General Zinni sums it up nicely

[AcidicFury]

Originally posted by: Passions
I just have a hard time believing a whole chain of command would lie to just merely save face. You guys have been brainwashed by MSNBC and Al Jazeera.

Really? So then why did they just outlaw cameras in US Military places? Why does Bush not answer questions in press conferences? Why isn't George Tenet fired yet? Interesting questions.

 

[arsbanned]

Now Format C:, please tell me how this man has less credibility than a president who hasn't served a single second outside of our country. Tell me how you know the facts and he doesn't

I'm looking forward to this.

You guys have been brainwashed by MSNBC

I thought MSNBC is the only one showing Bush's speech tonight?

 

[lozina]

Originally posted by: Passions
I just have a hard time believing a whole chain of command would lie to just merely save face. You.

Not just save face, but save their careers. What kinda jobs would these guys be able to attain after being found guilty of such a travesty? Maybe beef up the manufacturing sector by becoming burger flippers?

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: arsbanned

Now Format C:, please tell me how this man has less credibility than a president who hasn't served a single second outside of our country. Tell me how you know the facts and he doesn't

I'm looking forward to this.

You guys have been brainwashed by MSNBC

I thought MSNBC is the only one showing Bush's speech tonight?

You've been misled by the liberal media.

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: Passions
Another retired general trying to make a quick buck and still assert his relevance by writing a book. :roll:

Thanks for yet again adding absolutely nothing to a thread.

Considering the thread was nothing to begin with, I'd call it a valid contribution. Seriously, if I was trying as hard as you clowns to dig up dirt, I'd hope I'd find a lot better stuff than op-ed pieces.

The irony . . . my breakfast this morning was disturbed by Shrub's latest attack ad on Kerry. Basically Bushies cobbled together negative blurbs from the Op-Ed pages and passed it off as the "prevailing" opinion.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: Passions
Another retired general trying to make a quick buck and still assert his relevance by writing a book. :roll:

Thanks for yet again adding absolutely nothing to a thread.

Considering the thread was nothing to begin with, I'd call it a valid contribution. Seriously, if I was trying as hard as you clowns to dig up dirt, I'd hope I'd find a lot better stuff than op-ed pieces.

The irony . . . my breakfast this morning was disturbed by Shrub's latest attack ad on Kerry. Basically Bushies cobbled together negative blurbs from the Op-Ed pages and passed it off as the "prevailing" opinion.

Was it a Bush ad or that group on the opposite side of moveon.org?

 

[conjur]

oops

 

[Format C:]

Originally posted by: tallest1

Zinni spent more than 40 years serving his country as a warrior and diplomat, rising from a young lieutenant in Vietnam to four-star general with a reputation for candor.

Now Format C:, please tell me how this man has less credibility than a president who hasn't served a single second outside of our country. Tell me how you know the facts and he doesn't

You DID notice the little "RET" after his name did you not? Do I REALLY need to explain to you the difference between the opinions of someone out of the loop versus the decisions of someone in it?

 

[Format C:]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: WinstonSmith

Originally posted by: Format C:
Yes, like all those credible retired officers the networks had on every night during the invasion with their constant doom and gloom of mass casualties and assured failure. Its not their inside track that leads to their opinions but rather their glaringly obvious political ideologies. They don't want the effort to succeed because they don't want Bush to succeed. End of story.

What about Kristol?

And Robert Kagan? He's a key member of the PNAC and he's criticizing Bush now, too.

So let me get this straight. In your little world those who criticize Bush are all correct and those who don't are all wrong. Is that how you define objectivity?

 

[bozack]

Originally posted by: Format C:
And Robert Kagan? He's a key member of the PNAC and he's criticizing Bush now, too.

So let me get this straight. In your little world those who criticize Bush are all correct and those who don't are all wrong. Is that how you define objectivity?[/quote]

seems about right Format....what I love is another tired old general throws in his two cents at every turn...guess these guys didn't get their full fifteen when they were actually active.

 

[Format C:]

Originally posted by: bozack

Originally posted by: Format C:
And Robert Kagan? He's a key member of the PNAC and he's criticizing Bush now, too.

So let me get this straight. In your little world those who criticize Bush are all correct and those who don't are all wrong. Is that how you define objectivity?

seems about right Format....what I love is another tired old general throws in his two cents at every turn...guess these guys didn't get their full fifteen when they were actually active.[/quote]
Exactly. All the networks had/have their favored "experts" doing their analysis to keep the viewers interested, and in the end some are right and some are wrong with their guesses. If anyone puts much faith in the talking heads who know how it used to be and think they can then extrapolate past experience into current events they aren't putting forth much effort in trying to understand the reality of the situation. Its like a wise old man once told me. Everyone knows what to do with the bull except the one thats got him by the horns.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: Format C:

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: WinstonSmith

Originally posted by: Format C:
Yes, like all those credible retired officers the networks had on every night during the invasion with their constant doom and gloom of mass casualties and assured failure. Its not their inside track that leads to their opinions but rather their glaringly obvious political ideologies. They don't want the effort to succeed because they don't want Bush to succeed. End of story.

What about Kristol?

And Robert Kagan? He's a key member of the PNAC and he's criticizing Bush now, too.

So let me get this straight. In your little world those who criticize Bush are all correct and those who don't are all wrong. Is that how you define objectivity?

Pretty much that's what happens when the sitting President is a complete and utter failure.

When some of the most ardent supporters of the PNAC vision criticize the President, it's time to take note and start to think, "Hmmm...maybe I *am* backing the wrong horse in this race."

And, re:Gen. Zinni:

From 1997 to 2000, he was commander-in-chief of the United States Central Command, in charge of all American troops in the Middle East. That was the same job held by Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf before him, and Gen. Tommy Franks after.

I think he is eminently more qualified to comment on the failures of this war on Iraq than you.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: bozack

Originally posted by: Format C:
And Robert Kagan? He's a key member of the PNAC and he's criticizing Bush now, too.

So let me get this straight. In your little world those who criticize Bush are all correct and those who don't are all wrong. Is that how you define objectivity?

seems about right Format....what I love is another tired old general throws in his two cents at every turn...guess these guys didn't get their full fifteen when they were actually active.[/quote]
As an ardent supporter of the Dub I bet you don't love it when what they say seems to a good evaluation of the situation though. Things like that could sway the undecided away from the Dub's camp.

 

[Ldir]

Originally posted by: Format C:

Originally posted by: tallest1

Zinni spent more than 40 years serving his country as a warrior and diplomat, rising from a young lieutenant in Vietnam to four-star general with a reputation for candor.

Now Format C:, please tell me how this man has less credibility than a president who hasn't served a single second outside of our country. Tell me how you know the facts and he doesn't

You DID notice the little "RET" after his name did you not? Do I REALLY need to explain to you the difference between the opinions of someone out of the loop versus the decisions of someone in it?

Yes. Explain how RET means less credibility than chickenhawks who never served at all. Explain how Zinni is wrong. Address the issues for a change.

 

[syzygy]

from zinni:

?I can't speak for all generals, certainly. But I know we felt that this situation
was contained. Saddam was effectively contained. The no-fly, no-drive zones. The
sanctions that were imposed on him,? says Zinni.

In the months leading up to the war, while still Middle East envoy, Zinni carried
the message to Congress: ?This is, in my view, the worst time to take this on. And
I don?t feel it needs to e done now.?

i can agree with a few of the points he made (esp. rumsfeld's tactical decisions at the
start) but zinni's containment is begging the question . . . what to do with the ba'ath
regime ?

zinni responds by saying this was 'the worst time to take this on' and, assuming we
had not initiated the campaign, 'i don't feel it needs to be done now'. then when ? ? ?

this is why amidst some cogent points he resorts to the usual sniping without providing
an alternate timeframe. the containment policy he finds adequate was proven a monstrous
failure ! saddam was accumulating billions, biding his time, consolidating his power further.

between 1991-96 saddam survived a civil war on three fronts: kurds (north), shia (south),
and from his own intelligence/military personnel (internal). yet he survived - and flourished.
grew richer. stronger. congratulations saddam . . . and zinni simply finds comfort in the
containment. dumb. perfect nutrition for liberals.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: syzygy
from zinni:

?I can't speak for all generals, certainly. But I know we felt that this situation
was contained. Saddam was effectively contained. The no-fly, no-drive zones. The
sanctions that were imposed on him,? says Zinni.

In the months leading up to the war, while still Middle East envoy, Zinni carried
the message to Congress: ?This is, in my view, the worst time to take this on. And
I don?t feel it needs to e done now.?

i can agree with a few of the points he made (esp. rumsfeld's tactical decisions at the
start) but zinni's containment is begging the question . . . what to do with the ba'ath
regime ?

zinni responds by saying this was 'the worst time to take this on' and, assuming we
had not initiated the campaign, 'i don't feel it needs to be done now'. then when ? ? ?

this is why amidst some cogent points he resorts to the usual sniping without providing
an alternate timeframe. the containment policy he finds adequate was proven a monstrous
failure ! saddam was accumulating billions, biding his time, consolidating his power further.

between 1991-96 saddam survived a civil war on three fronts: kurds (north), shia (south),
and from his own intelligence/military personnel (internal). yet he survived - and flourished.
grew richer. stronger. congratulations saddam . . . and zinni simply finds comfort in the
containment. dumb. perfect nutrition for liberals.

Explain how under this containment he became more of a threat to America Security than he was prior to the containment!

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

As an officer myself, I find it a little comical that people here (who have presumably never served themselves) are so quick to pooh-pooh the opinions of a retired 4-star who just happened to be CENTCOM CINC.

The reality is that, under Article 88, UCMJ, commissioned officers are not allowed to use "contemptuous words" toward the President, VP, Congress, SecDef, or any of a handful of other officials - it's literally a criminal offense (not to mention that it presumably does not work wonders for their careers, notwithstanding potential criminal penalties). Not surprisingly, this does not lead to great candor on their parts.

Interestingly, the prospect of war in Iraq was met with skepticism by many active-duty officers as well, up to and including then-Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, who said it would require several hundred thousand troops to be effective, and civilian leadership, including then-Secretary of the Army Thomas White (who was fired by Scty Rumsfeld as a result). See, e.g., this article.

Gen Zinni is not some kind of peacenik - you don't get to wear 4 stars in the Marines by espousing peace and love - and he campaigned for President Bush in 2000. This article provides interesting insight into his background and bases for questioning the war in Iraq.

 

[conjur]

Nice article, Don_Vito:

Anthony C. Zinni's opposition to U.S. policy on Iraq began on the monsoon-ridden afternoon of Nov. 3, 1970. He was lying on a Vietnamese mountainside west of Da Nang, three rounds from an AK-47 assault rifle in his side and back. He could feel his lifeblood seeping into the ground as he slipped in and out of consciousness.



He had plenty of time to think in the following months while recuperating in a military hospital in Hawaii. Among other things, he promised himself that, "If I'm ever in a position to say what I think is right, I will. . . . I don't care what happens to my career."

That time has arrived.

Over the past year, the retired Marine Corps general has become one of the most prominent opponents of Bush administration policy on Iraq, which he now fears is drifting toward disaster.

It is one of the more unusual political journeys to come out of the American experience with Iraq. Zinni still talks like an old-school Marine -- a big-shouldered, weight-lifting, working-class Philadelphian whose father emigrated from Italy's Abruzzi region, and who is fond of quoting the wisdom of his fictitious "Uncle Guido, the plumber." Yet he finds himself in the unaccustomed role of rallying the antiwar camp, attacking the policies of the president and commander in chief whom he had endorsed in the 2000 election.

"Iraq is in serious danger of coming apart because of lack of planning, underestimating the task and buying into a flawed strategy," he says. "The longer we stubbornly resist admitting the mistakes and not altering our approach, the harder it will be to pull this chestnut out of the fire."

Three years ago, Zinni completed a tour as chief of the Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East, during which he oversaw enforcement of the two "no-fly" zones in Iraq and also conducted four days of punishing airstrikes against that country in 1998. He even served briefly as a special envoy to the Middle East, mainly as a favor to his old friend and comrade Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

Zinni long has worried that there are worse outcomes possible in Iraq than having Saddam Hussein in power -- such as eliminating him in such a way that Iraq will become a new haven for terrorism in the Middle East.

"I think a weakened, fragmented, chaotic Iraq, which could happen if this isn't done carefully, is more dangerous in the long run than a contained Saddam is now," he told reporters in 1998. "I don't think these questions have been thought through or answered." It was a warning for which Iraq hawks such as Paul D. Wolfowitz, then an academic and now the No. 2 official at the Pentagon, attacked him in print at the time.

Now, five years later, Zinni fears it is an outcome toward which U.S.-occupied Iraq may be drifting. Nor does he think the capture of Hussein is likely to make much difference, beyond boosting U.S. troop morale and providing closure for his victims. "Since we've failed thus far to capitalize" on opportunities in Iraq, he says, "I don't have confidence we will do it now. I believe the only way it will work now is for the Iraqis themselves to somehow take charge and turn things around. Our policy, strategy, tactics, et cetera, are still screwed up."

'Where's the Threat?'

Anthony Zinni's passage from obedient general to outspoken opponent began in earnest in the unlikeliest of locations, the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He was there in Nashville in August 2002 to receive the group's Dwight D. Eisenhower Distinguished Service Award, recognition for his 35 years in the Marine Corps.

Vice President Cheney was also there, delivering a speech on foreign policy. Sitting on the stage behind the vice president, Zinni grew increasingly puzzled. He had endorsed Bush and Cheney two years earlier, just after he retired from his last military post, as chief of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in Iraq.

"I think he ran on a moderate ticket, and that's my leaning -- I'm kind of a Lugar-Hagel-Powell guy," he says, listing three Republicans associated with centrist foreign policy positions.

He was alarmed that day to hear Cheney make the argument for attacking Iraq on grounds that Zinni found questionable at best:

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction," Cheney said. "There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."

Cheney's certitude bewildered Zinni. As chief of the Central Command, Zinni had been immersed in U.S. intelligence about Iraq. He was all too familiar with the intelligence analysts' doubts about Iraq's programs to acquire weapons of mass destruction, or WMD. "In my time at Centcom, I watched the intelligence, and never -- not once -- did it say, 'He has WMD.' "

Though retired for nearly two years, Zinni says, he remained current on the intelligence through his consulting with the CIA and the military. "I did consulting work for the agency, right up to the beginning of the war. I never saw anything. I'd say to analysts, 'Where's the threat?' " Their response, he recalls, was, "Silence."

Zinni's concern deepened as Cheney pressed on that day at the Opryland Hotel. "Time is not on our side," the vice president said. "The risks of inaction are far greater than the risks of action."

Zinni's conclusion as he slowly walked off the stage that day was that the Bush administration was determined to go to war. A moment later, he had another, equally chilling thought: "These guys don't understand what they are getting into."

Unheeded Advice

This retired Marine commander is hardly a late-life convert to pacifism. "I'm not saying there aren't parts of the world that don't need their ass kicked," he says, sitting in a hotel lobby in Pentagon City, wearing an open-necked blue shirt. Even at the age of 60, he remains an avid weight-lifter and is still a solid, square-faced slab of a man. "Afghanistan was the right thing to do," he adds, referring to the U.S. invasion there in 2001 to oust the Taliban regime and its allies in the al Qaeda terrorist organization.

But he didn't see any need to invade Iraq. He didn't think Hussein was much of a worry anymore. "He was contained," he says. "It was a pain in the ass, but he was contained. He had a deteriorated military. He wasn't a threat to the region."

But didn't his old friend Colin Powell also describe Hussein as a threat? Zinni dismisses that. "He's trying to be the good soldier, and I respect him for that." Zinni no longer does any work for the State Department.

Zinni's concern deepened at a Senate hearing in February, just six weeks before the war began. As he awaited his turn to testify, he listened to Pentagon and State Department officials talk vaguely about the "uncertainties" of a postwar Iraq. He began to think they were doing the wrong thing the wrong way. "I was listening to the panel, and I realized, 'These guys don't have a clue.' "

That wasn't a casual judgment. Zinni had started thinking about how the United States might handle Iraq if Hussein's government collapsed after Operation Desert Fox, the four days of airstrikes that he oversaw in December 1998, in which he targeted presidential palaces, Baath Party headquarters, intelligence facilities, military command posts and barracks, and factories that might build missiles that could deliver weapons of mass destruction.

In the wake of those attacks on about 100 major targets, intelligence reports came in that Hussein's government had been shaken by the short campaign. "After the strike, we heard from countries with diplomatic missions in there [Baghdad] that the regime was paralyzed, and that there was a kind of defiance in the streets," he recalls.

So early in 1999 he ordered that plans be devised for the possibility of the U.S. military having to occupy Iraq. Under the code name "Desert Crossing," the resulting document called for a nationwide civilian occupation authority, with offices in each of Iraq's 18 provinces. That plan contrasts sharply, he notes, with the reality of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. occupation power, which for months this year had almost no presence outside Baghdad -- an absence that some Army generals say has increased their burden in Iraq.

Listening to the administration officials testify that day, Zinni began to suspect that his careful plans had been disregarded. Concerned, he later called a general at Central Command's headquarters in Tampa and asked, "Are you guys looking at Desert Crossing?" The answer, he recalls, was, "What's that?"

The more he listened to Wolfowitz and other administration officials talk about Iraq, the more Zinni became convinced that interventionist "neoconservative" ideologues were plunging the nation into a war in a part of the world they didn't understand. "The more I saw, the more I thought that this was the product of the neocons who didn't understand the region and were going to create havoc there. These were dilettantes from Washington think tanks who never had an idea that worked on the ground."

And the more he dwelled on this, the more he began to believe that U.S. soldiers would wind up paying for the mistakes of Washington policymakers. And that took him back to that bloody day in the sodden Que Son mountains in Vietnam.

A Familiar Chill

Even now, decades later, Vietnam remains a painful subject for him. "I only went to the Wall once, and it was very difficult," he says, talking about his sole visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall. "I was walking down past the names of my men," he recalls. "My buddies, my troops -- just walking down that Wall was hard, and I couldn't go back."

Now he feels his nation -- and a new generation of his soldiers -- have been led down a similar path.

"Obviously there are differences" between Vietnam and Iraq, he says. "Every situation is unique." But in his bones, he feels the same chill. "It feels the same. I hear the same things -- about [administration charges about] not telling the good news, about cooking up a rationale for getting into the war." He sees both conflicts as beginning with deception by the U.S. government, drawing a parallel between how the Johnson administration handled the beginning of the Vietnam War and how the Bush administration touted the threat presented by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. "I think the American people were conned into this," he says. Referring to the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which the Johnson administration claimed that U.S. Navy ships had been subjected to an unprovoked attack by North Vietnam, he says, "The Gulf of Tonkin and the case for WMD and terrorism is synonymous in my mind."

Likewise, he says, the goal of transforming the Middle East by imposing democracy by force reminds him of the "domino theory" in the 1960s that the United States had to win in Vietnam to prevent the rest of Southeast Asia from falling into communist hands.

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."

He is especially irked that, as he sees it, no senior officials have taken responsibility for their incorrect assessment of the threat posed by Iraq. "What I don't understand is that the bill of goods the neocons sold him has been proven false, yet heads haven't rolled," he says. "Where is the accountability? I think some fairly senior people at the Pentagon ought to go." Who? "That's up to the president."

Zinni has picked his shots carefully -- a speech here, a "Nightline" segment or interview there. "My contemporaries, our feelings and sensitivities were forged on the battlefields of Vietnam, where we heard the garbage and the lies, and we saw the sacrifice," he said at a talk to hundreds of Marine and Navy officers and others at a Crystal City hotel ballroom in September. "I ask you, is it happening again?" The speech, part of a forum sponsored by the U.S. Naval Institute and the Marine Corps Association, received prolonged applause, with many officers standing.

Zinni says that he hasn't received a single negative response from military people about the stance he has taken. "I was surprised by the number of uniformed guys, all ranks, who said, 'You're speaking for us. Keep on keeping on.' "

Even home in Williamsburg, he has been surprised at the reaction. "I mean, I live in a very conservative Republican community, and people were saying, 'You're right.' "

But Zinni vows that he has learned a lesson. Reminded that he endorsed Bush in 2000, he says, "I'm not going to do anything political again -- ever. I made that mistake one time."

 

[GTaudiophile]

Interesting. I'm sorry, even as a Bush supporter and conservative, you HAVE to respect the words of a four-star general and Marine!

These guys live and die by their word.

 

[Moonbeam]

A real expert is someone who agrees with your prior assumptions because what the fearful and insecure cannot do is change their minds or tolerate other points of view. They require absolutely certainty and absolute agreement because they are terrified of the incredible inferiority that hides behind their absolutism.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Originally posted by: Format C:

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: WinstonSmith

Originally posted by: Format C:
Yes, like all those credible retired officers the networks had on every night during the invasion with their constant doom and gloom of mass casualties and assured failure. Its not their inside track that leads to their opinions but rather their glaringly obvious political ideologies. They don't want the effort to succeed because they don't want Bush to succeed. End of story.

What about Kristol?

And Robert Kagan? He's a key member of the PNAC and he's criticizing Bush now, too.

So let me get this straight. In your little world those who criticize Bush are all correct and those who don't are all wrong. Is that how you define objectivity?

You have yet again ducked the question.

What about Kristol? Do you even know who he is and why his opinion is relevant?

BTW, I know a few long time marines. I suggest you go up to them and dis Zinni. Let us know the address of the hospital you wind up in.

 

[conjur]

Zinni, that damn liberal traitor, will be interviewed in 15 min. on Hardball on MSNBC (repeated at 11pm EDT)

 

[Passions]

Originally posted by: conjur
Zinni, that damn liberal traitor, will be interviewed in 15 min. on Hardball on MSNBC (repeated at 11pm EDT)

Finally glad to see you come around conjur. *pats conjur on the back*

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Originally posted by: conjur
Zinni, that damn liberal traitor, will be interviewed in 15 min. on Hardball on MSNBC (repeated at 11pm EDT)

Excerpt is here.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Originally posted by: Passions

Originally posted by: conjur
Zinni, that damn liberal traitor, will be interviewed in 15 min. on Hardball on MSNBC (repeated at 11pm EDT)

Finally glad to see you come around conjur. *pats conjur on the back*

I am still trying to figure out if you are a liberal having fun pulling peoples legs, or a psychotic who believes evey you say. Since the former is more appealing, I will pick that