If you missed the Meet the Press Interview with General Anthony Zinni on 4/2006, you missed the most lucid analysis on the War in Iraq I have heard or read to date by anyone. (don’t read further-just listen to the interview and come back to write your impression!) I can assure you that Tim Russert was not able to interfere as General Zinni layed out his case for the dishonesty, dishonor, evasion, mismanagement and lack of accountability that typified the war from the genesis of the rationale for the invasion until now.

(I found the whole Meet the Press 4/2/2006 interview with General Zinni (Crooks and Liars’ version is sadly very excerpted) on the MTP site but is prefaced by one with McCain. It is valuable to hear McCain’s BS and contrast that with the clarity of thought, integrity and dignity that Zinni displays. The transcript is available: McCain-Zinni MTP Transcript)

(Crossposted @ KOS I hope it wasn’t covered here yet!)
General Zinni is the Patriot our nation needs in this time of endless spin, lying, incompetence and lack of accountability. This interview was a point by point demolishing of the Bush positions and lies on the war. He is the Administration’s worst nightmare.

On the Republican side there is no one willing to tell the truth to the nation and they are mired in pork, tax cuts, pandering to the religious right and protecting themselves as Iraq is imploding.

On the Democratic side we have had very sad efforts that were the product of fear, lack of preparation, opportunism and worse. There have been a few very promising and consistent recent efforts by individuals but no one with the inside information, national standing, courage and respect of the military (the possible exception is Rep. Murtha who turned on the war last year) There has been no one that could clearly and proudly make the case for what has happened to place us so disastrously in Iraq and what needs to be done with that horrific situation.

General Zinni,in contrast, was at the center all that was happening in the Middle East (as the Top General in charge of US Centcom with responsibility for US Military/Security interests in 25 nations that stretch from the Horn of Africa through the Arabian Gulf region into Central Asia),  just before the Iraq war and stayed engaged from the beginning of the conflict until now. He has spoken out and written clearly on the subject especially since retiring.

He spoke clearly and convincingly on the challenges with Iraq all along.

MR. RUSSERT: And we’re going to talk about your book, “Battle For Peace.”

Let me bring you back to 1998, and this is what General Tony Zinni had to say:

“I think a weakened, fragmented, chaotic Iraq – which could happen if this isn’t done carefully – is more dangerous in the long run than a contained Saddam is now. … I don’t think these questions have been thought through or answered.” Is that what we have now?

GEN. ZINNI: I think so. I think we are paying the price for the lack of credible planning, or the lack of a plan. We’re throwing away 10 years worth of planning, in effect, for underestimating the situation we were going to get into, for not adhering to the advice that was being given to us by others, and, I think, getting distracted from Afghanistan and the war on terrorism that we were committed to when we took on this adventure.

MR. RUSSERT: I want to bring you back to August 26, 2002. The Veterans of Foreign War had a convention, a meeting. Vice President Cheney was the guest speaker. You were honored, as you can see the medal around your neck there. This is what the vice president said on that day.

(Videotape, August 26, 2002):

VICE PRES. DICK CHENEY: Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is not doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us. 

MR. RUSSERT: After that event, The Washington Post captured your thinking in a conversation with you. “Cheney’s certitude bewildered [retired General Tony] Zinni. … `In my time at CENTCOM, I watched the intelligence, and never – not once – did it say, “He has WMD.”‘ Though retired for nearly two years, Zinni says, he remained current on the intelligence through his consulting with the CIA and the military. `I did consulting work for the agency, right up to the beginning of the war. I never saw anything. I’d say to analysts, “Where’s the threat?”‘ Their response, he recalls, was, `Silence.’ Zinni’s concern deepened as Cheney pressed on. … Zinni’s conclusion as he slowly walked off the stage was that the Bush administration was determined to go to war. A moment later, he had another, equally chilling thought: `These guys don’t understand what they’re getting into.'”  Why did you think that on that day?

GEN. ZINNI: Well, first of all, prior to that, I heard the president say because this–these rumors of debates and people pushing for this entry into Iraq that the president said, “Well, look, I’m going to listen to the debate, and then I’ll look at the intelligence.” First of all, I thought that was a little backwards, but I said, “Well, the president hasn’t made up his mind to this point, and when he looks at the intelligence, takes an honest look at it, when he hears the debate, he’ll realize that this isn’t something that should be done now, and it should–and if you’re going to do it, you would do it in a way to try to restart the United Nations process, go back to what President Bush 41 had done.”

But what I heard on that stage today, or that day was not the case of restarting that process in any serious way. I heard the case being built to go to war right away. And what bothered me, I had been hearing about some of the assumptions on the planning, dismissal of the for–previous plans, and I was hearing a depiction of the intelligence that didn’t fit what I knew. There was no solid proof, that I ever saw, that Saddam had WMD.

Now, I’d be the first to say we had to assume he had WMD left over that wasn’t accounted for: artillery rounds, chemical rounds, a SCUD missile or two. But these things, over time, degrade. These things did not present operational or strategic level threats at best. Plus, we were watching Saddam with an army that had caved in. It was nothing like the Gulf War army. It was a shell of its former self. We knew we could go through it quickly. We’d stripped away his air defenses. He was at our mercy. We had air superiority before we even–or actually air supremacy before we would even start an operation. So to say that this threat was imminent or grave and gathering, seemed like a great exaggeration to me.

MR. RUSSERT: The president, the secretary of state, all said he was not contained, he was not in a box, that he was a madman.

GEN. ZINNI: Well, I think that’s–that is an insult to the troops who, for 10 years, ran the containment: those brave pilots who flew the no-fly zones, those sailors who enforced the maritime intercept operations, our soldiers and Marines that were on the ground out there that responded to every crisis, our support for the efforts of the inspectors that were in there. You know, we–we had less troops on a day-to-day basis out there than go to work at the Pentagon every day doing this. And these were not assigned troops to CENTCOM. These were troops that rotated in and out. We had allies out there that helped foot the bill for this, $300 million dollars to $500 million dollars a year supporting us with bases, supporting us with overflights, supporting us with assistance in kind, joining us in places like Somalia and the Balkans when we required coalition troops. I thought the containment worked remarkably well, and it was a tribute to our troops and how they handled it.

On Accountability:

MR. RUSSERT: I want to bring you back to a book you co-wrote with Tom Clancy called “Battle Ready.” And you wrote this:<U> “In the lead-up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw, at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence, and irresponsibility; at worst, lying, incompetence, and corruption.”</U&gt That’s very serious.

GEN. ZINNI: Yes.

MR. RUSSERT: Where did you see that?  At what level?

GEN. ZINNI:  Well, I–first of all, I saw it in the way the intelligence was being portrayed. I knew the intelligence; I saw it right up to the day of the war. I was asked at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing a month before the war if I thought the threat was imminent. I didn’t. Many of the people I know that were involved in the intelligence side of this, or, or in the military felt the same way. I saw the–what this town is known for: spin, cherry-picking facts, using metaphors to evoke certain emotional responses, or, or shading the, the context. We, we know the mushroom clouds and, and the other things that were all described that the media’s covered well. I saw on the ground, though, a sort of walking away from 10 years worth of planning.

You know, ever since the end of the first Gulf War, there have been–there’s been planning by serious officers and planners and others, and policies put in place. Ten years worth of planning, you know, were thrown away; troop levels dismissed out of hand; General Shinseki basically insulted for speaking the truth and giving a, an honest opinion; the lack of cohesive approach to how we deal with the aftermath; the political, economic, social reconstruction of a nation, which is no small task; a belief in these exiles that anyone in the region, anyone that had any knowledge would tell you were not credible on the ground; and on and on and on. Decisions to disband the army that were not in the initial plans. I mean there’s a series of disastrous mistakes. We just heard the secretary of state say these were tactical mistakes. These were not tactical mistakes. These were strategic mistakes, mistakes of policy made back here. Don’t blame the troops. They’re the ones that perform the tactics on the ground. They’ve been magnificent. If anything saves this, it will be them.

MR. RUSSERT: Should someone resign?

GEN. ZINNI: Absolutely.

MR. RUSSERT: Who?

GEN. ZINNI: Secretary of defense, to begin with.

MR. RUSSERT: Anyone else?

GEN. ZINNI: Well, I think that, that we–that those that have been responsible for the planning, for overriding all the, the efforts that were made in planning before that, that those that stood by and allowed this to happen, that didn’t speak out. And there are appropriate ways within the system you can speak out, at congressional hearings and otherwise. I think they have to be held accountable.

The point is, those that are in power now that have been part of this are finding that their time is spent defending the past. And if they have to defend the past, they’re unable to make the kinds of changes, adjustments, admit the mistakes and move on. And that’s where we are now, trying to rewrite history, defend the past, ridiculous statements that, “Well, wait 20 years and history will tell you how this turns out.” Well, I don’t think anybody wants 20 years to continue like it is now.

On the President’s “dream of democracy” and Russert’s pandering to it:

MR. RUSSERT: The overall thesis in your book, “Battle for Peace,” you write it this way, “I had also heard the secretary”–excuse me. Let me go back to the–put it on the screen there if we can. And if we can put–there it is. “The `Battle for Peace’ is not a battle in the classical sense – a battle that follows the sudden crisis blow that triggers a military conflict. The battle is the constant struggle to develop and build the measures, programs, systems, and institutions that will prevent crisis. The battle is the constant struggle to shape and manage the harmful elements in the environment that generate instabilities.

“The `Battle for Peace’ is the battle to achieve a stable world.”

The president’s dream is democracy, around the world and the Middle East. What happens to countries like Iraq, countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or in the Palestine area when Hamas is elected?  Does democracy necessarily bring about a desired result from America’s security interests?

GEN. ZINNI: Well, first of all, you have to understand how you instill democracy. It isn’t an election. An election doesn’t equal democracy. Think about it. We need an educated electorate. We need political parties that are transparent, that people understand their platforms, that compete in a fair process. We have to have a governmental system that people are voting into, and they have to understand that, and then you can have elections. We’ve sort of reversed the process.

Look what’s happened in Iraq. We’ve had three elections now, and we don’t have a government yet that can stand up. There aren’t people that, I think, really understood what they voted for. I saw a scene in Basra, one of the elections, where a woman ran in so excited about voting, and then she asked the poll tender, “Who do I vote for?” And he told her she–he couldn’t tell her, but he had to read a list to her of 169 parties. She was confused. When he hit number seven that said the Islamic party of something or other, she said, “That’s the one.” I mean, is that democracy?  Are they voting how they’re told at, at Friday prayers?  Are they voting for sectarian leaders that dominate their lives?  Do they truly understand what it’s all about?

It’s not just democracy. It’s economic development. It’s social reform. This takes time, takes an investment from the stable part of the world and the unstable part of the world to establish these.

This interview is well worth your time and thought. We need to make sure this interview, his book and thoughts on this war are widely shared and discussed. That is our challenge.

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