General William E. Odom had a heart attack and died at age 75 on Friday.

General Odom was one of those rare flag officers who have what it takes to see the truth wherever it hides and tell this truth to power as he recently did in Congress and in Countdown.  

(Countdown You Tube links below the fold)

In April 28th 2007 he gave the Democratic Response to a Bush address on Iraq

How I wish he could have served in an Obama administration.

By Candace Talmadge/North Star Writers Group

We’ve heard it all before.

Despite all the hot air it generated, testimony on Iraq this week before the Senate Armed Services Committee offered little in the way of real news or useful insight. Hiding behind Army Gen. David Petraeus’s medals and uniform, President Bush sent his proxy to Capitol Hill to repeat the administration’s threadbare mantras yet another time.

Just six days earlier, however, a different high-ranking U.S. military officer spoke to the senators – Lt. Gen. William E. Odom, now retired. "The surge is prolonging instability, not creating the conditions for unity as the president claims," his testimony began.

"The decline in violence reflects a dispersion of power to dozens of local strong men who distrust the government and occasionally fight among themselves," Odom explained. "Thus the basic military situation is far worse because of the proliferation of armed groups under local military chiefs who follow a proliferating number of political bosses.

Screw Patreus, Crocker, and the rest of the dysfunctional clowns in Washington DC that are trying to keep us mired in the debacle that is Iraq. Despite what our corrupt mainstream media says, we can get out of Iraq and end the Iraq war in a timely, prompt fashion. The way out is quite clear actually: Assemble the proper leadership to effect such a withdrawal.

One of the first steps to effect a proper end to this improper war should be painfully obvious to the educated among the anti-war crowd: When Barack Obama takes the presidential oath of office next January, he should name Lt General William Odom as his Secretary of Defense.

April 7th is World Health Day, and today, we will be taking a look at some of the serious health problems around the world and what Barack Obama plans to do about global health.

UN aims for an AIDS-free Generation:

The United Nations is intensifying its worldwide efforts to help create a new generation of children who will be born free of HIV/AIDS, a disease that has particularly devastated parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

While the news is "mixed", achieving an "AIDS-free generation is possible", predicts a new U.N. report released Thursday.

In 2007, an estimated 290,000 children under age 15 died from AIDS, and 12.1 million children in sub-Saharan Africa lost one or both parents to the widespread disease.

"For millions of children, HIV and AIDS have starkly altered the experience of growing up," says the report.

       Retired three-star Army General William Odom threw Commander Guy under the bus today.  And Odom is no ordinary three-star.  From 1985-1988 he served as chief of the NSA under Ronald Reagan.  
       So take a deep breath, Red America: It’s going to be hard to spin this one.

General Odom, a powerful and credible critic of Bush's Mesopotamic folly, says it's time for Congress to do its job:

If the Democrats truly want to succeed in forcing President Bush to begin withdrawing from Iraq, the first step is to redefine supporting the troops" as withdrawing them, citing the mass of accumulating evidence of the psychological as well as the physical damage that the president is forcing them to endure because he did not raise adequate forces. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress could confirm this evidence and lay the blame for "not supporting the troops" where it really belongs – on the president. And they could rightly claim to the public that they are supporting the troops by cutting off the funds that he uses to keep U.S. forces in Iraq.

The public is ahead of the both branches of government in grasping this reality, but political leaders and opinion makers in the media must give them greater voice.

Congress clearly and indisputably has two powers over the executive: the power of the purse and the power to impeach. Instead of using either, members of congress are wasting their time discussing feckless measures like a bill that "de-authorizes the war in Iraq." That is toothless unless it is matched by a cut-off of funds....

To force him to begin a withdrawal before then, the first step should be to rally the public by providing an honest and candid definition of what "supporting the troops" really means and pointing out who is and who is not supporting our troops at war. The next step should be a flat refusal to appropriate money for to be used in Iraq for anything but withdrawal operations with a clear deadline for completion.

The final step should be to put that president on notice that if [he]ignores this legislative action and tries to extort Congress into providing funds by keeping U.S. forces in peril, impeachment proceeding will proceed in the House of Representatives. Such presidential behavior surely would constitute the "high crime" of squandering the lives of soldiers and Marines for his own personal interest.

Hear, hear. Thank you Gen. Odom for pointing out the responsibility, the capacity, and the duty of this Congress to execute its power of the purse to end this war. This is precisely the prescription that can bring this debacle to an end before January, 2009.

(H/T Aravosis.)

When I first read a policy paper put out by Gen. Odom, former NSA official what crossed my mind was I would have to be crazy to think we could get everyone on board, then I read the whole thing. Gen. Odom has made what I believe to be a rational solution to Iraq and it's surrounding problems.

WASHINGTON: Increasingly bogged down in the sands of Iraq, the US thrashes about looking for an honorable exit. Restoring cooperation between Washington and Tehran is the single most important step that could be taken to rescue the US from its predicament in Iraq.

A simple statement loaded with the facts of what must be done. Our biggest hurdle is how we can manage to work with Iran. I doubt we can while Bush and Cheney are in office, but that does not mean we can't start down this road via different avenues. Got your attention ?

Bush Has Gone AWOL by General William Odom

"In principle, I do not favor Congressional involvement in the execution of U.S. foreign and military policy. I have seen its perverse effects in many cases. The conflict in Iraq is different. Over the past couple of years, the President has let it proceed on automatic pilot, making no corrections in the face of accumulating evidence that his strategy is failing and cannot be rescued.

"Thus, he lets the United States fly further and further into trouble, squandering its influence, money, and blood, facilitating the gains of our enemies. The Congress is the only mechanism we have to fill this vacuum in command judgment.

"To put this in a simple army metaphor, the Commander-in-Chief seems to have gone AWOL, that is ‘absent without leave.’ He neither acts nor talks as though he is in charge. Rather, he engages in tit-for-tat games.

"Some in Congress on both sides of the aisle have responded with their own tits-for-tats. These kinds of games, however, are no longer helpful, much less amusing. They merely reflect the absence of effective leadership in a crisis. And we are in a crisis.

That’s the headline concerning Iraq in the UK’s Guardian today.  The story says that General Petraeus’ Best and the Brightest have concluded:

An elite team of officers advising the US commander, General David Petraeus, in Baghdad has concluded that they have six months to win the war in Iraq - or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat.

Six months to win the war?  Ain’t gonna happen.   Why is it that it seems when talking or predicting anything about Iraq that it’s always been that in the next six months?  Perhaps this group of the Best and Brightest needs to read General Odom’s article in the WaPo titled:  Victory is not an Option.  

These commanders have been dealt a losing hand.  The Vietnam style collapse in public opinion they fear has already happened.

More below:

The Bush Administration has been very successful in controlling the debate on the Iraq war. In a remarkable bit of political jujitsu the Administration pivoted from the findings of the Iraq Study Group that the United States should withdraw from Iraq to a debate on whether to escalate the war or not. By introducing the "surge" into the debate the Administration effectively tied the Democrats in a knot. Instead of debating the withdrawal from Iraq, the Democrats in both the House and the Senate have been debating whether to "surge" or not to "surge" - the withdrawal question was buried deep while the Democrats looked for a politically safe position against an escalation in Iraq. The Democrats have been embarrassingly outmaneuvered. It is time to put the political mathematics aside and debate the national interest. It is time to shift the debate back to the question of withdrawal from Iraq.

I have seen and heard some serious beatdowns of rightwing idiots, but I have not seen anything like this.  Hewitt interviews Gen. Odom and throws every rightwing talking point/fantasy at Odom and he just destroys every last one of them.

The House this week is considering a resolution opposing the President's plan to escalate the conflict in Iraq.

This resolution reflects the will of the American people.  Americans said at the polls last November that they wanted this war to end and for our troops to be withdrawn from the civil war that rages in Iraq.

Now that the President has submitted his budget and the House has begun work on the funding resolutions for fiscal year 2008, Democrats have turned their attention to stopping the president's push for more war.   This week's resolution marks the first step in that process.

• Former NSA director and retired Lieutenant General William Odom writes in the Washington Post that Victory is Not an Option.

  Too many lawmakers have fallen for the myths that are invoked to try to sell the president's new war aims. Let us consider the most pernicious of them.

  1. We must continue the war to prevent the terrible aftermath that will occur if our forces are withdrawn soon. Reflect on the double-think of this formulation. We are now fighting to prevent what our invasion made inevitable! Undoubtedly we will leave a mess -- the mess we created, which has become worse each year we have remained. Lawmakers gravely proclaim their opposition to the war, but in the next breath express fear that quitting it will leave a blood bath, a civil war, a terrorist haven, a "failed state," or some other horror. But this "aftermath" is already upon us; a prolonged U.S. occupation cannot prevent what already exists.

• Some South Dakota Republicans have introduced a new bill banning abortion after the last one was voted out in November.
• The Nation has another entry in the "Worst President Ever" debate.  Funny how frequently that question has been debated over the past few years.
• At Calitics, dday looks at how Republicans are dealing with an emerging scandal around Rep. Gary Miller's land deals.

I couldn't have said it better myself, and they are the words of General Odom, ret., who now speaks out clearly in the pages of WAPO.

To expect any Iraqi leader who can hold his country together to be pro-American, or to share American goals, is to abandon common sense. It took the United States more than a century to get over its hostility toward British occupation. (In 1914, a majority of the public favored supporting Germany against Britain.) Every month of the U.S. occupation, polls have recorded Iraqis' rising animosity toward the United States. Even supporters of an American military presence say that it is acceptable temporarily and only to prevent either of the warring sides in Iraq from winning.

Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz and their sock-puppet Bush committed a strategic blunder of historic and catastrophic dimensions in Iraq. Sen. John Warner will regret, to his dying day, that he turned tail on his own "non-binding" resolution on the war. The entire thinking behind the illegal assault on Iraq was flawed, built on suppositions and on actual and deliberate denial of fact.

More.

I picked this up via a link at TPM and it's so logical and so in line with my perceptions that I think it deserves a wide audience.

Strategic Errors of Monumental Proportions
What Can Be Done in Iraq?

It's hard to excerpt so I'll just quote the first part and encourage you to follow the link to the rest.

Strategic Overview

The role that US military forces can play in that conflict is seriously limited by all the political decisions the US government has already taken. The most fundamental decision was setting as its larger strategic purpose the stabilization of the region by building a democracy in Iraq and encouraging its spread. This, of course, was to risk destabilizing the region by starting a war.

On January 18, Lt. General William E. Odom  (US Army Ret) testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about Iraq, which he calls the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history.  You can find the full text of his testimony here.

Since it appears the Republicans have no plan to stop with the Kerry distraction -- and the stupidity of it is dulling my senses -- I would like to take the opportunity to reintroduce the Democrats to their primary issue: the failure of the war in Iraq.

The apparent disregard for the valuable advice of his retired generals is not the least of Bush's galling traits. One of the generals -- Lt. Gen. William E. Odom (Retired) -- appears immune to White House spin. He has presented a plan for complete withdrawal from Iraq within six months. He boldly entitled his new opinion peice "How to cut and run". The piece was published yesterday in the LA Times, but I am linking to The Hudson Institute, where Gen. Odom is now a senior fellow. He is also currently a professor at Yale.