He is dead wrong in his support of Bush for reelection, IMHO. Bush
has cost our nation dearly with his unacknowledged mistakes and gaffes,
and if we are to believe the saying that "when you're in the hole, the
first
thing you've got to do is to stop digging" then it's clearly time for a
change.


What mistakes and gaffes are you referring to? What hole are we in?



Well, last night on MSNBC, Chris Mathews quoted Pres. Mubarak of Egypt as
saying invading Iraq had created 1,000 Bin Ladens.

Bush is a disastrous failure as president.

And:

"But Zinni broke ranks with the administration over the war in Iraq, and now,
in his harshest criticism yet, he says senior officials at the Pentagon are
guilty of dereliction of duty -- and that the time has come for heads to roll.
Correspondent Steve Kroft reports. “There has been poor strategic thinking in
this,” says Zinni.

“There has been poor operational planning and execution on the ground. And to
think that we are going to ‘stay the course,’ the course is headed over
Niagara Falls. I think it's time to change course a little bit, or at least
hold somebody responsible for putting you on this course. Because it's been a
failure.”

Zinni spent more than 40 years serving his country as a warrior and diplomat,
rising from a young lieutenant in Vietnam to four-star general with a
reputation for candor.

Now, in a new book about his career, co-written with Tom Clancy, called "Battle
Ready," Zinni has handed up a scathing indictment of the Pentagon and its
conduct of the war in Iraq.

In the book, Zinni writes: "In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later
conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility,
at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption."

“I think there was dereliction in insufficient forces being put on the ground
and fully understanding the military dimensions of the plan. I think there was
dereliction in lack of planning,” says Zinni. “The president is owed the
finest strategic thinking. He is owed the finest operational planning. He is
owed the finest tactical execution on the ground. … He got the latter. He
didn’t get the first two.”

Zinni says Iraq was the wrong war at the wrong time - with the wrong strategy.
And he was saying it before the U.S. invasion. In the months leading up to the
war, while still Middle East envoy, Zinni carried the message to Congress:
“This is, in my view, the worst time to take this on. And I don’t feel it
needs to be done now.”

But he wasn’t the only former military leader with doubts about the invasion
of Iraq. Former General and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former
Centcom Commander Norman Schwarzkopf, former NATO Commander Wesley Clark, and
former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki all voiced their reservations.

Zinni believes this was a war the generals didn’t want – but it was a war
the civilians wanted.

“I can't speak for all generals, certainly. But I know we felt that this
situation was contained. Saddam was effectively contained. The no-fly, no-drive
zones. The sanctions that were imposed on him,” says Zinni.

“Now, at the same time, we had this war on terrorism. We were fighting al
Qaeda. We were engaged in Afghanistan. We were looking at 'cells' in 60
countries. We were looking at threats that we were receiving information on and
intelligence on. And I think most of the generals felt, let's deal with this
one at a time. Let's deal with this threat from terrorism, from al Qaeda.”


Mo

MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you another excerpt from your {senator Byrd] book:
"We keep hearing the refrain, `Stay the course.' What is the course? Is it
that we continue sending American troops to be used as sitting ducks in an
Iraqi shooting gallery? How long are we going to be fed the pap that fighting
the terrorists on the streets of Baghdad saves us from fighting terrorists on
the streets of New York City or Washington, D.C.?"

Mo

4-Star Marine General
Says Time To Get
Rid Of Neocons
`The Neo-Cons Have Had Their Day -
Now It's Time for a Clean Sweep'
Executive Intelligence Review
Interview With Gen. Joseph P. Hoar
By Jeffrey Steinberg
EIR
5-31-4

Gen. Joseph P. Hoar (USMC-ret.), a four-star general, was Commander in
Chief, U.S. Central Command (1991-94), commanding the U.S. forces in the
Persian Gulf after the 1991 war. He also served in the Vietnam War, as a
battalion and brigade advisor with the Vietnamese Marines. He was
interviewed by Jeffrey Steinberg on May 6, 2004.

EIR: You were one of the people who had been critical before the
outbreak of fighting, over whether or not the situation warranted going
to war. I believe you also had some rather accurate warnings about what
might happen, as the war unfolded, especially after the hot phase.
What's your thinking on these issues now, in hindsight, as we're over a
year past the formal fighting phase?

Hoar: There's small comfort in realizing that perhaps you were closer to
reality than the elected and appointed figures in the civilian
government. Those of us that have had some experience in the region over
the years, and don't necessarily have ulterior motivations, particularly
people that know very much about Iraq?and I don't necessarily put myself
in that category; specifically, I know a fair amount about the
political-military situation in the region, but know enough about Iraq
to know that any military operation and any subsequent reconstruction
efforts, to include the interjection of democracy, were going to be
extremely difficult, and perhaps impossible.

But, my major concern, Jeff, really was, that while I was in favor of
regime change, I was not in favor of it a year and a half or two years
ago, and certainly not these means."

KIA count in Iraq: 915

For nothng.



Walt