Gen. William Odom: Bush is destroying our army

In a searing indictment of the Bush Administration's policies in Iraq, Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.), former head of the NSA under the Reagan Administration, tells it like it is: the Iraq war is destroying our troops, and Bush’s obstinate refusal to admit defeat is causing the troops enormous psychological as well as physical harm.

The end of General Odom's piece is especially interesting, because he calls on Congress to press forward with impeachment if no other option is available, calling the squandering of military lives for personal gain a 'high crime':

The president is strongly motivated to string out the war until he leaves office, in order to avoid taking responsibility for the defeat he has caused and persisted in making greater each year for more than three years.

To force him to begin a withdrawal before then, the first step should be to rally the public by providing an honest and candid definition of what "supporting the troops" really means and pointing out who is and who is not supporting our troops at war. The next step should be a flat refusal to appropriate money for to be used in Iraq for anything but withdrawal operations with a clear deadline for completion.

The final step should be to put that president on notice that if ignores this legislative action and tries to extort Congress into providing funds by keeping U.S. forces in peril, impeachment proceeding will proceed in the House of Representatives. Such presidential behavior surely would constitute the "high crime" of squandering the lives of soldiers and Marines for his own personal interest.