To the Editor : Re '' Dash to Baghdad Left Top U.S . Generals Divided '' -LRB- '' Inside the Command '' series , front page , March 13 -RRB- : During the first days of the Iraq war , a lieutenant general with firsthand knowledge of conditions on the ground suggested to reporters that Saddam Hussein 's guerrilla fighters should be neutralized before the United States proceeded with a full-scale assault on Baghdad .