Odom is a frequent contributor to The National Interest, http://www.nationalinterest.org/ME2/default.asp
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/05/02/MNGM26EHUG1.DTL
> ...The deteriorating situation has spurred some military experts to join
> anti-war activists in calling for an unconditional U.S. pullout.
William Odom, a retired Army general who was director of the National Security Agency during the Reagan administration, said Iraqi public anger at the U.S. troop presence has spun irretrievably out of control. "The only question is how long we're going to wait to leave and what price we're going to have to pay if we try to stay," he said.
Odom, now a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, adds that the United Nations and Arab countries might be persuaded to send in peacekeepers to pick up the slack after the American withdrawal.
"But even if they don't, any continued U.S. troop presence is a losing proposition. Once you've done a stupid thing, you don't fix it by keeping doing it. Our troops are exposed; we're going to take more casualties without any capacity of destroying the enemy. That's a losing proposition."
America's Inadvertent Empire by William E. Odom, Robert Dujarric Yale Univ Pr; (March 10, 2004) -- Michael Pugliese