William Odom
William Odom
William Eldridge Odomwas a retired U.S. Army 3-star general, and former Director of the NSA under President Ronald Reagan, which culminated a 31-year career in military intelligence, mainly specializing in matters relating to the Soviet Union. After his retirement from the military, he became a think tank policy expert and a university professor and became known for his outspoken criticism of the Iraq War and warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. He died of an apparent heart attack at his vacation...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSoldier
Date of Birth23 June 1932
CountryUnited States of America
In reality, I don't think that many of the policies we've attempted to apply to deal with it are going to have any serious effect.
In World War II in Germany, we had a ration for one U.S. soldier, or one allied soldier for every twenty inhabitants. The ratio in Iraq is about one for a hundred and sixty.
I don't think that the war serves U.S. interests. I think Osama bin Laden's interests and the Iranian interests are very much served by it, and it's becoming a huge drain on our resources both material and political.
Therefore, once U.S. forces leave, it is almost inevitable that an anti-Western, anti-U.S. regime will arise.
We've already seen proliferation. We started it with Britain, then France. Then we benignly let the Israelis do it. The Pakistanis and the Indians have recently done it. The Chinese have nuclear weapons.
It was, however, in the interest of Osama bin Laden for us to destroy a secular Arab leader; it was very much in the interest of the Iranians because they wanted revenge against Saddam Hussein for Iraq's invasion in 1980.
Once we destroyed the Saddam regime, we knew there was going to be a civil war.
Second, recent polls over there show that the majority of Iraqis want us to leave precipitously.
I have never belonged to a party. I don't have party affiliation.
The presidents I served under don't have anything to do with my politics.
I will make a general statement that we have not had anything like the policy of holding people in high office responsible for their acts that I think we should.
I remember serving in Vietnam in that war, and many of us at the major Lieutenant Colonel, colonel level were frustrated that no one in the U.S. wanted to debate it that way.
While people out there on the spot certainly have to be held accountable for what they've done personally, the chain of command responsibility for this strikes me as just as important and should be dealt with.
It was not in our interest to enter Iraq in the first place.