Here's an address from Gen Zinni BEFORE the 2000 Election, and obviously before 9-11-2001....Clinton was still the President.
Farewell remarks at the U.S. Naval Institute
March 2000
by
General Anthony C. Zinni, USMC
Commander-in-Chief U.S. Central Command
rcaca.org
Partial note from the address:
>>>>>Then suddenly, at the end of the 1980s, the Berlin Wall came down, the Evil Empire collapsed, and we found ourselves in the post-Cold War period. It would require a major adjustment. 1 was serving in the European Command when the Wall came down so quickly and unexpectedly--and in turn, we drew down too quickly, in the worst possible way. On the way down, we broke a lot of china, in the form of contracts with U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines--and in particular the soldiers. We drew down our Army too far, almost ripping it apart in the process--ten divisions is just too low a force level--I'm here to tell you. In addition, we have let manning levels sink way too low, not understanding that the post-Cold War would bring more chaos instead of a smooth transition to world peace. Not fully understanding the Cold War force structure we were drawing down--and the kind of structure we would need for the post-Cold War period, we have been drawing down to a mini-version of the Cold War force. Today's high-demand, low-density units are paying the price for those decisions. Let's admit it--we've screwed up again.
The next influential event was Desert Storm, which, as far as I am concerned, was an aberration. It seemed to work out okay for us, but ultimately it may be an aberration, because it may have left the impression that the terrible mess that awaits us abroad--to be dealt with by peacekeeping or humanitarian operations or coercive diplomacy, for some--can somehow be overcome by good, clean soldiering, just like in World War II. In reality, though, the only reason Desert Storm worked was because we managed to go up against the only jerk on the planet who actually was stupid enough to confront us symmetrically--with less of everything, including the moral right to do what he did to Kuwait. In the high-and top-level war colleges we still fight this type of adversary, so we always can win. I rebelled at this notion, thinking there would be nowhere out there so stupid to fight us that way. But then along came Saddam Hussein, and "good soldiering" was vindicated once again.
Worse yet, the end of any conflict often brings into professional circles the heartfelt belief that "Now that the war is over, we can get back to real soldiering." So we merrily backtrack in that direction. Scary, isn't it? Still trying to fight our kind of war--be it World War II or Desert Storm--we ignore the real warfighting requirements of today. We want to fight the Navy-Marine Corps Operational Maneuver from the Sea; we want to fight the Army-Air Force AirLand Battle. We want to find a real adversarial demon--a composite of Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini--so we can drive on to his capital city and crush him there. Unconditional surrender. Then we'll put in place a Marshall Plan, embrace the long-suffering vanquished, and help them regain entry into the community of nations. Everybody wants to do that. As a retiring CinC, I would love to do that somewhere before I step down--just find somebody for me! But it ain't gonna happen.
Today, I am stuck with the likes of a wiser Saddam Hussein and a still-elusive Osama Bin Laden--just a couple of those charmers out there who will no longer take us on in a symmetric force match-up. And we're going to be doing things like humanitarian operations, consequence management, peacekeeping, and peace enforcement. Somewhere along the line, we'll have to respond to some kind of environmental disaster. And somewhere else along the line we may get stuck with putting a U.S. battalion in place on the Golan Heights, embedded in a weird, screwed-up chain of command. And do you know what? We're going to bitch and moan about it. We're going to dust off the Weinberger Doctrine and the Powell Doctrine and throw them in the face of our civilian leadership.
But at the same time, there's the President, thinking out loud in a recent meeting and saying, "Why can't we ever drive a stake through the hearts of any of these guys? I look at Kim Jong Il; I look at Milosovic; I look at Saddam Hussein. Ever since the end of World War II, why haven't we been able to find a way to do this?" The answer, of course, is that you must have the political will--and that means the will of the administration, the Congress, and the American people. All must be united in a desire for action. Instead, however, we try to get results on the cheap. There are congressmen today who want to fund the Iraqi Liberation Act, and let some silk-suited, Rolex-wearing guys in London gin up an expedition. We'll equip a thousand fighters and arm them with $97 million worth of AK-47s and insert them into Iraq. And what will we have? A Bay of Goats, most likely. That's what can happen when we do things on the cheap.
But why can't we muster the necessary political will to do things right? It goes back to cost-benefit analysis, especially in terms of potential casualties. Nobody in his right mind can justify the possible human cost and the uncertain aftermath of strong military action. The bombings at Beirut and the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and the debacle in Mogadishu have affected us in bad ways--making us gun-shy to an extreme degree. But every time I testify at congressional hearings, I try to make the point that there is no way to guarantee 100% force protection while accomplishing the variety of missions we undertake out there. Somewhere, sometime, we are going to lose people again--to terrorist or other actions that take advantage of our own less-than-perfect protective measures. <<<<<<<<<<<<<< |
