Richard Klass

Retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Richard Klass is an independent national security consultant. He is also the President of Veterans Institute for Security & Democracy, and has spoken at a Veterans for Kerry panel on CSPAN on Sept 12 2004, where he said the three-month-old group was funded mainly by lawyers and labor unions.

War in Iraq
"The most substantial criticism of the Bush failure in Iraq, not surprisingly, came from former CENTCOM head, Gen. Joseph Hoar, and his co-author, Col. Klass. They argued that it is impossible to succeed in Iraq, without first addressing the fact that the war was wrong, and was based on faulty assumptions and faked intelligence. 'Saddam, it is increasingly clear,' they wrote, 'was safely in a box and was being kept there... The Iraq war has made the country less safe' for six reasons they itemized:


 * 1. The U.S. military, especially the Army, 'has been stretched to the breaking point,' meaning the U.S. is unable to respond to other crisis spots, including North Korea.
 * 2. The Iraq war diverted resources away from the war on terror, resulting in a Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan and a regroupment of Al Qaeda, while the U.S. was tunnel-visioned on Iraq.
 * 3. The costs of the Iraq war and aftermath have strained the federal budget and badly compromised homeland security.
 * 4. If Saddam had any WMD, they are now in the hands of terrorists and others hostile to the U.S.A.
 * 5. 'We have created a failed state in Iraq,' in which American GIs constitute viable targets for jihadists. 'Radical Arabs from outside Iraq have answered Bush's call to 'bring 'em on' and entered the shooting gallery.' *6. The Bush Administration's unilateralism has 'weakened and embittered our allies and undercut the United Nations.'


 * "The U.S., they concluded, cannot win the war on terror without allies or the UN." October 12, 2003, Washington Post

See Operation Iraqi Freedom: Military and Political Dissent.
 * Director, Council for a Livable World