Friday, June 11, 2004

Army Colonel retires - watch for the book

Colonel Douglas Macgregor had to agree not to talk about Iraq after the invasion of Baghdad in order for the Army to let him publish his book.

Col Macgregor, one of the most prominent uniformed advocates of US military reform, retired last week and is now criticising a "sycophantic" army culture that he blames for failures in Iraq and wasteful investments in new technology.

"I love the army and I was sorry to leave it," Col Macgregor says. "But I saw no possibility of fundamentally positive reform and reorganisation of the force for the current strategic environment or the future."

...Col Macgregor warns that those who advocate serious change in the military are not going to be popular. "It's a very sycophantic culture. The biggest problem we have inside the United States Army today - and in the Department of Defense at the senior level, but also within the officer corps - is that there are no arguments. Arguments are [seen as] a sign of dissent. Dissent equates to disloyalty."
  Financial Times article

And that comes directly from the top in this administration.