The following excerpt about an interview with General Zinni says it all :
"Iraq is in serious danger of coming apart because of lack of planning, underestimating the task and buying
into a flawed strategy," he (Zinni) 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."
Apparently the time that Zinni turned against the Bush Administration (he endorsed Bush in the 2000
election) was when he saw Vice President Dick Cheney speak to a VFW convention.
"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.' "
That's right. Zinni said that "never - not once - did [the intelligence] say, 'He has WMD.'" It was uncertain.
It was always uncertain. Once Cheney left the stage Zinni was conviced of two things: first, that the Bush
Administration was determined to invade and occupy Iraq. And, second, "These guys don't understand
what they are getting into."
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