{"id":56082,"date":"2021-09-22T14:42:50","date_gmt":"2021-09-22T14:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/09\/22\/us-botched-the-response-to-covid-19-mcchrystal-says\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T08:37:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T08:37:23","slug":"us-botched-the-response-to-covid-19-mcchrystal-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2021\/09\/22\/us-botched-the-response-to-covid-19-mcchrystal-says\/","title":{"rendered":"US botched the response to COVID-19, McChrystal says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal<\/a> is about to have a new book out, and it has a big takeaway: We\u2019re not doing a great job of protecting ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRisk: A User\u2019s Guide<\/a>,\u201d out Oct. 5, takes a look at how leaders approach and handle risk<\/a>. McChrystal has found they focus more on the likelihood that something will or won\u2019t happen, and less on what to do when even the unlikely happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike many people, I\u2019ve lived a life that touched risk and dealt with risk, tried to mitigate risk or defeat risk,\u201d he told Military Times during a Sept. 7 interview. \u201cAnd over the years, I\u2019ve come to the conclusion, we don\u2019t do it very well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nowhere is that more stark than 18 months into the COVID-19 pandemic, as parts of the U.S. are ravaged by deaths and hospitalizations, while others have tamped their community transmission down to manageable levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe always knew another virus was going to come and threaten a pandemic,\u201d he said. \u201cWe not only knew it was inevitable, but we know how to deal with a threat like that through public health. And we blew it; we absolutely have flubbed the response.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than uniting as a country, he said, the U.S. fought dozens of small wars against the pandemic. Some states came up with a uniform plan, while in others, cities and counties had to fend for themselves, playing whack-a-mole with outbreak after outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, I think up front, we reached a conclusion through personal experience, that we\u2019re not good with risk,\u201d McChrystal said. \u201cAnd as we studied it, we concluded, we\u2019re the big reason. You know, the biggest risk to us is us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former commander of troops in Afghanistan, ousted in 2010 after making denigrating comments about the Obama administration during a Rolling Stone interview, compared the Global War on Terror to the pandemic response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like terrorism, he said, viruses mutate, but there are public health measures that can be taken to combat them.<\/p>\n\n\n\t