General Zinni on Sixty Minutes

In article , Chad Irby
wrote:

In article ,
Robey Price wrote:

One sarin round after 12 months, that's hardly impressive Ed.

One sarin round, of a type that Iraq never had, according to the
inspectors.

Just as a point of information, the UNSCOM report does refer to "R&D",
but not deployment, of binary chemical rounds.


If they found this one, that means there were a *lot* more that were
never even supposed to exist.

Not necessarily a lot, if they were indeed only in the R&D phase for
this particular mission. We do know that program personnel took home,
and hid, nuclear and biological components.


Therefore, there's a place with a bunch more of these things, *not*
destroyed or accounted for. This one shell, by itself, shows that Iraq
*did* have a whole segment of its chemical weapons program that was
never even touched by the UN.

Again, specifically in the case of the binary artillery shell, possibly
R&D quantities only, with a few samples hidden. That would be
consistent both with the UNSCOM report and the few components we have
found in residences.

In article ,
"Vaughn" wrote:

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
.. .
In article ,
Robey Price wrote:

One sarin round after 12 months, that's hardly impressive Ed.

One sarin round, of a type that Iraq never had, according to the
inspectors.

What inspectors?

The UN inspectors.

I don't really think we know much about that round.

....and that's the point. According to the agreements that Iraq was
supposed to adhere to, all of their CW munitions were supposed to be on
record. This type wasn't.

If they found this one, that means there were a *lot* more that were
never even supposed to exist.

Perhaps, perhaps not.

But the smart money says "yes." You don't build *one* binary artillery
round and bury it in the desert.

Or perhaps it was not even Iraqi and it came across those famously
porous borders sometime in the last 12 months or so.

Possibly, but certainly not probably. It's funny how people will give
Iraq every benefit of the doubt when it comes to this sort of thing, but
will expect the highest standard of proof from the US as to what day of
the week it is.

I don't really believe that;

Nobody does. It's a very silly "what if?"

but my point is, we just don't know, so therefore only a fool would
try to draw a conclusion from the meager information at hand.

No, a smart person would look at what's been presented, use a little
common sense, and realize that this round (like all of the other bits
and pieces we've been finding) shows, once again, they had stuff the UN
didn't know about.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Vaughn" wrote:

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
.. .
In article ,
Robey Price wrote:

One sarin round after 12 months, that's hardly impressive Ed.

One sarin round, of a type that Iraq never had, according to the
inspectors.

What inspectors?

The UN inspectors.

Reference?

I don't really think we know much about that round.

...and that's the point. According to the agreements that Iraq was
supposed to adhere to, all of their CW munitions were supposed to be on
record. This type wasn't.

Reference?

If they found this one, that means there were a *lot* more that were
never even supposed to exist.

Perhaps, perhaps not.

But the smart money says "yes." You don't build *one* binary artillery
round and bury it in the desert.

Reference?


Or perhaps it was not even Iraqi and it came across those famously
porous borders sometime in the last 12 months or so.

Possibly, but certainly not probably. It's funny how people will give
Iraq every benefit of the doubt when it comes to this sort of thing, but
will expect the highest standard of proof from the US as to what day of
the week it is.

What sort of thing? Even the White House is not yet claiming WMD.


I don't really believe that;

Nobody does. It's a very silly "what if?"

Great repartee, chilling insight.


but my point is, we just don't know, so therefore only a fool would
try to draw a conclusion from the meager information at hand.

No, a smart person would look at what's been presented...

You have given me no reason to think I have been communicating with one.

, use a little
common sense, and realize that this round (like all of the other bits
and pieces we've been finding) shows, once again, they had stuff the UN
didn't know about.

Again; reference?

In article ,
"Vaughn" wrote:

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Vaughn" wrote:

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
.. .
In article ,
Robey Price wrote:

One sarin round after 12 months, that's hardly impressive Ed.

One sarin round, of a type that Iraq never had, according to the
inspectors.

What inspectors?

The UN inspectors.

Reference?

http://cns.miis.edu/research/iraq/ucreport/dis_chem.htm


I don't really think we know much about that round.

See Item 36 in the above report.


...and that's the point. According to the agreements that Iraq was
supposed to adhere to, all of their CW munitions were supposed to be on
record. This type wasn't.

Reference?

Item 50 for the missing VX, if that helps.

Ed writes:

I love the argument techniques of the dedicated liberal.

Already reduced to name calling, Ed?

Read more slowly, apply in context and try not to move your lips. I
called no names

"dedicated liberal" is a name and a pejorative term you used to describe a
poster whom you couldn't gainsay.


but pointed out the emotionalism of Juvat's
statements.

And you called him a name.

I know you're a vet. You were in Viet Nam, right?

What I can't understand how little you seem to care about the guys who are
getting KIA and WIA following up on a bad policy -- and what General Zinni
called --dereliction-- of-- duty--.

I just can't figure it.

I mean, irrespective of what General Zinni says, do you think that things are
going well in Iraq? We have @ 5,000 casualties now. I distinctly remember
Vice President Cheney saying on Meet The Press before the war that we would be
greeted as liberators. I don't need General Zinni to tell me that the Bush
administration has --totally-- mismanaged the war. They disbanded the army;
that's now seen as a mistake. They got rid of the Ba'athists, but now they are
bringing some of them back. I can see for myself that Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz,
Perle, Feith and those other neo-con bums are practically criminals.

Do you recall from @ two weeks ago, when Wolfowitz misrepresented the number of
KIA? He had no idea what it was. He missed the actual figure by 50%.
As a veteran, now. How does that make you feel?


(Might I note, that a response that implies an ad hominem
attack when none was made is also a familiar gambit.)

You mean like calling someone a "dedicated liberal"?

General Zinni is not a liberal. He strongly urged that we not invade Iraq,
Al
Quaida or no.

Read more slowly. Note the response is to Juvat, not a mention of
Zinni in the entire post.


Read more slowly. General Zinni is not a liberal, whatever else this other
person may be.

I generally enjoy your posts a lot. But you need to step back from what you
believe and compare it to what is happening.

Walt

From: "Leslie Swartz"

Zinni strongly supported the Clinton line (he helped develop it), and
continues to refuse to admit the line was wrong.

Why wrong? I don't think the Clinton "line" produced 5,000 battle casualties.

We've been in Iraq for 14 months. To whom are we giving control of the country
on 6/30/04?

No one knows.

I don't need a 4 star general to tell me that this is a disaster.

Walt

On 26 May 2004 22:30:43 GMT, (WalterM140) wrote:

Ed writes:

I love the argument techniques of the dedicated liberal.

Already reduced to name calling, Ed?

Read more slowly, apply in context and try not to move your lips. I
called no names

"dedicated liberal" is a name and a pejorative term you used to describe a
poster whom you couldn't gainsay.

A bit sensitive are we? Is "dedicated liberal" a pejorative? Here's
the quote as I wrote it:

I love the argument techniques of the dedicated liberal. The
implication of some sort of puppet-mastery, the labeling of the
administration with the "pejorative du jour"--neo-con, the attribution
of "arrogance" and the insertion of a clutch of red herrings like
Iran, Syria and NK.

Do you seem me assigning the term to Juvat, or am I pointing out the
rhetorical weaknesses of his argument? He failed to address the
question and he couched his comments in the terms I indicated.


but pointed out the emotionalism of Juvat's
statements.

And you called him a name.

I'm a "traditional conservative". I'm not a "social conservative". I'm
definitely not a liberal. If someone is a liberal, they would welcome
the label as easily as I welcome it if someone calls me a
conservative. That isn't name calling, it is ideological
identification.

I know you're a vet. You were in Viet Nam, right?

I did have the opportunity to visit regularly.

What I can't understand how little you seem to care about the guys who are
getting KIA and WIA following up on a bad policy -- and what General Zinni
called --dereliction-- of-- duty--.

I just can't figure it.

Trust me, I care very much about the folks in uniform. I understand
very well the difficulty in being at the point of the spear of
national policy. I also understand very well the difficulty of being
out there at the point while nay-sayers, pacifists, defeatists and
"America-lasters" undermine the support of the mission. Been there,
experienced it first hand.

I mean, irrespective of what General Zinni says, do you think that things are
going well in Iraq? We have @ 5,000 casualties now. I distinctly remember
Vice President Cheney saying on Meet The Press before the war that we would be
greeted as liberators. I don't need General Zinni to tell me that the Bush
administration has --totally-- mismanaged the war. They disbanded the army;
that's now seen as a mistake. They got rid of the Ba'athists, but now they are
bringing some of them back. I can see for myself that Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz,
Perle, Feith and those other neo-con bums are practically criminals.

Let's go beyond the superficial. We've been in combat against a nation
of 25 million people. Many said there would be tens of thousands of
casualties in the intial battle. There weren't.

The Sadaam regime was toppled in ten days, not ten weeks, months or
years. If that equals mismanagement, then your standard is different
than mine.

Would you have maintained the werhmacht after the collapse of Hitler?
There's a recipe for disaster. Would you have propped up the Nazi
party during the reconstruction of Germany?

The situation in Iraq is not a made-for-TV scenario. There are three
distinct factions competing for supremacy--Shi'a, Sunni and Kurd. They
don't much like each other, and it isn't suprising that they also
don't like an occupation force trying to keep things balanced.

Have we heard from the opposition in America what they would
specifically do different? Cut and run? Turn it over to the UN--those
are the folks that gave us "oil-for-food" and made billionaires out of
several less than savory functionaries.

Do you recall from @ two weeks ago, when Wolfowitz misrepresented the number of
KIA? He had no idea what it was. He missed the actual figure by 50%.
As a veteran, now. How does that make you feel?

Do I worry if he said 300 or 400 or 500? It doesn't really make a hill
of beans worth of difference. Why should that be particularly relevant
to the policy discussion?


(Might I note, that a response that implies an ad hominem
attack when none was made is also a familiar gambit.)

You mean like calling someone a "dedicated liberal"?

See above regarding ideological identification. If the shoe fits....

General Zinni is not a liberal. He strongly urged that we not invade Iraq,
Al
Quaida or no.

Read more slowly. Note the response is to Juvat, not a mention of
Zinni in the entire post.


Read more slowly. General Zinni is not a liberal, whatever else this other
person may be.

It makes no difference what Zinni's ideology is. I was addressing the
points of Juvat. I wasn't discussing Zinni at all, at any time!

I generally enjoy your posts a lot. But you need to step back from what you
believe and compare it to what is happening.

Trust me. I teach political science at the local college. I teach
international relations as part of the job. I maintain an active
interest in the role of the military. I am not particularly prone to
emotionalism and I like to couch my political discourse in objective
analysis rather than this sort of language (from your post): "and
those other neo-con bums are practically criminals."


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

In article ,
(WalterM140) wrote:

From: "Leslie Swartz"

Zinni strongly supported the Clinton line (he helped develop it), and
continues to refuse to admit the line was wrong.

Why wrong? I don't think the Clinton "line" produced 5,000 battle
casualties.

We've been in Iraq for 14 months. To whom are we giving control of the
country
on 6/30/04?

No one knows.

I don't need a 4 star general to tell me that this is a disaster.

On the other hand, the folks who are telling us things like "this is a
disaster" are cut from the same cloth as the people who were telling us
that there would be upwards of a half-*million* dead during the conflict
and in the months afterwards, with the "smart money" coming in at over a
hundred thousand (the low estimate by most antiwar folks was 20,000 or
so dead, but that was the extreme lowball by the more optimistic folks),
with a half-million or more refugees flooding the neighboring countries.

UNHCR said there would be *900,000* refugees from the war, that all
health, food, and water distribution would be effectively shut down for
a long time, creating a huge humanitarian catastrophe with upwards of a
half-million direct physical casualties. Epidemics and pandemics of
cholera and dysentery were supposed to happen. Three million people
were supposed to be in need of "therapeutic" feedings due to food
shortages.

How about this little bit of prognostication?

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security...nsequences/200
3/0214grimpict.htm

Note the complete lack of these events coming to pass...

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

Ed sends:

I'm a "traditional conservative".

A traditional conservative apparently oblivious to the 5,000 casualties we've
suffered in carrying out the worst strategic blunder in living memory.

"Bush arguably has committed the greatest strategic blunder in modern memory.
To put it bluntly, he attacked the wrong target. While he boasts of removing
Saddam Hussein from power, he did far more than that. He decapitated the
government of a country that was not directly threatening the United States
and, in so doing, bogged down a huge percentage of our military in a region
that never has known peace. Our military is being forced to trade away its
maneuverability in the wider war against terrorism while being placed on the
defensive in a single country that never will fully accept its presence."

-- James Webb


CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Was Iraq a blunder?

GEN. ANTHONY ZINNI: Yes, in my view, it was a blunder. The president was not
served well with strategy, planning, and decisions made from there. I think
they misled him on what to expect— the rationale, the elements for the
strategy, to the situation on the ground. It wasn't going to be a
pie-in-the-sky welcome in the streets with flowers. Anyone who knew the region
and knew the country knew what this was not going to happen.

MATTHEWS: The sales pitch was that it was for democracy, or that scarier still,
there were weapons of mass destruction. Was the salespitch, either of them,
honest?


ZINNI: Neither one was. Bush 41 knew Baghdad was going to be a problem. That's
why we went through a course of sanctions. To believe that Saddam was an
imminent threat was a real stretch for us who saw the intelligence.

MATTHEWS: When [Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld was on ‘Hardball' he
expressed that he wasn't expecting us to be viewed as occupiers. Anyone who
spends three seconds in a foreign country knows this could be the case. How
could they believe that Iraq would welcome us?
ZINNI: It is hard to believe. We're viewed as colonial power, especially when
we don't come in under a U.N. mandate that shows a international cooperation.
It plays into the hands of extremists who want to use it against us on the
streets of Baghdad.

I think we owe the American people the straight show. If you're doing this for
a strategic reason, you need to lay it out. We bought into the exiles and their
stories.

MATTHEWS: Why is that?


ZINNI: It's the desire to believe in it. They had a strategy. Except for those
of us who know the region and had experience out there, we knew this was a
disaster in the long run.

I think it's the fault of the planners at the Pentagon who were responsible for
the construction phase. They didn't understand the depth and complexity, and
dumped this problem onto the military. But there was enough of us who had
experience that expressed our worries and voiced our concerns.

I have tremendous respect for [Secretary of State] Colin Powell… I don't know
what went on in the inner workings of the admininstration. Colin was on the
right track on Resolution 1441 in the U.N. that would internationalize this…
why not wait for the inspections that would make it take a couple of months
longer?

MATTHEWS: Why did the president and the vice-president go together in this war
with Iraq?

ZINNI: The president was hit hard with 9/11 as we all were. He saw the need to
make sure there were no threats that would materialize. He thought, “If this
is a big threat as I'm being told, we need to do something about it.� I
believe he was misled.

MATTHEWS: If we were misled in terms of how easy it would be for us to go into
Iraq? Who should be accountable? [Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
Stephen] Cambone, [Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas] Feith, [Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul] Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld?


ZINNI: Somebody ought to be held accountable. The president, the country, and
the troops weren't served well. Why not all of them?

MATTHEWS: What should we do with Iraq now?


ZINNI: Its going to take time, hardwork, help from us, and insistence, that
they execute the reform. To do it in one stroke in an intervention like this is
absolutely the wrong way.

We're trying to create something for Iraq it's never known. These people are
confused and don't understand where you're taking them.

There's suspicion on the streets that we're after oil and resources. This is
diffuclt. This is not a one-year project. I think we need to convince them
we're there for their futures. We have to create within them the willingness
and desire to reform government and their economic system. It's not going to
work with us paying it for them on the dole.

We need to secure borders, road networks, troops on the ground. It's not only
an issue of security. While you en-place security, that's the only way you get
economic and infrastructure reconstruction to develop. Or else insurgents will
blow it up every chance they get.

I wrote:

What I can't understand how little you seem to care about the guys who are
getting KIA and WIA following up on a bad policy -- and what General Zinni
called --dereliction-- of-- duty--.

I just can't figure it.

Ed:

Trust me, I care very much about the folks in uniform.

Then act like it.

General Zinni:

"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?"

You might consider that sort of thing yourself.

The former SecNav and the former CG of Centcom are calling this a blunder -- a
blunder attended with 5,000 casualties, and all you do is spout the Bushco
blather.

Walt