To try to get a perspective different (from my generally peacenik-leaning outlook) on the counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq, particularly the near daily airstrikes in Fallujah, I’ve spoken with two former Marine generals whom I respect. One is former Centcom commander, General Anthony Zinni, who has repeatedly smacked the administration’s approach. (“We need to change course, because the current course is taking us over Niagara Falls.”) The second is former three-star General Paul Van Riper, who once out-smarted U.S. forces while playing the opponent in a war game (that he later outed as rigged).
Both Zinni and Van Riper said they don’t have any immediate qualms about the airstrikes and said they’re not in a position to evaluate their effectiveness. “I’m obviously not on the ground,” said Zinni. “They could be getting intel from a number of sources and we have capability to be precise.”
Then both ripped the White House.
Zinni went after the White House’s decision to wait a few months to advance on Fallujah until, they say, Iraqi forces are trained, and coincidently the elections are over. “We can’t let insurgency continue,” he said. “If we’re waiting for Iraqis services to be capable that could be years. In the meantime, the insurgents are growing, attacks are growing, and the economy can’t get on track while we have this security situation. This has to be dealt with fairly quickly. And unfortunately, it seems to me to be that at the moment, U.S. forces are the only ones capable of doing that.”
Van Riper agreed, but was more pessimistic, and pissed. “I have no arguments with anything officers are doing in Iraq,” he said. “My problem is with the Pentagon and our political leadership.
“At some point there are no good military solutions. The military solutions were up front. With each passing day, the solution set has narrowed. So you get yourself in a corner. You’re going to have to bite the bullet sometime, and you are going to reap a whirlwind of negative publicity.
“All of our focus is on temporary, tactics and procedures: how to stop IEDs, for example. This is a war, and there ought to be a strategy. If there is one I haven’t heard it. It’d be like WWII where you launched planes out into the Pacific and hope they run into the enemy.”
I like this Van Riper fellow.
Good sense of humor, too.
Posted by: jerseycityjoan | September 23, 2004 at 08:59 PM