Zinni: 10 Things The Administration Got Wrong... And More

A strong supporter of Bush before Iraq, Zinni blasts incompetence now.

I think the first mistake that was made was misjudging the success of containment. I heard the president say, not too long ago, I believe it was with the interview with Tim Russert that ... I'm not sure ... but at some point I heard him say that "containment did not work." That's not true.

To say containment didn't work, I think is not only wrong from the experiences we had then, but the proof is in the pudding, in what kind of military our troops faced when we went in there. It disintegrated in front of us. It didn't have the capabilities, that were pumped up, that were supposedly possessed by this military. And I think that will be the first mistake that will be recorded in history, the belief that containment as a policy doesn't work.

The second mistake I think history will record is that the strategy was flawed. I couldn't believe what I was hearing about the benefits of this strategic move.

The third mistake, I think was one we repeated from Vietnam, we had to create a false rationale for going in to get public support. The books were cooked, in my mind.

We failed in number four, to internationalize the effort.

I think the fifth mistake was that we underestimated the task.

The sixth mistake, and maybe the biggest one, was propping up and trusting the exiles, the infamous "Gucci Guerillas" from London. We bought into their intelligence reports. To the credit of the CIA, they didn't buy into it, so I guess the Defense Department created its own boutique intelligence agency to vet them.

The seventh problem has been the lack of planning.

The eighth problem was the insufficiency of military forces on the ground. There were a lot more troops in my military plan for operations in Iraq. I know when that plan was presented, the secretary of defense said it was "old and stale." It sounded pretty new and fresh to me, and looking back at it, now because there were a hell of a lot more troops.

The ninth problem has been the ad hoc organization we threw in there. No one can tell me the Coalition Provisional Authority had any planning for its structure.

And that ad hoc organization has failed, leading to the tenth mistake, and that's a series of bad decisions on the ground. De-Baathifying down to a point where you've alienated the Sunnis, where you have stopped having qualified people down in the ranks, people who don't have blood on their hands, but know how to make the trains run on time.

Look, the plan for the future of Iraq has to be done by Iraqis, by people in the region and by the international community not just handed to them by Americans.

PHIL COYLE: Gen. Zinni, I think the administration claims 38 countries are in the coalition.

ZINNI: Yeah. Fiji, I think, was a big contributor. (Laughter)

I think there is an obligation to speak the truth that when you’re confirmed, and when you raise your right hand in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee and in front of whoever the administers that oath for your appointment. You answer to those many bosses. One is the secretary of defense and the president, another boss is the Congress, who represents the people.

BOB JAMES: Secretary Powell had four, six months to try to sell the coalition to the U.N., apparently he was unable to do this….was the…

ZINNI: Well, you saw it differently than I did, because I saw him go to the U.N. and get a 15-and-0 vote for 1441, the resolution.

BOB JAMES: That’s right.

ZINNI: And we put the inspectors in. And the U.N. asked for the inspectors to play out their role. And in my mind in the way of thinking and looking at past history, that was maybe a six, nine-month, maybe even a year of process of the inspectors in there poking around.

I’ll tell you what I saw. I saw a diplomatic effort in New York, headed by the Secretary of State. That, in mind, the timeline was six, nine, twelve months. I saw a “go-to-war” timeline by (the) Secretary of Defense. He was going to war in March. If you know anything about military, you watch those deployments. That wasn’t deployment of forces in support of diplomacy. That was deployment of forces to go to war.

But I saw two different timelines. And if you’re going to pursue diplomacy…I heard a Congressman say the other day: “We tried it for seven months. What do you want?” Try it for 14. What was the rush, you know?

This is an insurgency now. It has moved beyond terrorist actions, well into an insurgency. And it can get to the point of civil war: Shia on Shia, Sunni on Shia, any combination. Those that support U.S. reform and change, those that don’t, theocratic state supporters against those that want a democracy, whatever.

I was part of this administration. They entrusted me with the Middle East peace process, which I thought…And they did it in a way, that they fully gave me the trust, not a lot of guidance or direction, to let me to be able to do what I needed to do.

And I was very supportive of this administration. Certainly Secretary Powell and those in the State Department that I respect tremendously. It was not my desire to see this administration fail. If anything, I had an allegiance and I think, owed them something for the trust they gave me.

When this started to come about and I realized that it was wrong. I realized that if I speak out, I lose either way. If I’m wrong, you know, another guy who couldn’t figure it out. If I’m right, it means we have casualties, lost treasure and our image around the world is destroyed.

It was a lose-lose proposition from the beginning. And so it was very painful to go down this road. I did not want to be right. I also knew by not being right, that was going to be painful too. But, it had to be said, because I can’t stand looking at the end of another news story and seeing the faces of those young kids.

My son is a Marine Officer in the infantry. I lost a member of my family in Iraq, the son of my cousin, already. So, it’s become very personal. Not to mention, just every one of those faces I see, I recognize. I mean, not directly, but these are, I mean, knew those sergeants and corporals and PFCs after 40 years, that paid a price for this, you know?

Make sure the strategy is right. You know, one of the things I said, flawed strategy. When the president gets to commit to this, all wars are political. I heard President Bush say in that Russert interview, “Well, Vietnam was a political war. “

All wars are political. This one is more political than Vietnam, I would argue. But, if you’re committing to this, what is the strategic objective? How will that be achieved? How will that meet our interests? What will be the cost of achieving that strategic objective?

You see, one of the problems we have is the only people who think strategically are the military. Because we happen to go to school to think that way. The frustration when you become a general is you walk in expecting strategic thinking and you don’t get it from the civilian side. Because they don’t go to the schools and they don’t think that way. They don’t think through the strategic center of gravity and how you affect it.

Let me give you an example – the War on Terrorism. I think we do a masterful job at the tactical level. We attack al Qaeda on the ground. We break down the finances. We break down the cells. We get law enforcement cooperation around the world doing wonderful damage to the organization. Yet, as an ideology and a movement, it has grown.

If I were to analyze, from a strategic point of view, al Qaeda - and, I’m not saying this is the right analogy, but it’s just an example - the strategic center of gravity for al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden is a pool of angry, young men willing to die. What causes angry young men [to be] willing to die?

They’re willing to die because there’s a political, economic or social reason. Some sense of disenfranchisement. Some sense of oppression that makes them angry, fires them up, and makes them tempted to come to al Qaeda. Now, that isn’t enough to get them to blow themselves up and to do horrific acts. You need a rationale. You need something that justifies what they do.

At the operational level, the center of gravity is the aberrant form of Islam that they’re able to use on them to provide the sense of reward, and rationale and justification for what the do. And then the set of tactics that work so well against us, because it is asymmetric.

If you think about it on those three levels, I have to go after this “War on Terrorism,” which is even a bad name. I have to go after this movement of extremism at three levels. How do I cut that flow of angry young men? How do I make sure that aberrant form of Islam is rejected? Or encourage others to, and I’ve got some thoughts on all this, but I won’t go into it here. And do the things that we do well at the tactical level. But, you don’t have that kind of strategic thinking

The second point about strategy is, we always underestimate the American people. We never sell the go to war on the strategic…on the strategy. It’s interesting in that when Tom Ricks did the article on the Secretary Wolfowitz and myself - in this, the (Washington) Post - there was a comment in there by Secretary Wolfowitz that said, “Sometimes the American people have to be pushed into these things.”

That made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. What do you mean, pushed? Does it mean cook the books on the intelligence? We shade the truth? Does it mean we don’t give them the straight answer as to why we’re doing this?

Sell it to the American people on the merits of the strategic advantages for doing this.

You know, if you have a strategy, and you believe in it, and you believe it’s the right strategy. Sell it on its merits to the American people. Make them think strategically and accept it or not. Don’t sell it on a Gulf of Tonkin or a WMD imminent threat because in the end, that’s going to come back and get you. That’s a lesson from Vietnam.

The next thing you have to understand about these situations is you’re not going to succeed unless the people on the ground you’re trying to help have a vested interest in succeeding. They’ve got to own the problem. Right now the United States of America owns the problem in Iraq. Nobody else owns the problem. We own the problem. The Iraqis have to own this problem. When I see a truck driver from West Virginia in a fuel truck, I say the Iraqis don’t own the problem yet. If I saw an Iraqi driver in that truck, they own the problem.

If I see an Iraqi soldier on the street standing up, if I see an Iraqi making some political decisions, then I say, they own the problem.

Let me give you a small example.

When went through that, you know, “Weekend at Bernie’s” session with the sons of Saddam. After we got those two guys, I would’ve turned those bodies over to the Governing Council. Immediately.

And I would’ve said to the Governing Council, “You own them.” You can bury them according to Muslim tradition within 24 hours. You can show them on Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya. You can bury them and tell the people you verified who they are. They’re yours.

What did we do? We kept the bodies. We violated Muslim traditional burial. We showed them out to the world. We owned the problem and that was a small problem that could’ve been put, on their back, to begin kind of transferring that monkey. We don’t do enough of that in this business.

Left Coaster may have been first.