There has been a great deal of speculation that John Kerry is considering retired Marine General Anthony Zinni as a potential vice presidential running mate. Zinni is the former Commander and Chief of U.S. Central Command and was responsible for military operation in an area that stretched from the Horn of Africa, across the Arabian Penisula, to South and Central Asia. The General is a man of unquestioned integrity and a respected military commander and would lend such much needed gravitas to the Democratic ticket.
But to be a success leader in the executive branch requires more than just an impeccable character. It also requires sound policy ideas. In this respect, the General falls short.
Take, for example, his views on the Iraq war. Steve Bainbridge points out a recent speech by in which Zinni lists 10 mistakes made by the administration. Bainbridge, a conservative Republican, calls the article “quite damning."
Before we examine the list of mistakes, though, we should look at another speech that the General gave for the Center for Defense Information (CDI) prior to the war. In October 2002, Zinni offered a list of 10 conditions that must be met for the Iraq war to turn out in the “best possible way":
#1 The coalition is in
#2 The war is short
#3 Destruction is light
#4 Israel is out
#5 The street is quiet
#6 Order is kept
#7 The burden is shared
#8 Change is orderly
#9 The military is not stuck
#10 Other commitments are met
Based on his own criteria, the conditions for #2-6 and #10 were met while #7-9 are still in the process of being determined. The only standard for success that fails to meet his approval is #1. Like many others he was under the impression that we needed the support of the permanent members of the UN Security Council and the Arab league countries in order to lead a successful invasion into Iraq.
Once we set the establishment of democracy in Iraq as one of our objectives we lost all possibility of including our Arab allies. None of the autocratic regimes in the area want a successful Arab democracy in the region and to expect these monarchial powers to aid in laying a foundation that would lead to their eventual lose of power is simply ridiculous. Zinni is smart enough to know better than to have expected the Arab street to participate.
As for the Security Council, it is now becoming apparent why France and Russia were against the overthrow of Saddam -- they were on his payroll. Obviously, Zinni couldn’t have known this at the time he established this criteria. But it shows the fallacy in believing that these countries will put international security ahead of their own economic interests.
Considering that the war met almost all of the conditions outlined by Zinni, we should expect him to congratulate the Bush Administration for a successful operation. But you don’t improve your chances of earning the Democratic VP nomination by praising the current Commander in Chief, so Zinni has simply moved the goalposts. He now has a new post hoc criteria listing 10 mistakes we made in the war in Iraq.
The first mistake that will be recorded in history, the belief that containment as a policy doesn't work.
If Zinni had bothered to read the “first draft of history" he would have found that this idea is already being discredited. The Oil-for-Food scandal has proven that a policy of containment not only failed but helped to strengthen Saddam’s control over his people. By giving him complete control over both the country’s oil resources and the importation of all goods, the UN allowed him to grow richer as his people grew poorer. While Saddam was busy filling the mass graves with his own people, the French and Russians were filling the tyrant’s coffers with kickbacks. Containment may have kept Saddam from killing Kuwatis and Iraqi Kurds but it did not stop him from slaughtering his own people.
The second mistake I think history will record is that the strategy was flawed.
Zinni is a firm believer that the key to peace, prosperity, and stability in the Middle East is for the Israelis and the Palestinians to reach a peace agreement. The fact that there is not a shred of evidence to support this contention doesn’t seem to bother the general. The idea that a Palestinian state will assuage the hatred Arabs in the region have for Israel is completely ludicrous. How such a knowledgeable military officer can label this a “strategy" is beyond my comprehension. It certainly raises questions about his ability to understand the situation in the Middle East.
The third mistake, I think was one we repeated from Vietnam, we had to create a false rationale for going in to get public support.
Zinni contends that we did not face an “imminent or a serious threat" from Iraq. His “strategy" was to do nothing and pray for the best. When asked in 2002 if the war was unavoidable, he answered:
I do think eventually Saddam has to be dealt with. That could happen in many ways. It could happen that he just withers on the vine, he passes on to the afterlife, something happens within Iraq that changes things, he becomes less powerful, or the inspectors that go in actually accomplish something and eliminate potential weapons of mass destruction -- but I doubt this -- that might be there.
Saddam had invaded Kuwait over a decade earlier and had been under economic sanctions ever since. Instead of growing weaker, however, he managed to become even more powerful. Yet Zinni thinks the best approach is to “wait and see" what happens. Perhaps we should have waited for Uday or Qusay to take the helm before we decided to act. The overthrow of Saddam was already 15 years overdue; waiting would not have improved the situation.
We failed in number four, to internationalize the effort.
No, the international community failed us. Even when the entire world was convinced that Saddam had WMDs and a burgeoning nuclear program, the UN failed to take action. Why? Because they were benefiting financially from the status quo.
I think the fifth mistake was that we underestimated the task.
This has become a common complaint from the critics of the war. They would be more convincing if they could corroborate their contention by pointing out an example where the Administration believed the war and reconstruction were going to be a “cakewalk." No one -- particularly those in support of the war -- ever claimed that the undertaking would be easy.
The sixth mistake, and maybe the biggest one, was propping up and trusting the exiles, the infamous "Gucci Guerillas" from London.
Considering the recent revelations about Chalabi this may well have been a mistake. What Zinni fails to point out, however, is that the “Gucci Guerillas" have not played a significant role in the reconstruction process. The State department never trusted Chalabi and his cronies and kept him out of the loop as much as possible. Even Zinni admits in his statement that they were never really trusted. While it may have been a mistake it has had little impact on the outcome of the post-war efforts.
The seventh problem has been the lack of planning.
Zinni bases this on the fact that, while he was apprised of the military part of the planning process, he “didn't hear anything that told me that they had the scope of planning for the political reconstruction, the economic reconstruction, social reconstruction, the development of building of infrastructure for that country." Whether there is or is not a plan cannot be determined based solely on the fact that it wasn’t vetted by Zinni. Perhaps he should explain why he thinks he should have been privy to such information.
The eighth problem was the insufficiency of military forces on the ground.
Simply untrue. Again, Zinni is jumping on the latest bandwagon that says more forces on the ground would be the answer to all our problems. If our goal was to signal to the world that we were an occupying army then, by all means, we should have brought as many bodies as we could muster. But our goal was to liberate the country and overthrow a tyrannical regime. Increasing the number of troops would been counterproductive. Just take a look at the areas of unrest. All of them are in areas where was already have a sufficient number of troops. On the other hand, we are not seeing violent uprisings in the parts of the country in which the streets are not patrolled by U.S. forces.
The smaller the military footprint we can leave on the country the better we will be over the long term. In his recent speech, Bush has said that a 35,000 man Iraqi army will be established. If we cannot control the country with 135,000 troops how is Iraq going to be stable with only 35,000? We need to find a means of stabilizing the country with as few personnel resources as possible. If we are only able to establish order by the sheer number of our forces then what will happen once we withdraw them from the region?
The ninth problem has been the ad hoc organization we threw in there.
I’ll admit that he has a point. The organization was ad hoc because we have no agency that is assigned the task of coordination nation-building efforts. Perhaps when we do this again (and yes, there will be a next time) we will have put a formal structure in place to avoid the problems we are experiencing now.
The tenth mistake, and that's a series of bad decisions on the ground.
The worst decision that Zinni can find was the disbanding of the Iraqi army. While the general may have preferred that we force Saddam’s conscripts to continue to serve against their will, it would hardly have provided a foundation for a new army. The process of reconstructing the countries military force is already well underway. If this is the worst “bad decision" that Zinni can find then we have little cause to worry.
Zinni is fair enough that he not only points out what we are doing wrong in Iraq but explains what he would do differently. The “first and most important" thing he would do is -- are you ready for this bold move -- get yet another UN resolution.
The first 13 resolutions failed to be effective but apparantly a 14th one would change everything. To be honest, it is difficult to take Zinni seriously after such a ridiculous comment. If he truly believes that is the “first and most important" step in the reconstruction process then he is clueless. Unfortunately, he appears to believe just that. He even adds:
If we create a free economy in Iraq, someday, probably sooner that later, some oil minister is going to cut a contract with the French. Guess what? That's inevitable. So why not start up front, admitting that. We need the UN resolution, that's the number one priority.
Someone should point out to the General that the reason the French refused to support the war was because they already had oil contracts with Sadaam.
I have the utmost respect for General Zinni, a man who served his country with honor and distinction. In fact, if this were a different era, I’d even support his nomination as Secretary of Defense. His ideas -- containment, forming international coalitions, preferring stability over democracy -- could form the foundation for a Cold War-era defense policy.
But we are not locked in a standoff with the Soviet Union. The UN doesn’t possess the legitimacy it once had. And we are fighting radical Islam rather than communism. Gen. Zinni’s ideas once had relevance. But that day has long passed and we cannot afford to listen to such unsound advice. Even when it comes from one of the good guys.
Great fisking, Joe. Thanks.
The US plan is to let the Iraqis decide, somehow. I think it's a good plan. But the Iraqis have to have more power.
The biggest mistake so far has been the lack of elected local city councils; too much Bremer and not enough Mr. X, elected mayor of some Iraqi city/ town. With money = authority = power; and the US monitoring its use to increase responsibility.
The biggest future mistake is to have national party slate democracy, like Czechoslovakia had, instead of local constituency individual representatives. This hasn't been decided yet, so far as I know. If the UN chooses the (easier) national party slates -- then Iraq will be 3 states within 4 years, unless occupation stops it.
Tom, you're right. But I think you're missing that that work has been going on all along, under the radar. Methinks you're in a bit too much of a hurry. These things take time and Americans are impatient.
Successful local administration of city councils is not normally reported in mainstream media.
Tom
I think more can be said about point number 1. David Kay is in my opinion right. Internal Controls in Iraq were failing. Saddam was losing control over his country. It was becoming a magnet for terrorists and it possessed weapons programs that could be sold off. Add on to this that Iraq was heading towards a civil war and the US just had to get in there and prevent that from happening.
Your main point is correct: This is the post 9/11 world. Containment was too risky (besides, how can he even make the statement that containment was working, we needed the war to know the extent of his programs. And containments didn't seem to be working with Libya)
Looking for the exit
By Arnaud de Borchgrave
UPI Editor at Large
Published 4/29/2004 12:38 PM
WASHINGTON, April 29 (UPI) — If it wasn’t a quagmire, it was certainly quagmiry. And the first prominent retired general to break ranks with President Bush’s Iraq war policy was a Republican who once headed the National Security Agency and also served as a deputy National Security Adviser. Gen. William E. Odom, a fluent Russian speaker who teaches at Georgetown and Yale, told the Wall Street Journal’s John Harwood staying the course in Iraq is untenable.
It was hard to disagree with Odom’s description of Mr. Bush’s vision of reordering the Middle East by building a democracy in Iraq as a pipedream. His prescription: Remove U.S. forces “from that shattered country as rapidly as possible.” Odom says bluntly, “we have failed,” and “the issue is how high a price we’re going to pay - less, by getting out sooner, or more, by getting out later.”
At best, Iraq will emerge from the current geopolitical earthquake as “a highly illiberal democracy, inspired by Islamic culture, extremely hostile to the West and probably quite willing to fund terrorist organizations,” Odom explained. If that wasn’t enough to erode support for the war, Odom added, “The ability of Islamist militants to use Iraq as a beachhead for attacks against American interests elsewhere may increase.”
Odom, who heads the pro-Republican Hudson Institute, also sees the sum total of what the U.S. occupation of Iraq has achieved is “the radicalization of Saudi Arabia and probably Egypt, too. And the longer we stay in Iraq, the more isolated America will become.”
The retired four-star’s proposed solution is for the United Nations and the European allies to take charge of political and security arrangements. This formal request from the United States, says Odom, should be accompanied by a unilateral declaration that U.S. forces are leaving even if no one else agrees to come in.
The Journal’s John Hardwood in his Capital Journal column asks which sounds more credible - Gen. Odom’s gloomy forecast or Mr. Bush’s prediction of success? He does not tell us which way he’s leaning. But a company-size bevy of retired U.S. generals and admirals were in constant touch this week with a volunteer drafter putting the final touches to a “tough condemnation” of the Bush administration’s Middle Eastern policy.
The Council of Foreign Relations organized a conference call-in for its members with Gen. Odom. A score of former U.S. ambassadors who had served in the Middle East were also discussing how to join their voices to Britain’s 52 former ambassadors, high commissioners and governors who wrote to Tony Blair to accuse him of scuttling peace efforts between Israel and Palestinians. The British diplomats also took Mr. Blair to task for policies “doomed to failure” in Iraq.
One of the British co-signers was Paul Bergne, who until recently was the prime minister’s personal envoy to Afghanistan.
It was the first time in living memory that such a large group of former envoys to the Middle East had acted as a group to denounce the government’s foreign policy, They said they spoke for many serving diplomats as well.
The retired American ambassadors were as one in warning President Bush that discarding the Road Map to peace in the Middle East and substituting a plan that leaves Palestinians with no hope for a viable state is tantamount to declaring war on moderation - and jeopardizing U.S. interests all over the Middle East.
Total alignment on Prime Minister Sharon’s anti-Palestinian strategy has turned even moderate Muslims against the United States. Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak said hatred of the United States had never reached such depths.
When Mr. Bush suddenly dropped longstanding U.S. opposition to Jewish settlements on the West Bank, rooted as they were in U.N. resolutions, Israeli settlers could not believe their luck. Sharon conceded Gaza, where 7,500 Jewish settlers had no future among 1.3 million Palestinians, but in return obtained U.S. blessings for permanent Israeli habitation in large swaths of what was to be a Palestinian state. Even illegal hilltop settlements concluded they were now safe from removal and immediately began erecting permanent structures to replace mobile homes. A tiny, isolated community atop a hill near Nablus, where 14 families live in 20 homes on wheels, had already laid the foundations for permanent structures.
No sooner had the White House’s red light flashed green than the once surreptitious, crawling annexation of the West Bank resumed in the open. Jewish West Bank settlers were jubilant, while Palestinians were adrift in the Slough of Despond. With the Right of Return for Palestinians also off the table, and no viable state of their own on the West Bank, extremist organizations will have no problem recruiting more jihadis (holy warriors) and merging terrorist operations with the underground resistance in Iraq,
Arab opinion has been inflamed to the point where Palestine and Iraq are now two fronts in the war against what Charles de Gaulle used to call “the Anglo-Saxons.” Osama bin Laden is probably thinking he’s some kind of strategic genius.
In Iraq, quite apart from Fallujah and Najaf, the U.S. occupation, according to the latest Gallup polls, has turned most of the population against America. In Baghdad, only 13 percent now believe the invasion and regime change it accomplished was morally justifiable. Only one-third of Iraqis believe the occupation is doing more good than harm, and a majority favor an immediate U.S. troop withdrawal while conceding this could put them in greater danger. Odom presumably has his finger on the same pulse.
Copyright © 2001-2004 United Press International
Many, like the New York Times, have called for the UN to take over Iraq. If Iraqis are upset about pictures of naked men being led around on a leash by a woman, imagine their reaction to actual rape and forced child prostitution. In Eritrea, the government recently accused the UN mission of pedophilia. In Cambodia, UN troops fueled an explosion of child prostitutes and AIDS. Amnesty International reports that the UN mission in Kosovo has presided over a massive expansion of the sex trade, with girls as young as 11 being lured from Moldova and Bulgaria to service international "peacekeepers." In Bosnia, where the sex-slave trade barely existed before the UN showed up in 1995, there are now hundreds of brothels with underage girls living as captives. The 2002 Save the Children report on the UN's cover-up of the sex-for-food scandal in West Africa grimly detailed the peacekeepers' demanding sexual favors from children in exchange for biscuits and cake powder. "What is particularly shocking and appalling is that those people who ought to be there protecting the local population have actually become perpetrators," said Steve Crawshaw, the director of Human Rights Watch. I must have been vacationing when the papers ran all those stories about "The Shaming of the UN."
Of course, there may be a less onerous explanation. As the cliche goes, dog bites man is not much of a news story, but man bites dog is a pretty good news story. Everyone expects the bad guys to act bad, but it is news when the good guys do something wrong. But notice where that puts the US relative to the UN and our enemies. The dramatic improvement in Iraq is not a great news story. The Kurds have already set up a pretty functional republic in norther Iraq. There are 8,000 towns and villages in Iraq. How many do you hear about in the news? A couple of weeks ago, it was all Fallujah all the time. Lately, it is all Abu Ghraib all the time. What about the rest of Iraq? In the Shia province of Dhi Qar, southeast of Baghdad, 16 of the biggest 20 cities and many smaller towns have held elections. These were the first free elections in Dhi Qar's history. "In almost every case, secular independents and representatives of nonreligious parties did better than the Islamists,'' reported the anti-war, anti-Bush, and anti-Blair Guardian. 12 government ministries are now under the direct administration of Iraqis. Even in the Sunni Triangle, remove Fallujah and the remaining 95 percent is relatively calm. The Shia clergy are acting to end the Sadr insurgency by savagely denounced al Sadr.
It is easy to get so caught up in the negative that we forget everything else. Joe Lieberman recently said, "If we don't lose our will, someday we'll look back on what we've done in Iraq with pride." And, he is right. The potable water supply in Iraq is twice its pre-war volume. Health care funding is 25 times larger than it was a year ago. The economy has grown over a third. Iraq’s only international port has been modernized and de-silted so that it is now able to take large ships without waiting for the tide, and daily commercial aircraft departures are 100 times higher than before the war.
An old rule of politics is "don't make the perfect the enemy of the good."
God doesn't love America enough anymore to give us victory in Iraq this time.
Joe Carter, you are a fool. Lets just look at those preconditions for success.
1. The coalition that the US built and nurtured in the Middle East is gone possibly forever. Zinni right.
2. The war is still going on you knucklehead, a year and counting - not short. Zinni Right.
3. The toll of destruction has not been fully counted yet. Anyway the reason destruction needed to be light was so the infrastructure could get up and running again and to keep the population from turning us. We blew both of those. - Zinni right
4. Israel is at the heart of every Insurgent's motives for killing Americans. In the enemny's IO campaign Israel and America are one and the same. Israel is effectively right in the middle of Iraq. All our efforts have failed to delink the two in the Arab mind. - Zinni right
5. The street that Zinni is talking about is being blown up by riots, terrorists, and criminals. We have failed to keep it quiet. - Zinni right.
6. Order fell when we destroyed the fragile Iraqi state. We tried to bring down a regime, we destroyed a state. Now we are neck deep in a fourth generation war we haven't the first clue how to fight. - Zinni right.
7. The burden is firmly on our boys and girls, with the very much appreciated help from the Brits. Thus no one else feels ownership and they are all completely content to watch us swing in the wind. Zinni right.
8. No comment necessary - Zinni right.
9. We are stuck, no two ways about it. We have been given a mission that is impossible to accomplish - to make a dream of Iraqi western type liberal democracy a reality. Back to Powell doctrine, the mission must be clear and achievable ( I won't even mention overwhelming force) - Zinni right
10. When we kicked out the old chief, in the arab mind we assumed responsibility for their safety and welfare, and we have failed miserably. - Zinni right.
Remind me when I get back from my second tour in that awful mess of a region to find you and kick your ass.
Fitzman
I recently enjoyed opportunities to listen to General Zinni on several interviews, particularly "the Round Table" with Charlie Rose. It is positively refreshing to witness an individual that can publicly balance candor with courage. In my humble opinion Gen. Zinni should definately consider running for the presidency of the United States of America. Up front, lay it on the line leadership is what this country truly requires and I believe that the General has demonstrated all the necessary qualifications. I will back my strong opinion of this man with a stronger conviction to work with an for him on this stated agenda if he so seeks the position. Please do not let this opportunity to truly serve and benefit our nation and the world pass by.
Respectfully,
Dwight E. Whitson
1705 N. Meade Avenue
Chicago, IL 60639
whitsonde@yahoo.com
I recently enjoyed opportunities to listen to General Zinni on several interviews, particularly "the Round Table" with Charlie Rose. It is positively refreshing to witness an individual that can publicly balance candor with courage. In my humble opinion Gen. Zinni should definately consider running for the presidency of the United States of America. Up front, lay it on the line leadership is what this country truly requires and I believe that the General has demonstrated all the necessary qualifications. I will back my strong opinion of this man with a stronger conviction to work with an for him on this stated agenda if he so seeks the position. Please do not let this opportunity to truly serve and benefit our nation and the world pass by.
Respectfully,
Dwight E. Whitson
1705 N. Meade Avenue
Chicago, IL 60639
whitsonde@yahoo.com