a journalist that calls for:
1.
Seeking truth,
2.
Providing fair and comprehensive account of events and issues
3.
Thoroughness and honesty
All
are victims of the massive agenda driven competition for economic or political
supremacy. The death knell of your ethics has been enabled by your parent
organizations who have chosen to align themselves with political agendas. What
is clear to me is that you are perpetuating the corrosive partisan politics
that is destroying our country and killing our servicemembers who are at war.
My
assessment is that your profession, to some extent, has strayed from these
ethical standards and allowed external agendas to manipulate what the American
public sees on TV, what they read in our newspapers and what they see on the
web. For some of you, just like some of our politicians, the truth is of little
to no value if it does not fit your own preconceived notions, biases and
agendas.
It is
astounding to me when I hear the vehement disagreement with the military's
forays into information operations that seek to disseminate the truth and
inform the Iraqi people in order to counter our enemy's blatant propaganda. As
I assess various media entities, some are unquestionably engaged in political
propaganda that is uncontrolled. There is no question in my mind that the
strength our democracy and our freedoms remain linked to your ability to
exercise freedom of the press - I adamantly support this basic foundation of
our democracy and completely supported the embedding of media into our
formations up until my last day in uniform. The issue is one of maintaining
professional ethics and standards from within your institution. Military
leaders must accept that these injustices will happen and whether they like
what you print or not they must deal with you and enable you, if you are an
ethical journalist.
Finally,
I will leave this subject with a question that we must ask ourselves--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?
Let
me now transition to our current national security condition.
As we
all know war is an extension of politics and when a nation goes to war it must
bring to bear all elements of power in order to win. War-fighting is not solely
the responsibility of the military commander unless he has been given the
responsibility and resources to synchronize the political, economic and
informational power of the nation. So who is responsible for developing the
grand strategy that will allow America to emerge victorious from this
generational struggle against extremism?
After
more than four years of fighting, America continues its desperate struggle in
Iraq without any concerted effort to devise a strategy that will achieve
"victory" in that war torn country or in the greater conflict against
extremism. From a catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan
to the administration's latest "surge" strategy, this administration
has failed to employ and synchronize its political, economic and military
power. The latest "revised strategy" is a desperate attempt by an
administration that has not accepted the political and economic realities of
this war and they have definitely not communicated that reality to the American
people. An even worse and more disturbing assessment is that America cannot
achieve the political consensus necessary to devise a grand strategy that will
synchronize and commit our national power to achieve victory in Iraq. Some of
you have heard me talk about our nations crisis in leadership. Let me
elaborate.
While
the politicians espouse their rhetoric designed to preserve their reputations
and their political power-our soldiers die! Our national leadership ignored the
lessons of WWII as we entered into this war and to this day continue to believe
that victory can be achieved through the application of military power alone.
Our forefathers understood that tremendous economic and political capacity had
to be mobilized, synchronized and applied if we were to achieve victory in a
global war. That has been and continues to be the key to victory in Iraq.
Continued manipulations and adjustments to our military strategy will not
achieve victory. The best we can do with this flawed approach is stave off
defeat. The administration, congress and the entire interagency, especially the
department of state, must shoulder the responsibility for this catastrophic
failure and the American people must hold them accountable.
There
has been a glaring, unfortunate, display of incompetent strategic leadership
within our national leaders. As a Japanese proverb says, "Action without
vision is a nightmare." There is no question that America is living a
nightmare with no end in sight.
Since
2003, the politics of war have been characterized by partisanship as the
Republican and Democratic parties struggled for power in Washington. National
efforts to date have been corrupted by partisan politics that have prevented us
from devising effective, executable, supportable solutions. At times, these
partisan struggles have led to political decisions that endangered the lives of
our sons and daughters on the battlefield. The unmistakable message was that
political power had greater priority than our national security objectives.
Overcoming this strategic failure is the first step toward achieving victory in
Iraq - without bipartisan cooperation we are doomed to fail. There is nothing
going on today in Washington that would give us hope.
If we
succeed in crafting a bipartisan strategy for victory, then America must hold
all national agencies accountable for developing and executing the political
and economic initiatives that will bring about stability, security, political
and economic hope for all Iraqis. That has not been successful to
date.
Congress
must shoulder a significant responsibility for this failure since there has
been no focused oversight of the nation's political and economic initiatives in
this war. Exhortations, encouragements, investigations, studies and discussions
will not produce success -this appears to be the nation's only alternative
since the transfer of sovereignty. Our continued neglect will only extend the
conflict. America's dilemma is that we no longer control the ability to
directly influence the Iraqi institutions. The sovereign Iraqi government must
be cooperative in these long-term efforts. That is not likely at the levels
necessary in the near term.
Our
commanders on the ground will continue to make progress and provide time for
the development of a grand strategy. That will be wasted effort as we have seen
repeatedly since 2003. In the mean time our soldiers, sailors, airmen and
marines will continue to die.
Since
the start of this war, America's leadership has known that our military alone
could not achieve victory in Iraq. Starting in July 2003, the message
repeatedly communicated to Washington by military commanders on the ground was
that the military alone could never achieve "victory" in Iraq. Our
soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines were destined to endure decades of
fighting and killing people without the focused, synchronized application of
all elements of national power. This was a necessary condition to stabilize
Iraq. Any sequential solutions would lead to a prolonged conflict and increased
resistance.
By
neglect and incompetence at the national security council level, that is the
path our political leaders chose and now America, more precisely the American
military, finds itself in an intractable situation. Clearly, mistakes have been
made by the American military in its application of power but even its greatest
failures in this war can be linked to America's lack of commitment, priority
and moral courage in this war effort. Without the sacrifices of our magnificent
young men and women in uniform, Iraq would be chaotic well beyond anything
experienced to date.
What
America must accept as a reality at this point in the war is that our Army and
Marine Corps are struggling with the deployment schedules. What is clear is
that the deployment cycles of our formations has been totally disrupted, the
resourcing and training challenges are significant and America's ability to
sustain a force level of 150,000(+) is nonexistent without drastic measures
that have been politically unacceptable to date. The drawdown of the surge to
pre-surge levels was never a question. America must understand that it will
take the Army at least a decade to fix the damage that has been done to its
full spectrum readiness. The president's recent statement to America that he
will listen to military commanders is a matter of political expediency.
Our
Army and Marine Corps will execute as directed, perform magnificently and never
complain-that is the ethic of our warriors and that is what America expects of
them. They will not disappoint us. But America must know the pressures that are
being placed on our military institutions as we fight this war. All Americans
must demand that these deploying formations are properly resourced, properly
trained and we must never allow America's support for the soldier to falter. A
critical, objective assessment of our nation's ability to execute our national
security strategy must be conducted. If we are objective and honest, the
results will be surprising to all Americans. There is unacceptable strategic
risk.
America
has no choice but to continue our efforts in Iraq. A precipitous withdrawal
will unquestionably lead to chaos that would endanger the stability of the
greater Middle East. If this occurs it would have significant adverse effects
on the international community. Coalition and American force presence will be
required at some level for the foreseeable future. Given the lack of a grand
strategy we must move rapidly to minimize that force presence and allow the
Iraqis maximum ability to exercise their sovreignty in achieving a solution.
At no
time in America's history has there been a greater need for bipartisan
cooperation. The threat of extremism is real and demands unified action at the
same levels demonstrated by our forefathers during World War I and World War
II. America has failed to date.
This
endeavor has further been hampered by a coalition effort that can be
characterized as hasty, un-resourced and often uncoordinated and unmanaged.
Desperately needed, but essentially ignored, were the political and economic
coalitions that were the key to victory and stability in the immediate
aftermath of the conventional war. The military coalition which was hastily put
together in the summer of 2003 was problematic given the multitude of national
caveats, inadequate rules of engagement and other restrictions on the forces
deployed. Even so, the military coalition was the most extensive, productive
and effective deployment of forces in decades. Today, we continue our inept
coalition management efforts and, in fact, we are facing ever-decreasing troop
commitments by our military coalition partners. America's "revised"
strategy does not address coalition initiatives and challenges. We cannot
afford to continue this struggle without the support of our coalition partners
across all elements of national power. Without the political and economic
elements of power complementing the tremendous efforts of our military, America
is assured of failure. We continue on that path. America's political leadership
must come together and develop a bipartisan grand strategy to achieve victory
in this conflict. The simultaneous application of our political, economic,
information and military elements of power is the only course of action that
will provide a chance of success.
Achieving
unity of effort in Iraq has been elusive to date primarily because there is no
entity that has the authority to direct action by our interagency. Our national
security council has been a catastrophic failure. Furthermore, America's
ability to hold the interagency accountable for their failures in this war is
non-existent. This must change. As a nation we must recognize that the enemy we
face is committed to destroying our way of life. This enemy is arguably more
dangerous than any threat we faced in the Twentieth Century. Our political
leaders must place national security objectives above partisan politics, demand
interagency unity of effort, and never again commit America to war without a
grand strategy that embraces the basic tenets of the Powell Doctrine.
It
seems that congress recognizes that the military cannot achieve victory alone
in this war. Yet they continue to demand victory from our military. Who will
demand accountability for the failure of our national political leaders
involved in the management this war? They have unquestionably been derelict in
the performance of their duty. In my profession, these type of leaders would
immediately be relieved or courtmartialed.
America
has sent our soldiers off to war and they must be supported at all costs until
we achieve victory or until our political leaders decide to bring them home.
Our political and military leaders owe the soldier on the battlefield the
strategy, the policies and the resources to win once committed to war. America
has not been fully committed to win this war. As the military commanders on the
ground have stated since the summer of 2003, the U.S. Military alone cannot win
this war. America must mobilize the interagency and the political and economic
elements of power, which have been abject failures to date, in order to achieve
victory. Our nation has not focused on the greatest challenge of our lifetime.
The political and economic elements of power must get beyond the politics to
ensure the survival of America. Partisan politics have hindered this war effort
and America should not accept this. America must demand a unified national
strategy that goes well beyond partisan politics and places the common good
above all else. Too often our politicians have chosen loyalty to their
political party above loyalty to the Constitution because of their lust for
power. Our politicians must remember their oath of office and recommit
themselves to serving our nation and not their own self-interests or political
party. The security of America is at stake and we can accept nothing less.
Anything short of this is unquestionably dereliction of duty.
These
are fairly harsh assessments of the military and press relationship and the
status of our war effort. I remain optimistic and committed to the enabling of
media operations under the toughest of conditions in order to keep the world and
the American people informed. Our military must embrace you for the sake our
democracy but you owe them ethical journalism.
Thank
you for this opportunity.
May
God bless you and may God bless America.
Praise
be to the Lord my rock who trains my fingers for battle and my hands for
war.
Thank you.