Mike Levin: “First, no one suggests that the commanders be absolved from any responsibility. In fact, when we asked General Casey…”

“First, no one suggests that the commanders be absolved from any responsibility. In fact, when we asked General Casey what mistakes had been made, he listed a number of mistakes in his own answers, including: We underestimated the ability of al-Qaida, the Sunni insurgents, to provoke sectarian conflict and failed to preempt the attack against the Golden Mosque in Samarra; we thought that as more security forces were trained and equipped we would be able to gradually shift ever increasing security responsibilities to them and thus reduce our forces proportionately. This is occurring slower than we originally projected. We were slow to anticipate the extent of the radical Shia death squads. He has acknowledged mistakes have been made. But the fundamental mistakes which have been made which caused us to be in the situation we are in were not George Casey's. Every commander makes mistakes. There is no commander I know of who would say he or she did not make mistakes. No one is absolving General Casey of the mistakes, which he is the first to acknowledge. The question is whether he is going to be held accountable--not for his mistakes but for the fundamental mistakes which were made by the civilian leadership of this Nation.”