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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JDN who wrote (565053)	4/15/2004 2:43:04 PM
From: sea_biscuit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

A general's view [emphases mine] : JIM LEHRER: General Zinni, you remained silent in your criticism until recently about what was going on in Iraq. What caused you to speak up finally? GEN. ANTHONY ZINNI (RET.): Well, first of all, I wasn't silent before. I was called before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and I gave my piece. I voiced my concern in several venues here in this town and they were concerns that I wasn't the lone voice, there were other generals -- former commanders and chiefs of CENTCOM and other general officers -- once the shooting started, I was supporting those troops that were in the field. They didn't need some general back here commenting on the war or in some way Monday morning quarterbacking defense that went on. Now that part of it is over. Now our troops are stuck. Anthony ZinniI'm hoping we can come out of this. I definitely don't think it's too late. I do not believe this is a quagmire. We're not at that stage yet. But I do think we can't do business as usual. We can't just stay the course and keep doing the same things. We're going to have to take some dramatic action to internationalize this effort to put qualified, highly trained Iraqi security forces in the field, to generate an economy and a level of business that gets jobs on the street. Unfortunately it's going to cost us $87 billion and probably more down the road. But time can run against us in this and it has to be executed more quickly. I would like to see more people on the ground. I think you need a Bremer and a Bremer-like team at every provincial level, maybe 18 teams down to the grassroots level. You can't leave it to a battalion commander to run the local school or to the run the local city council or village council. You need a political, economic, security, humanitarian piece at every level. JIM LEHRER: Anybody listening to you, general? GEN. ANTHONY ZINNI (RET.): Just you. JIM LEHRER: A couple of others listening with us tonight. Thank you very much. GEN. ANTHONY ZINNI (RET.): Thank you, Jim.