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A goodbye | Looking back at Nieman Watchdog
COMMENTARY | August 20, 2012
Barry Sussman reflects on the accomplishments of the Nieman Watchdog website, and the challenges to watchdog journalism that remain ahead.

The Essential Odom | Farewell to a general who saw everything so clearly
COMMENTARY | September 09, 2008
Lt. Gen. William E. Odom, who was laid to rest Monday at Arlington National Cemetery, was the earliest, most prescient and most persistent senior military critic of the war in Iraq. Here's an annotated bibliography of his commentaries.

A frequent Watchdog contributor | Soldier-scholar-war critic William E. Odom dies
COMMENTARY | June 02, 2008
An outspoken critic of the Iraq war, the retired general was one of the first to argue strongly for a full withdrawal of American troops.

Odom's view | The surge is prolonging instability, not creating the conditions for success
COMMENTARY | April 02, 2008
Gen. William Odom suggests that Congress ask the Bush administration to name a single historical case where power has been aggregated successfully from local strongmen to a central government except through bloody violence leading to a single winner. He once again calls rapid withdrawal from Iraq the only effective and moral choice.

Speaking out | A hero of the war
COMMENTARY | February 29, 2008
Greg Mitchell, whose new book chronicles the press’s failings before and after the invasion of Iraq, gives credit to one of the rare public figures brave enough to speak out against the war early and often: Gen. William E. Odom.

Odom's view | The war and the recession: a connection?
ASK THIS | February 14, 2008
The economy has supplanted the war at the top of the national agenda – but only because of two mistaken perceptions, writes Gen. William Odom. Contrary to popular belief, the surge isn’t working; it’s just postponing the inevitable. And that looming recession? A trillion-plus dollars squandered in war spending may have something to do with it.

Waiting for Petraeus | Questions for Congress, for Bush and for Petraeus
ASK THIS | September 06, 2007
General William Odom, a longtime advocate of pulling American troops out of Iraq, sees legislators as irresponsible and bamboozled by Bush. He calls the new twists in Bush’s war policies muddled, contradictory, ludicrous and tragic.

Odom's view | The path out of Iraq starts with Iran
COMMENTARY | June 26, 2007
Restoring cooperation between Washington and Tehran is the single most important step that could be taken to rescue the US from its predicament in Iraq, writes Gen. William Odom.

Odom on the radio | 'The Commander-in-Chief seems to have gone AWOL'
COMMENTARY | April 28, 2007
Retired Gen. William Odom, who ran the National Security Agency under President Reagan, was an unusual choice to deliver the weekly Democratic radio adddress. His message: No effective new strategy can be devised for the United States until it begins withdrawing its forces from Iraq.

Pullout in 4 to 9 months? | Odom on Iraq, Iran and what it means to be a democracy
SHOWCASE | February 20, 2007
There are few true democracies in the world, William Odom says in a radio interview. ‘If the Iraqis and other Arab countries want to become liberal systems, they can do it. They’re not going to do it the way we’re headed there now.’

Clear-eyed reporting needed | Six brutal truths about Iraq
COMMENTARY | December 11, 2006
General William Odom, one of the earliest advocates of an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, attacks some of the mythologies that are interfering with an honest debate about how to proceed in the Middle East and says the media have failed to recognize dramatic changes in the region.

For the U.S., Iraq is more devastating | Iraq through the prism of Vietnam
COMMENTARY | March 08, 2006
Those who say Iraq is nothing like Vietnam have another guess coming, says retired Gen. William Odom. He lists striking similarities and asserts that only after it pulls out of Iraq can the U.S. hope for international support to deal with anti-Western forces.

The general's postscript | Odom: Want stability in the Middle East? Get out of Iraq!
COMMENTARY | November 11, 2005
In his last piece for NiemanWatchdog.org, retired Gen. William Odom argued that all the terrible things the Bush administration says would happen if we pulled our troops out of Iraq are happening already. In a new postscript, Odom writes that the converse is true as well: Bush says he wants to bring democracy and stability to the greater Middle East -- but in fact the only way to achieve that goal is to get out of Iraq now.

Covering the war | What’s wrong with cutting and running?
ASK THIS | August 03, 2005
Everything that opponents of a pullout say would happen if the U.S. left Iraq is happening already, says retired Gen. William E. Odom, the head of the National Security Agency during the Reagan administration. So why stay?