Finding scapegoat for Iraq policy

To the editor: As usual, David Limbaugh has missed the point. In looking for scapegoats for a failed Iraq strategy, he heaps scorn on the senators who asked Gen. John Abizaid tough questions.

If Abizaid's assertions are correct, there is no military solution for Iraq. More soldiers won't help, he said. Yet more than 25,000 private mercenaries are being paid tax dollars to assist with security.

Abizaid's bottom-line opinion was to stay the course until enough Iraqis are trained to provide their country's security. Yet after nearly four years we have not trained even one battalion of Iraqi troops that can function without embedded American personnel.

He offered no alternative tactical solutions. But that would be a tacit admission of his ineffective leadership. Why would Limbaugh expect Abizaid to admit anything other than what he said?

Moreover, the Bush administration's stock assertion that it is letting the generals decide what is needed in Iraq shows a fundamental flaw. Combat leaders should control tactical field operations. Strategy is a function of the commander in chief.

By asking our armed forces to solve an intractable political problem, the chief executive hopes to make our military the scapegoat for his misguided foreign-policy decisions.

CHRIS D. MOORE, Cape Girardeau