The view of Iraq ignored by the media...

[Lanny_MacDonald]

It had been a while since I'd been to this site and was shocked to see this document hanging out there. It's the smoking gun that has been ignored IMO. This is required reading for anyone who wants to know the truth about Iraq on all fronts. This document is a transcription of an address that retired General Anthony Zinni (the CENTCOM commander) gave to the Center for Defense Information, the long time publisher of The Defense Monitor, in regards to Iraq and the motivations for going there in the first place. It is completely non-partisan and spoken from the heart of a man who lived there and built up something that he was obviously proud of. The link is to the whole whole document, followed by some snippets and my thoughts on Zinni's comments.

http://www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printve...am/document.cfm

"I think the first mistake that was made was misjudging the success of containment. I heard the president say, not too long ago, I believe it was with the interview with Tim Russert that ... I'm not sure ... but at some point I heard him say that "containment did not work." That's not true."

I think this is the first time that I have heard the term containment since 9/11. Its interesting that the media has lost track of the base premise behind defense and that is containment of our enemy. Its a good thing that our military commanders appear to have that principle in mind, but it appears that it is lost on the existing president.

"We built a wonderful coalition, without any formal treaties, without any particular arrangement.

During that time, when we asked allies in that region to join us in other conflicts, like Somalia, they came. Egyptians came. Pakistanis came. The Saudis came. The Kuwaitis came. The Emirates came and provided forces. They joined us in the Balkans. They joined us elsewhere on operations when we needed them... We built a magnificent coalition of forces, without ever once signing a piece of paper."

Obviously there was a lot of goodwill and cooperation that was being built up in the region. It sounds like America was making some in roads into developing relations in the area and gaining a level of trust.

"And we contained Saddam. We watched his military shrink to less than half its size from the beginning of the Gulf War until the time I left command, not only shrinking in size, but dealing with obsolete equipment, ill-trained troops, dissatisfaction in the ranks, a lot of absenteeism. We didn't see the Iraqis as a formidable force. We saw them as a decaying force."

Wow. If this doesn't drive a spike right through the heart of anyone who thinks going into Iraq was the right thing to do then I don't know what else would. Oh, may this next snippet will do that for those who harken back to the WMD crutch.

"We couldn't account for all the weapons of mass destruction. The inspectors that were in there had to assume that the weapons of mass destruction that were in his original inventory that we could not account for, might still be there. So that was always a planning factor. But when you look hard at that, these were artillery shells, rocket rounds, that he would have to be hiding somewhere that were getting old. And if he had to bring them out and use them, think about this, he's got to move them to artillery positions, to battery positions, under total dominance of the air by the United States. I sure as hell wouldn't have been ... want to be that battery commander that said tomorrow you're going to get five truckloads of chemical weapons to be stored in your area to shoot. Not under the air power we brought down and the ability to interdict them. And these were tactical capabilities."

In other words, Saddam's threat of WMD was not a threat at all to anyone accorind to the military in the region. But was Saddam considered a threat by anyone in the region?

"We bombed him almost at will. No one in the region felt threatened by Saddam. No one in the region denied us our ability to conduct sanctions. Many countries joined us in sanctions enforcement, in the no-fly zones, and in the maritime intercept operations where we attempted to intercept his oil and gas smuggling."

I think that's a big resounding NO.

"A side note on that. The process of containment created an "alliance," which I would put in quotation marks, in the region. We located our forces in all six GCC, Gulf Cooperation Council countries. When we deployed, we made sure that we got everybody in the region pregnant when we acted, and deployed, and enforced sanctions. We deliberately put our troops in positions and operating out of bases where everybody had to make a political commitment. That was the rule and everybody understood it. And we built an arrangement out there, a security arrangement, through the enforcement of those sanctions, that I think helped us create stability. I think we made a mistake in not capitalizing on that. I think the Clinton doctrine and policy of engagement was right, but we never really got the resources or authority to do it to its fullest extent. I think there was a reluctant Congress to provide those kinds of resources, but that would have been cheaper by half. The idea to regionalize our problems and allow us to build the forces within a region that can deal with these problems, I think is a much more powerful idea. We could have done that in Africa, we could have done that in the Middle East, in Central Asia, and elsewhere."

Seems like they understood how to build an alliance and were effectively moving in the right direction.

"The idea that we will walk in and be met with open arms. The idea that we will have people that will glom on to democracy overnight. The idea that strategically we will reform, reshape, and change the Middle East by this action -- we've changed it all right."

I guess the flowers and dancing in the streets didn't happen? I guess that the whole exercise has done more to divide than unite the region in its battle against the tyrant?

"The books were cooked, in my mind. The intelligence was not there. I testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee one month before the war, and Senator Lugar asked me: "General Zinni, do you feel the threat from Saddam Hussein is imminent?" I said: "No, not at all. It was not an imminent threat. Not even close. Not grave, gathering, imminent, serious, severe, mildly upsetting, none of those."

This says it all. Hussein was no threat. To anyone. Not to his neighbours and not to his own people. To no one, especially the United States.

"Why would we believe that we would not get it this time? Why would we believe that this time for some reason, unlike before, the inspectors would not call the shots honestly? The inspectors don't make judgments they just make reports of facts. We have Americans on inspection teams. Ralph Ekeus, Richard Butler, they always came across with an honest assessment of what was happening. Why, suddenly, was Mohamed El Baradei and Hans Blix suspect? And what was the rush to war?"

What was the rush? There was no threat of offensive, there were no weapons of mass destruction posing a threat, Hussein was contained, where was the need for war?

"The sixth mistake, and maybe the biggest one, was propping up and trusting the exiles, the infamous "Gucci Guerillas" from London. We bought into their intelligence reports."

There's the intelligence that congress bought. No one else did.

"These exiles did not have credibility inside the country or in the region. Not only did they not have credibility, it was clear that the information they were providing us many times was not correct and accurate. We believed in them."

In other words, WTF were the pinheads in Washington thinking???

"I understood and knew that Gen. Franks and CENTCOM, would do their part. I knew damn right well the security piece would be taken care of, and I knew we had a good plan. I 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. And I think that lack of planning, that idea that you can do this by the seat of the pants, reconstruct a country, to make decisions on the fly, to beam in on the side that has to that political, economic, social other parts, just a handful of people at the last minute to be able to do it was patently ridiculous."

So the rush was on to go to war. They knew it would take three weeks to take apart the Iraqi resistence (Franks did it in 19 days), but had nothing in the can for the reconstruction. Obviously a well thought out situation. One thing was certain though, WHO was going to get the contracts for the rebuilding. THAT was decided upon very quickly. But the plan, it just wasn't there. One thing is for certain, the commanders in the area were not on board nor confident with the plan.

"I would do several things now. But clearly the first and most important thing you need is that UN resolution. That's been the model since the end of the Cold War, that has given us the basis and has given our allies the basis for joining us and helping us and provided the legitimacy we need.

We can't keep dropping paper on the UN, it's time for a group of adults, called the Perm Five, the permanent five members of the Security Council, to sit down and come up with some agreeable, mutually developed UN resolution that would allow other countries now to participate. And I think there are many out there at different levels, especially in the region, that would want to participate and help and before it comes too tough and too costly, we need to get them in."

Common sense approach. Get the world involved and make it everyone's problem. Just like they did in the Gulf and all the countries in the region. Zinni goes on to explain many ways that he would have gone about rebuilding security in Iraq, and its all great ideas that should have been implemented. But the politicians know how to do things better than those who do it for a living.

"We also have to stop the tough talk rhetoric. One thing you learn in this business is, don't say it unless you're going to do it. In this part of the world, strength matters. And if you say you are going to go in and wipe them out, you better do it. If you say you're going to do it and then you back off and find another solution, you have lost face."

Something Bush doesn't understand. He likes to talk tough, but doesn't have the resolve to make it happen.

"Our whole public relations effort out there has been a disaster. I read the newspapers from the region every night online, and if you watch Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, or even some of the more moderate stations out there, and you read the editorials in the newspaper, there is a different war being portrayed in that region. A different conflict than we're getting from Fox, CNN, CBS, et cetera."

No, really? Wow, I guess Cow better have a chat with the General and explain to him that the propaganda being shoved down our throats really isn't propaganda and is indeed a true relection of what is happening in Iraq.

"And we better get the two jibed somehow, because that has been a massive failure."

No, its been a complete and total success!!!

"And there again, we could use advice from the region as to how to go about it."

Are you crazy? What the hell would Arabs know about dealing with other Arabs???

"Look, the plan for the future of Iraq has to be done by Iraqis, by people in the region and by the international community not just handed to them by Americans."

Someone here has been saying that too. Not sure who that would be?

"And I was very supportive of this administration. Certainly Secretary Powell and those in the State Department that I respect tremendously. It was not my desire to see this administration fail. If anything, I had an allegiance and I think, owed them something for the trust they gave me.

When this started to come about and I realized that it was wrong. I realized that if I speak out, I lose either way. If I’m wrong, you know, another guy who couldn’t figure it out. If I’m right, it means we have casualties, lost treasure and our image around the world is destroyed.

It was a lose-lose proposition from the beginning. And so it was very painful to go down this road. I did not want to be right. I also knew by not being right, that was going to be painful too. But, it had to be said, because I can’t stand looking at the end of another news story and seeing the faces of those young kids."

Sounds like someone who knew the situation pretty well, knew the plan in place was dog shizzle and knew failure was ahead. Yet he stood by his duty for those that reported to him. A man of honor.

Finally...

"You know, if you have a strategy, and you believe in it, and you believe it’s the right strategy. Sell it on its merits to the American people. Make them think strategically and accept it or not. Don’t sell it on a Gulf of Tonkin or a WMD imminent threat because in the end, that’s going to come back and get you. "

Says it all.

[Cowperson]

The view of Iraq ignored by the media

1) So you've given us the view of one person who agrees with you and

2) Did the Center For Defence Information offer us a reason why they didn't invite cameras and media to this event to give it exposure? You've implied his opinion is ignored. That wouldn't be the case if there was no intent to make it known. I see they have a link to sell the speech DVD or Video - that might be the reason and

3) The profile of the group he addressed has a clear agenda, which is fine. The profile: The Center for Defense Information is dedicated to strengthening security through: international cooperation; reduced reliance on unilateral military power to resolve conflict; reduced reliance on nuclear weapons; a transformed and reformed military establishment; and, prudent oversight of, and spending on, defense programs.

Lets face it, there's no shortage of critics offering varying theories of what was there and if it was necessary to go there or not, all of it amply reported from all four points on the compass.

As to whether or not nobody in the region thought Iraq was a threat or if it had WMD, Zinni doesn't appear to tell us why General Tommy Franks had the Presidents of Egypt and Jordan tell him Saddam would absolutely use WMD on American troops if they invaded. He also doesn't tell us why Russia's intelligence service, as related by Putin to Bush, said WMD were there. Franks is also retired and free to speak out I believe. He has a different story than Zinni.

There's two sides to the debate.

Again, everyone has got an opinion or a theory. This is one. There are others, some for and some against.

Cowperson

[Lanny_MacDonald]

Originally posted by Cowperson@Aug 25 2004, 04:15 PM
Again, everyone has got an opinion or a theory. This is one. There are others, some for and some against.

Yeah, and some opinons hold a helluva lot more water than others. This guy was the CENTCOM commander. Can ANYONE be closer to the situation than the commander on the ground dealing with all the intel, the local politics, assessing threats and planning operations? Face it Cow, this guy is THE guy that would have the poop on the whole situation. I'm sure that there are many others like him that refuse to come forward. Many of them are likely still in the service or likely feel the pressure to not come forward. This guy is NOT a political animal. He stated that he was conflicted about coming forward at all. He only did so because he felt he owed it to the men that were in his service. He is indeed ONE opinion, but his opinion is more informed than pretty well any we have heard to date. Its kind of like hearing from the guy who planned and financed the assassination of someone. Its only ONE opinion, but its the opinion that has the whole story. I'll stand by the opinon of the CENTCOM commanding General over that of Bill O'Reilly and the likes.

[Cowperson]

Originally posted by Lanny_MacDonald+Aug 25 2004, 04:34 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Lanny_MacDonald @ Aug 25 2004, 04:34 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Cowperson@Aug 25 2004, 04:15 PM
Again, everyone has got an opinion or a theory. This is one. There are others, some for and some against.

Yeah, and some opinons hold a helluva lot more water than others. This guy was the CENTCOM commander. Can ANYONE be closer to the situation than the commander on the ground dealing with all the intel, the local politics, assessing threats and planning operations? Face it Cow, this guy is THE guy that would have the poop on the whole situation. I'm sure that there are many others like him that refuse to come forward. Many of them are likely still in the service or likely feel the pressure to not come forward. This guy is NOT a political animal. He stated that he was conflicted about coming forward at all. He only did so because he felt he owed it to the men that were in his service. He is indeed ONE opinion, but his opinion is more informed than pretty well any we have heard to date. Its kind of like hearing from the guy who planned and financed the assassination of someone. Its only ONE opinion, but its the opinion that has the whole story. I'll stand by the opinon of the CENTCOM commanding General over that of Bill O'Reilly and the likes. [/b][/quote]
General Tommy Franks is also only one opinion.

I don't have a problem with Zinni's opinion or him expressing it. The more the better. I give him a lot of credibility actually. I hope he comes out and says what he wants to say in a more public venue instead of a closed door meeting.

All I said is there is another General of equal weight out there with a different view. That has to be considered as well.

There's lots of different views on this. Its just a matter of whom you choose to believe, one side, the other side or a combination.

And what does Bill O'Reilly have to do with it? That's Bingo's guy, not mine.

Cowperson

[Leeman4Gilmour]

Speaking of opinions, did anyone watch young Trudeau's documentary/news report last night on W5?

He lived with a family in Baghdad for a week or two preceeding the war and a month or so following. He filmed and commented using what appeared to be a HandyCam.

I found it to be very interesting. As with anything, you don't know what he's not showing, but still, a great viewpoint.

It appeared Iraqi's were generally happy Saddam was ousted, and most of the bitterness towards the States built up post war when the Americans didn't help clean up the mess they had created, specifically the looting and crime.

A very telling portion of the show was some footage of a hospital specializing in cardiology completely looted and burnt while down the road, the Ministry of Oil was heavily guarded. This did not go unnoticed by the people of Baghdad.

Based on Trudeau's documentary, and some of Zinni's comments, it does seem the Americans may have been more successful if they had planned the post war activities as intensely as they planned the actual attack.

On a side note, Trudeau could find himself having a very successful career as a journalist. I thought the documentary was very good.

[Cowperson]

Originally posted by Leeman4Gilmour@Aug 25 2004, 04:53 PM
Speaking of opinions, did anyone watch young Trudeau's documentary/news report last night on W5?

He lived with a family in Baghdad for a week or two preceeding the war and a month or so following. He filmed and commented using what appeared to be a HandyCam.

I found it to be very interesting. As with anything, you don't know what he's not showing, but still, a great viewpoint.

It appeared Iraqi's were generally happy Saddam was ousted, and most of the bitterness towards the States built up post war when the Americans didn't help clean up the mess they had created, specifically the looting and crime.

A very telling portion of the show was some footage of a hospital specializing in cardiology completely looted and burnt while down the road, the Ministry of Oil was heavily guarded. This did not go unnoticed by the people of Baghdad.

Based on Trudeau's documentary, and some of Zinni's comments, it does seem the Americans may have been more successful if they had planned the post war activities as intensely as they planned the actual attack.

On a side note, Trudeau could find himself having a very successful career as a journalist. I thought the documentary was very good.

There's not many people left who don't think the USA could have done a far better job in the aftermath of conflict in Iraq.

Cowperson

[calculoso]

I haven't read your whole post (might later on this afternoon), but the problem I see with this is that many things can be read into what he's saying... and what you read in is entirely up to what you believe before reading it.

I have two examples:

"We couldn't account for all the weapons of mass destruction.# The inspectors that were in there had to assume that the weapons of mass destruction that were in his original inventory that we could not account for, might still be there.# So that was always a planning factor.# But when you look hard at that, these were artillery shells, rocket rounds, that he would have to be hiding somewhere that were getting old.# And if he had to bring them out and use them, think about this, he's got to move them to artillery positions, to battery positions, under total dominance of the air by the United States.# I sure as hell wouldn't have been ... want to be that battery commander that said tomorrow you're going to get five truckloads of chemical weapons to be stored in your area to shoot.# Not under the air power we brought down and the ability to interdict them.# And these were tactical capabilities."

You can read, as you did, that Saddam's threat of WMD wasn't there and that there wasn't any.

Or, you can read that he and his commanders would have absolutely stupid to have even tried it. They would have been sitting ducks and they would have felt the brunt of whatever WMD there was, not the Americans. If you follow this line or thinking, the WMD are still there waiting to be found, brought out, used, etc.

Again, neither one may be 100% right... but it is possible to legitimately read both situations into that quoted text depending on whatever bias you already have.

"We bombed him almost at will.# No one in the region felt threatened by Saddam.# No one in the region denied us our ability to conduct sanctions.# Many countries joined us in sanctions enforcement, in the no-fly zones, and in the maritime intercept operations where we attempted to intercept his oil and gas smuggling."

Does this mean that civilians in that area didn't feel threatened or does that mean only the troops didn't feel threatened? Saddam's power and threatening ability went far beyond his military might.

I get the feeling, from that paragraph, again without reading the rest of it, that he was saying that the US military did not feel threatened by the Iraqi military. They could do whatever they wanted. This does not say anything about the actual people and their fears of Saddam himself.

[Cowperson]

By the way Lanny, a government controlled mainstream media source with a profile of General Zinni's opposition to the Iraq situation. This article is in the Washington Post FIVE MONTHS before his speech you posted. Apparently his message wasn't being ignored. He's quite the little campaigner. Not that there's anything wrong with that as I said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A...anguage=printer

Just trying to help you out Bub!!

Its kind of interesting that he actually seems to absolve Bush and Cheney.

And that brings him back to Wolfowitz and his neoconservative allies as the root of the problem. "I don't know where the neocons came from -- that wasn't the platform they ran on," he says. "Somehow, the neocons captured the president. They captured the vice president."

EDIT: General Zinni a year ago, September 2003, on PBS:

JIM LEHRER: The weapon of mass destruction issue was the thing that was exaggerated?

GEN. ANTHONY ZINNI (RET.): Yes, I believe that it was clear to all of us that had obviously that had responsibilities for this region of the world that Saddam had the framework for a program. It was clear to us that he had the scientists, the documentation, the dual use facilities, programs he was allowed to have like the Al-Samoud system that he could do experimentation, research and development He was fooling around with UAV's, unmanned aerial vehicles possibly, and they were really at rudimentary stages of development. And it was clear he wanted a clean bill of health from Richard Butler and his predecessor Rolf Ekeus and even Hans Blix.

JIM LEHRER: These are U.N. weapons inspectors.

GEN. ANTHONY ZINNI (RET.): Yeah, the inspectors that headed the teams. I think he saw the possibility if they could not find a quote smoking gun -- he had the framework of the program to start it up. But I think the inspectors -- certainly Richard Butler in my time and Rolf Ekeus and I believe Hans Blix were on to him. But to make the case that there was, you know the smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud or that there's 48 hours that he could launch a missile, I think was really exaggerated.

An interesting answer. The link:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/ju...inni_09-30.html

Cowperson

[Lanny_MacDonald]

Wow!!! What a campaigner!!! Man, he should be out there on the trail with Bush and Co. Really beats the political drum during all of those pieces, especially the CDI address (where he hardly mentioned the administration at all, he refered to the first President Bush (#41, George H. is #43). He's just slinging the mud with the best of them. The only way he could become any more of a campaigner was to jump on a swiftboat! Heck, maybe if he keeps going at this like he is he'll end up on a publicity poster for the Republican party just like the Swiftboat morons!

BTW... why was Zinni in the public eye? Was it because he pursued it? Or was it because he was thrust into it? I do believe all of your stories coincide with his appearances infront of a congressional investigation, so his being interviewed came with the turf at the time.

[Cowperson]

Originally posted by Lanny_MacDonald@Aug 25 2004, 06:52 PM
Wow!!! What a campaigner!!! Man, he should be out there on the trail with Bush and Co. Really beats the political drum during all of those pieces, especially the CDI address (where he hardly mentioned the administration at all, he refered to the first President Bush (#41, George H. is #43). He's just slinging the mud with the best of them. The only way he could become any more of a campaigner was to jump on a swiftboat! Heck, maybe if he keeps going at this like he is he'll end up on a publicity poster for the Republican party just like the Swiftboat morons!

BTW... why was Zinni in the public eye? Was it because he pursued it? Or was it because he was thrust into it? I do believe all of your stories coincide with his appearances infront of a congressional investigation, so his being interviewed came with the turf at the time.

Again, I don't have a problem with him. I give him heaps more credibility than 99% of the political flacks both of us might throw into this.

I find his views interesting and credible. But he's just part of the big pot from which we can form an opinion.

Just don't say he's being ignored. That hardly seems to be the case.

Cowperson

[sbailey924]

I remember he was interviewed on 60 Minutes around that same time (end of May--which probably has a lot to do with the fact it wasn't mentioned too much on this board--a la playoffs). If I remember correctly, he said essentially the same things in that document. I also remember him saying that he was a registered Republican, and generally voted conservative, but there was no way he would vote for Bush this year.

I don't know if you can still find a transcript of that interview online or not.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally posted by sbailey924@Aug 25 2004, 02:15 PM
I remember he was interviewed on 60 Minutes around that same time (end of May--which probably has a lot to do with the fact it wasn't mentioned too much on this board--a la playoffs). If I remember correctly, he said essentially the same things in that document. I also remember him saying that he was a registered Republican, and generally voted conservative, but there was no way he would vote for Bush this year.

I don't know if you can still find a transcript of that interview online or not.

I just looked it up for fun. It was on May 24th -- Flames weren't playing that night specifically but they were playing game one of the SCF the next day. It was also the Sunday night of the long weekend.

None too many of us were thinking much about the Iraq thing at the time so I guess it got ignored.

google "zinni on 60 minutes" brings up lots of stuff.