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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (81108)	3/11/2003 3:37:55 AM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

General Anthony Zinni's Speech to the Middle East Institute Annual Conference, October 10, 2002 Ambassador Edward S. Walker, Jr.:Now I want to introduce our keynote speaker, who is more qualified than virtually anyone else I can think of to address the issues of peace and war in the region. He is no armchair warrior; he is a recipient of the Purple Heart and many other combat medals. He didn't get his experience in Washington politics or as a guru in a think tank; he was a Marine company commander in Vietnam. He was in command of the unified task force in Somalia and has some experience with nation building. He was the deputy commander and then commander of CENTCOM. He designed and implemented the footprint of U.S. forces in the Gulf. As an ambassador in the Gulf, I know for a fact that he was the best ambassador of goodwill that we had to the region, and probably the best we will ever have to the region. This is a man who is both a soldier and a diplomat, and he knows of what he speaks. He is not shy. At times, Presidents have been a little bit nervous listening to him, but it's very important that they listen to people like Tony Zinni. It's a great pleasure for me to introduce General Tony C. Zinni. (applause) General Zinni: Thank you. Ned asked me to look at the possibility of military action in Iraq and sort of describe the lane between best-case, worst-case and maybe the most-likely-case scenarios and where the minefields may be. Let me start with the best case. Last night I sat down and said, "What would have to happen to make any military action to turn out in the best possible way?" I wrote ten conditions for this war that would have to happen. The first condition is that the coalition is in. The second is that the war is short. The third is that destruction is light. Fourth is that Israel is out. Fifth is that the street is quiet. Sixth is that order is kept. Seventh is that the burden is shared. Eighth is that the change is orderly. Ninth is that the military is not stuck. Tenth is that other commitments are met. That's an easy list. (laughter) If we design our strategy and our tactics based on that, it will all work out. Now let me go back and get to the rumble strips on the other side of the lane and maybe walk down each one of those. I think everything has been said in the debate that's taking place in Congress and elsewhere about what the potential pitfalls are. I'll start with the first one. In order to succeed, I think everybody agrees that we cannot go it alone. Everybody is relieved in many ways that we are going to the UN and attempting to get the legitimacy of a UN resolution. If we do anything there, we need partners. We certainly need the partners in the region that we have had. We need the relationships and the alliances we created over half a century ago, beginning with FDR and moving through many troubled times but always managing to work out in a way that, despite our differences and issues, we have stayed close and been partners. We need to hold that sort of loosely organized, informal but very powerful alliance together. It works through a number of ways. One is a lot of consultation, a lot of patience, a lot of dialogue, a lot of hard work on the ground, and the connection of a lot of personalities that represent the leadership in the region. It is not an easy thing to maintain; it is high maintenance, but it is necessary to pay the price to do the maintenance to keep those relationships strong. I really worry about some of the things I hear now that tend to want to create adversarial relationships with friends that we have worked very, very hard through very difficult issues to maintain the connection and the relationship. Being one of those people on the ground that had to maintain those relationships and work at it, I saw the power when these relationships were strong, kept strong, and the support was there. A lot of the support is done quietly. Sometimes it is done in a way that should be known, especially here, but isn't known. Almost every year when I testified before Congress, I had to remind them of the support we received in the region, of countries that have shown up with us in Somalia such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE. I had to remind them of countries that have shown up with us in Bosnia and Kosovo like Jordan and the UAE. They are showing up again in places like Afghanistan. They have made the military commitment beyond just the Gulf War to be by our side and to put their own troops in harm's way. The price that is paid, the cost of maintaining our presence and stability that is shared out there, often doesn't get a lot of attention but runs in the hundreds and millions of dollars. The careful way we construct that relationship is important. We have no assigned forces in the U.S. Central Command. There are no divisions or air wings; there are no fleets that are full-time, created, and organized just to be there. We have rotational forces that we borrow from other unified commands. We do this in a way to show that we are not a colonial power; we are not there to occupy. We are there as long as an element of security is needed, and we want to do it in a cooperative way. We share bases. We share technology in the region, sometimes far more technology than people realize. Those that claim a double standard often don't look deep enough into the things we do on the military side to prove that this is not the case, that if we're going to go into harm's way, we're going to do it with our soldiers on either side having the best capability in the world. Anything we do in this region requires regional coalition, support, and partnerships to work. The number one ingredient that makes it work--I heard this term time and time again--is consult, consult, consult. Understand what is going on on the ground. Listen to your partners. We all have interests; some of those interests collide. How can we smooth out the rough edges? How can we work out solutions that don't destabilize? (rest of speech at mideasti.org ) (emphasis mine)

To: LindyBill who wrote (81108)	3/11/2003 4:09:28 AM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

<a majority of Americans are with Bush in this war> My post was about England, where only 15% support going to war under present conditions. In the U.S., yes, there is majority support for the war. I wish that wasn't so, but it is. And I hope this war goes exactly according to the Hawk's plan, as that will mean the fewest casualties on both sides. If we try it your way, and it ends up being a failure, will you be willing to consider trying it my way?

To: LindyBill who wrote (81108)	3/11/2003 11:57:07 AM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 281500

I am sure Raines hated to make it the lead story in the "New York Times" today, but the latest polls show that a majority of Americans are just as fed up with the UN as Bush is. I just wish to repeat my earlier post, that this is overreading that article. It's more accurate to read it as a country torn and conflicted over the war, with a great many citizens not adamantly for or against. Still waiting for events to define a direction. It's the global numbers that are moving diplomacy at the moment.