Video (12min 53sec) of Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.) encourages the US to Cut and Run as the only sensible policy. Gen. Odom spoke on January 12, 2007 at a forum on Iraq sponsored by the Congressional Progressive Caucus. "...When you start talking about counter insurgency, you are absolutely ignoring the central thing that Professor Polk was talking about and I'll say it in a little different direction. You cannot consolidate militarily before you consolidate politically. If there's not political consolidation there's no way for soldiers to be sure they want to commit their loyalties to any particular commander. My term for it is this - 'Colonialism by Ventriloquy'. We come in a train these people up. We're not like the British, the French where we've taken direct colonial control so we pay them to say what we want them to do and they say it and they don't do it.
"The other thing about 'Colonialism by Ventriloquy' is that my definition of a way, watching it in Viet Nam and watching it elsewhere. In Viet Nam I discovered one day that research had shown that the government of South Viet Nam was collecting probably no more than 10% of it's tax base. How was it deriving renevues to govern the country? It had turned the United States into it's tax base. And the VC, the Viet Cong, had come in a set up village organizations where they were collecting the taxes. So, an internal war is really about who's going to tax, and raise the resources. If you can tax, you can rule. If you can't tax, you can't rule.
"The first reality is: We can't prevent the turmoil and the killing. I don't disagree with the measures that have been suggested here to moderate it, make it less, but we are the cause. And the best thing we can do to let it die down earlier is to leave. While we're there perpetuating this, the key thing to remember is we are strategically and diplomatically paralysed. We cannot get allies to help us out. The precondition for a new strategy is to get out first. Once we start leaving, other countries will start paying attention. The aftermath is going to be far more devestating for the countries around Iraq than they will be for the United States. I think the Europeans will wake up to the fact that they will be more devastating for Europe than they will be for the US. Russia knows they will be devastating because Russia knows the Al Qaida cadres and others will head North after we get out..."
Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.), is a Senior Fellow with Hudson Institute and a professor at Yale University. As Director of the National Security Agency from 1985 to 1988, he was responsible for the nation's signals intelligence and communications security. From 1981 to 1985, he served as Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, the Army's senior intelligence officer.
From 1977 to 1981, General Odom was Military Assistant to the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs, Zbigniew Brzezinski. As a member of the National Security Council staff, he worked upon strategic planning, Soviet affairs, nuclear weapons policy, telecommunications policy, and Persian Gulf security issues. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1954, and received a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1970.
