Dianne Feinstein: “I voted last Thursday in opposition to the nomination of GEN George W. Casey, Jr., to be the 36th Chief of Staff of the…”

“I voted last Thursday in opposition to the nomination of GEN George W. Casey, Jr., to be the 36th Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army. This decision did not come easily, but after watching the slow failure of our Iraq strategy since the invasion in March 2003, it was time for some accountability. This is not to say General Casey, alone, should take the blame for the multitude of mistakes in Iraq. In fact, there is no doubt that the buck stops at the President's desk and this is his war. It is President Bush more than any other individual who is responsible for the dire situation we face in Iraq today. It was he who ordered the invasion and he who has stubbornly stuck to a strategy that has put success in Iraq increasingly out of reach. In addition to President Bush, Vice President Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld were some of the strongest public backers of the campaign to invade Iraq that failed to plan for the chaotic aftermath that we are now mired in today. And it should not be forgotten that it was George Tenet, then the Director of the CIA, who presided over the flawed intelligence analysis that suggested that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was in the process of developing a nuclear capability. It was Tenet who told us that this intelligence was a 'slam dunk.' Yet, that said, our military strategy over the past several years should not be free from criticism.”