posted on April 16, 2004 11:57:44 AM new
Warnings ignored, says retired Marine
By Rick Rogers
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
April 16, 2004
Retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni wondered aloud yesterday how Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld could be caught off guard by the chaos in Iraq that has killed nearly 100 Americans in recent weeks and led to his announcement that 20,000 U.S. troops would be staying there instead of returning home as planned.
"I'm surprised that he is surprised because there was a lot of us who were telling him that it was going to be thus," said Zinni, a Marine for 39 years and the former commander of the U.S. Central Command. "Anyone could know the problems they were going to see. How could they not?"
At a Pentagon news briefing yesterday, Rumsfeld said he could not have estimated how many troops would be killed in the past week.
Zinni made his comments during an interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune before giving a speech last night at the University of San Diego's Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice as part of its distinguished lecturer series.
For years Zinni said he cautioned U.S. officials that an Iraq without Saddam Hussein would likely be more dangerous to U.S. interests than one with him because of the ethnic and religious clashes that would be unleashed.
"I think that some heads should roll over Iraq," Zinni said. "I think the president got some bad advice."
Known as the "Warrior Diplomat," Zinni is not a peace activist by nature or training, having led troops in Vietnam, commanded rescue operations in Somalia and directed strikes against Iraq and al Qaeda.
He once commanded the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton.
Out of uniform, Zinni was a troubleshooter for the U.S. government in Africa, Asia and Europe and served as special envoy to the Middle East under the Bush administration for a time before his reservations over the Iraq war and its aftermath caused him to resign and oppose it.
Not even Zinni's resumé could shield him from the accusations that followed.
"I've been called a traitor and a turncoat for mentioning these things," said Zinni, 60. The problems in Iraq are being caused, he said, by poor planning and shortsightedness, such as disbanding the Iraqi army and being unable to provide security.
Zinni said the United States must now rely on the U.N. to pull its "chestnuts out of the fire in Iraq."
"We're betting on the U.N., who we blew off and ridiculed during the run-up to the war," Zinni said. "Now we're back with hat in hand. It would be funny if not for the lives lost."
Several things have to happen to get Iraq back on course, whether the U.N. decides to step in or not, Zinni said.
Improving security for American forces and the Iraqi people is at the top of the list followed closely by helping the working class with economic projects.
But it's not the lack of a comprehensive American plan for Iraq nor the surging violence that has cost allied troops their lives – including about 30 Camp Pendleton Marines – that most concerns Zinni.
"In the end, the Iraqis themselves have to want to rebuild their country more than we do," Zinni said. "But I don't see that right now. I see us doing everything.
"I spent two years in Vietnam, and I've seen this movie before," he said. "They have to be willing to do more or else it is never going to work."
Last night at the Kroc institute during his speech "From the Battlefield to the Negotiating Table: Preventing Deadly Conflict," Zinni detailed the approach he believes the United States should take in the Middle East.
He told an overflow crowd that the United States tries to grapple with individual issues in Middle East instead of seeing them as elements of a broader question.
"We need to step back and get a grand strategy," he said.
posted on April 16, 2004 12:13:24 PM new"We need to step back and get a grand strategy," he said.
No kidding.
President has said there will be "decisive" actions taken... I am willing to see those first...
The President had no plans at the beginning and now he still doesn't and it shows. He's waiting for the UN to bail his azz out now and the whole world knows it.
posted on April 16, 2004 01:48:24 PM new "Oh please, nobody can POSSIBLY say the word "UN" with a strait face."
In the recent press conference,when asked who would be handing the Iraqi government over to on June 30th, Bush replied..."We'll find that out soon. That's what Mr. Brahimi is doing.
Since Lakhdar Brahimi is the United Nations special envoy to Iraq it would appear that Bush is "saying the word".
The United States has indicated that it is satisfied with an outline plan for the future of Iraq proposed by the United Nations.
Secretary of State Colin Powell says the recommendations made by the UN special envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, were very sound.
Mr Brahimi's proposal is still being finalised, but he is expected to say the American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council should be replaced by a caretaker government after sovereignty is restored on June 30.
Mr Brahimi is still working out the details of his proposal, but the basic idea is that the US-appointed governing council will be wound up and replaced by a new transitional authority that will run Iraq until elections can be held.
Its leaders would be chosen by the United Nations after consultations with the US, the governing council and other Iraqis.
In the past the Americans have wanted to limit UN involvement in Iraq.
Now though the indications are that they are willing to accept a leading role for the world body.
posted on April 16, 2004 02:10:56 PM new
a sign of desperation...
The Iranians also seem pleased to be drawn into a role in resolving the issue. I am frankly amazed that the US is willing to countenance this, and it seems a sign of real desperation on the part of the Bush administration to turn to the Axis of Evil for help. I am also amazed that Khamenei agreed to it on the Iranian side, and can only imagine that he thinks that it is a good thing to have the Americans owe him one so that he can continue to crush the reformists and reconsolidate conservative control of Iran. But once Iran is drawn into a formal role in Iraqi Shiite politics, the Bush administration should be aware that it will not be easy to push them back out. There is a story about the desert camel that is cold and its master lets it put its nose under the tent. But then it slides in its head, slowly slowy. Then its hump. And finally there is only a camel in the tent and the hapless owner has been pushed out into the cold night. We may be witnessing the insertion of the camel's nose.
posted on April 16, 2004 07:26:50 PM new
I guess they're right, Iraq isn't like Vietnam -- it's worse than Vietnam....
U.S.-trained Iraqi forces failed to support U.S. troops
BY MATTHEW SCHOFIELD
Knight Ridder Newspapers
BAGHDAD, Iraq - (KRT) - In Ramadi, U.S. troops gave two-way radios to Iraqi forces, not for communications, as they claimed, but so they'd know when their allies were phoning Marine positions to the enemy.
In Sadr City and Najaf, Iraqi police asked permission from Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr - the man they were expected to capture or kill - before they reported to work.
In Fallujah, at least two Iraqi battalions refused to join the fight against insurgents.
Coalition forces fighting for the hearts and minds of Iraqis are struggling even with those on their payroll, those who are supposed to be standing shoulder to shoulder with them. Iraqi politicians say the situation was predictable and is going to get worse.
U.S. and coalition officials insist that the situation hasn't deteriorated, that Iraqi units - formed only after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime - are too raw to be counted on. They are developing.
U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt this week said: "It was clear over the last couple of weeks that the progress we had hoped to have been made thus far in the Iraqi security forces is not as far along as we would have expected. ... That will take some time. It will take some equipping. But that's why the coalition forces remain here and will remain here for a long period of time."
It's not as simple as training and equipment, according to Iraqi officials.
Iraqi opinion polls show a decreasing level of comfort with the direction of post-invasion Iraq. When asked what polls conducted this weekend would show about American popularity, pollster Sadoun al Dulame put his head in his hands.
When asked about Iraqi defense forces, government spokesman Hajim al Hasani joked, "What defense forces? We don't have any."
But he knows they do. The coalition spent millions of dollars recruiting, training and paying police officers and members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, who combined number more than 200,000. In the past months, the police have born much of the brunt of insurgent attacks, with an estimated 350 killed.
But Hasani said having large numbers and good training meant little.
"Our society is shattered," he said. "It isn't that the soldiers who run away or join with the other side aren't good soldiers, aren't well-trained or well-equipped. It's that they don't yet believe in Iraq as a cause, and they do not believe at all in the cause of the coalition."
Nor should they, some add. They point to Article 59 in the Transitional Administrative Law, a sort of pre-constitution, that begins: "The permanent constitution shall contain guarantees to ensure that the Iraqi Armed Forces are never again used to terrorize or oppress the people of Iraq."
The article states that Iraq will take part in the multinational peacekeeping force and will fight terrorism. But many Iraqis aren't convinced the issues in Fallujah, Ramadi and Najaf are about terrorism.
"Those fighting right now are Iraqis," said al Dulame, the executive director of the Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies. "They want the coalition out, but they are Iraqis. We hated Saddam because he used the army that was supposed to protect our people against us. Many here do wonder: How is this different?"
Al Dulame said not only was the current situation predictable, but that he wasn't alone in predicting it.
"They are being asked to kill their brothers on orders from a foreign government," he said. "To many Iraqis, they are heroes, not cowards, to refuse."
And having Kurdish militia members attached to the 36th Battalion at Fallujah was a mistake, al Dulame said, one that inflames old hatreds between Kurds and Sunnis and gets the rest of the nation thinking about ethnic divisions again.
Some in Iraq have done much more than refuse to fight alongside Americans. Nowhere has this been as evident as for the Marines in Ramadi and Fallujah. Among those killed by Marines in Fallujah were many wearing police equipment. In Ramadi, a Knight Ridder photographer with U.S. troops witnessed Iraqi police and soldiers among those who twice ambushed a Marine company, which killed 14 Marines in one week.
In the second ambush, some of the Iraqi soldiers - officially there to help the Marines maintain peace - were wearing old U.S. Marine uniforms and body armor.
The situation was so obvious that U.S. officers offered Iraqi Civil Defense Corps members two-way radios, saying they would help maintain contact. They also were used to monitor Iraqi soldiers who alerted insurgents to the Marines' movements.
Last week in Sadr City, while coalition officials were announcing they had complete control of all government buildings in the sprawling suburban slum, a police official negotiated with a representative of al-Sadr, almost begging to be allowed to return to work.
In Najaf, when explaining why police abandoned their posts, Police Chief Ali al Yasseri said, "We can't arrest everybody."
It's not a complete picture of the situation in Iraq, but many believe it's an increasingly accurate one.
In the words of one senior Iraqi political adviser, who could not be named for security purposes: "It's a disaster, the entire security situation that the coalition has constructed. The intelligence service is a joke. The Iraqi Civil Defense Corps are implicated in the mutilation of the Americans (in Fallujah). Fifty percent of the ICDC mutinied. Some did their jobs. Some ran away. Some joined Muqtada."
Governing Council member Mahmoud Othman, who said he was joyous when the coalition toppled Saddam, said the security strategy since has been a series of blunders. He questioned the decision last year to disband the Iraqi military, which put a lot of men with a lot of weapons on the streets, having lost their jobs, futures and dignity.
He questioned sending new trainees off for a couple months, then deciding they were ready for the realities of life in Iraq. He likened it to creating an entire force of rookie police officers and an army without experienced soldiers.
He said huge mistakes were made by trying to control Fallujah and Ramadi by force, which appears to have brought hundreds or thousands of former Iraqi soldiers into the streets to fight against the United States.
"The policy in Fallujah has been a disaster from the start," he said. "No Iraqi should be in a position where they have to follow the orders of an outsider. But even if they would have before, the situation now makes it quite impossible."
(Philadelphia Inquirer photographer David Swanson contributed reporting to this story from Ramadi, as did Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson in Najaf, Iraq.)
