Texas Rainmaker » Zinni vs. Zinni

Zinni vs. Zinni
April 18th, 2006 3:31 pm

The MSM is gleefully lapping up every ounce of criticism they can from a small, handful of retired generals who are attacking Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. But just because these guys were once high ranking military officials doesn’t mean they’re above criticism themselves. Especially when they seem to be playing Monday morning politician.

But don’t just take my word for it. Here’s what retired General Anthony Zinni said recently on Meet the Press - April 2, 2006 (video):

“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.”

But as CENTCOM commander under Clinton, he testified before Congress on February 29, 2000:

“Iraq has not forgone its missile and WMD programs and continues to resist the reintroduction of United Nations arms inspectors.
…
While Iraq’s WMD capabilities were degraded under UN supervision and set back by Coalition strikes, some capabilities remain and others could quickly be regenerated. Despite claims that WMD efforts have ceased, Iraq probably is continuing clandestine nuclear research, retains stocks of chemical and biological munitions, and is concealing extended-range SCUD missiles, possibly equipped with CBW payloads. Even if Baghdad reversed its course and surrendered all WMD capabilities, it retains the scientific, technical, and industrial infrastructure to replace agents and munitions within weeks or months. A special concern is the absence of a UN inspection and monitoring presence, which until December 1998 had been paramount to preventing large-scale resumption of prohibited weapons programs.

A new disarmament regime must be reintroduced into Iraq as soon as possible and allowed to carry out the mandates dictated by the post-Gulf War UN resolutions. The Iraqi regime’s high regard for WMD and long-range missiles is our best indicator that a peaceful regime under Saddam Hussein is unlikely.”

So the pre-war “depictions” of intelligence indicating Iraq may have had WMDs didn’t fit “what [he] knew about Iraq”, which was that they “retain[ed] stocks of chemical and biological munitions” and “the scientific, technical, and industrial infrastructure to replace agents and munitions within weeks or months” - in other words, Iraq may have had WMDs.

Color me confused.

11 Comments »

Media’s Gas: Rumsfeld says,

I do not think Secretary Rumsfeld is overly worried about what the media is trying to play up with these few generals speaking out.

Unfortunately though, the Media will only hype and play up the few that dissent, and we will barely hear of the on…

Trackback by Center for Sanity — 9:40 pm
Zinni must be posturing for a run at the Democratic nomination for President by following the highly successful campaigns of Wesly Clark and John Kerry. I don’t know what Zinni’s beef is with Rumsfeld, he retired four months before Rumsfeld took over as SecDef under President Bush.

Comment by Old Soldier — 9:47 pm
Will we as a country ever run out of these jerks?? Whatever happened to loyalty and keeping your mouth shut?? Guess they will all be writing books..Yawn

Comment by Judith — 10:13 pm
Judith, maybe you should ask the same of Tom Paine, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.

Or, for the sake of being consistent again, why was it okay for Bush to criticize Clinton for Kosovo over not having an exit strategy in 1999 when he said “Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is.”

Or when the following statements by the respective conservatives?
“President Clinton is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation’s armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy.”
-Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA)

“No goal, no objective, not until we have those things and a compelling case is made, then I say, back out of it, because innocent people are going to die for nothing. That’s why I’m against it.”
-Sean Hannity, 4/5/1999

“I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our overextended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today.”
-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

“You can support the troops but not the president.”
-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

“My job as majority leader is be supportive of our troops, try to have input as decisions are made and to look at those decisions after they’re made … not to march in lock step with everything the president decides to do.”
-Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)

And all that, for an operation that was incredibly successful and not a quagmire with no end in sight like the current mess in Iraq.

Comment by Forrest — 10:00 pm
Forrest
Thanks for being available to post the quotes that the GOP doesn’t want to see. My how times change

Comment by Ron — 8:49 am
Forrest, nice quotes… especially when put into your own context. Kosovo, unlike Iraq, was a war we did not need to be involved in.

And Kosovo wasn’t as successful as your imagination leads you to believe.

I guess since Clinton was President during that war, you supported the use of deplete uranium ammunition, heavy air raids that likely killed more civilians and a bit of nation building in a country that posed zero threat to the United States or its interests.

By the way, what was the U.S. goal in Kosovo?

Comment by Texas Rainmaker — 9:03 am
And Kosovo wasn’t as successful as your imagination leads you to believe.

Here you linked to a section of the Wikipedia entry on the Kosovo war that discusses how the bombing campaign hit residential areas and almost certainly killed civilians. However, I am very confused if you are using that as a reason that you opposed the conflict. Let me remind you of the FAR greater numbers of innocent civilians that have died in Iraq due to the war and resulting chaos that followed. Perhaps the most conservative estimation, put out by Iraq Body Count puts the number of civilian deaths in Iraq at 34,511. Consistency demands that if you opposed the war in Kosovo (at least partially) on the basis of civilian deaths it caused that you do fully oppose the war in Iraq on the same basis.

I guess since Clinton was President during that war, you supported the use of deplete uranium ammunition, heavy air raids that likely killed more civilians and a bit of nation building in a country that posed zero threat to the United States or its interests.

Once again, color me confused, just as you said. If you raise these points as objections to the Kosovo war, why in the hell are you not objecting to the war in Iraq for the same reasons? As for myself, I do not ever support the use of depleted uranium.

By the way, what was the U.S. goal in Kosovo?

A foolish question if you have ever asked one. We intervened in Kosovo to prevent a man from committing the genocide of ethnic Albanians. Military intervention was chosen because the genocide was beginning to occur already and thus economic sanctions or similar penalities would be ineffective at blocking further killings.

Ron, I definitely agree. How ironic that the people decrying the current war opposition as America-haters themselves “hated America” in 1999.

Comment by Forrest — 11:33 am
I posted the link to disprove your assertion that the war in Kosovo was such a success. I didn’t oppose Kosovo because of the civilian death stats. As your hero even stated, civilian deaths are inevitable in warfare.

I opposed it because we didn’t have any business being there. We weren’t threatened. Milosevic wasn’t building WMDs, and hadn’t already used them in the past. He wasn’t shooting at American military planes on a regular basis. Sure, he was a bad guy, but we didn’t need to get involved.

“We intervened in Kosovo to prevent a man from committing the genocide of ethnic Albanians.”

So that’s the job of the U.S. military? Funny, Saddam was committing mass genocide and yet you and the rest of the Left still opposed military action therein.

“Ron, I definitely agree. How ironic that the people decrying the current war opposition as America-haters themselves “hated America” in 1999.”

War requires an enemy. Kosovo was not an enemy. It was the wrong use of military force by a man who loathed the military.

Comment by Texas Rainmaker — 11:46 am
I didn’t oppose Kosovo because of the civilian death stats. As your hero even stated, civilian deaths are inevitable in warfare.

I never denied that. The problem is when the discrimination of legitimate targets is not a focus of those leading the military. Discrimination of legitimate targets is one of the most important aspects in fighting a just war. And in the case of Iraq presently, our military leaders seem to be quite unconcerned with civilian casualties.

So that’s the job of the U.S. military? Funny, Saddam was committing mass genocide and yet you and the rest of the Left still opposed military action therein.

This is simply incorrect. I agree with the reasons of the first Gulf War. I am not pleased by all aspects of it (depleted uranium, etc.), but that is a separate story. The results of the first Gulf War, with the enforcement of the no-fly zone and economic sanctions against Iraq, Saddam was no longer able to target the Kurdish people in the northern portion of the country. The Kurdish people were the targets of his mass killings. Ideally, it would have been nice to capture him somehow using special forces. However, with his ability to target his enemies radically diminished and the fact that a full-scale invasion to capture him and topple his regime would cause chaos, we should have stuck to the same approach.

War requires an enemy. Kosovo was not an enemy. It was the wrong use of military force by a man who loathed the military.

Jason, the enemy was the Serbian army which was led by Milosevic. Don’t be petulant; you know that. That was the enemy and we stopped it. That is obvious.

Comment by Forrest — 3:27 pm
“And in the case of Iraq presently, our military leaders seem to be quite unconcerned with civilian casualties.”

So I guess the concern for civilians is based on party affiliation to you. Maybe it is, though you have it backwards.

Even the liberal indymedia had an article showing how the U.S. was trying to avoid civilian casualties in Iraq. Constrast that with Clinton’s flippant comment about civilian casualties being “inevitable”. And perhaps you’ve forgotten which party occupied the White House when two atomic bombs were dropped on Japanese cities. Think there were a couple of civilians killed there? We still have that technology. Why haven’t we used it? Eliminating all that is Iraq would end the insurgency. Your claim that the current administration is unconcerned with civilian casualties is typical… and pathetic.

For what it’s worth, fewer civilians have died in Iraq since 2003, than would have under Saddam, based on his annual statistics of genocide.

“The results of the first Gulf War, with the enforcement of the no-fly zone and economic sanctions against Iraq, Saddam was no longer able to target the Kurdish people in the northern portion of the country.”

And yet he still had the capacity, knowledge, staff and desire to build nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Containment was NOT working. The reports continue to show that Saddam was waiting until sanctions were lifted, buying time through the corrupt oil-for-food program, before he was going to continue the WMD programs.

“However, with his ability to target his enemies radically diminished and the fact that a full-scale invasion to capture him and topple his regime would cause chaos, we should have stuck to the same approach.”

Again, we weren’t there because of the Kurds. And the chaos you refer to consists of a new Constitution, Parliament, and ever-growing infastructure that Iraq hasn’t seen in decades. If you’re referring to the terrorist activities of a few islamonutjobs, would you prefer they fight our armed soldiers in a distant land or unarmed civilians in office buildings here?

“Jason, the enemy was the Serbian army which was led by Milosevic. Don’t be petulant; you know that. That was the enemy and we stopped it. That is obvious.”

Are you trying to tell me the Serbian army was an enemy of the United States before we engaged them in war?

Comment by Texas Rainmaker — 3:48 pm
Apparently, Forrest thinks that stopping genocide is a good thing…so long as it’s a Democratic president doing it. That’s pretty sick, Gump.

Comment by Jonathan — 6:37 am

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