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Since those in
uniform have more constraints we are seeing more retired officers speak up
about the execution and intent of Gulf War/ Resource War 2. McPeak has often commented on local TV
since 9/11 regarding the war on terrorism. I’ve posted about half of this
interview here with the URL and also attached in full. - KWC Diplomatic failures
concern to retired U.S. commander
By Jeff Manning and Norm Maves
Jr., The Oregonian, 03/27/03 Gen. Merrill A. "Tony" McPeak, retired former chief of staff of the
U.S. Air Force, said Wednesday the Iraq war is "going remarkably
well." But the military's rapid progress toward Baghdad has done little to
ease his deep reservations about U.S. policy in the region. McPeak, who headed the
Air Force during the
first Iraq war
and now lives in Lake Oswego, said the United States will pay a political price
for the Bush administration's "maladroit" diplomatic efforts in the
region. Turkey's refusal to become a staging ground for the U.S. military
hampered war plans, and he predicted a long and turbulent U.S. occupation of
Iraq and perhaps other countries in the region. "We've been in
Europe now since 1945. We've been in Japan since 1945, been in Korea since
1950," said McPeak, one of the United States' most outspoken retired
generals. "We haven't had a Middle East occupation force, so this is a start
of that. This is the way great powers operate; it's the way Rome
operated." McPeak's provocative
views don't end there. He said it makes little sense to take over Iraq while a
much more vital problem --
North Korea's
developing nuclear capability -- is allowed to fester. "This is a problem of global military significance," he said of North Korea. "Iraq is a regional problem." Here is a condensed
and edited version of the conversation Wednesday with McPeak: What
are your impressions on the first week of the war? There are some things
that surprised me a little bit. One is, as a consequence of the political clumsiness, we do not have the help of Turkey and
Saudi Arabia. They
should have been on our side from the beginning. It's our fault they're not, in
my opinion. The nonparticipation
of the Iraqi Air Force is not a surprise. They do have, still, a remnant of a
once-pretty substantial air force, now maybe something half the size it was in
the early '90s, but still reasonably well equipped and sizable. I mean, we kept butting into them in the
no-fly zones for the last dozen years, so we know they're turning aviation fuel
into hot air. So is
there anything working in the Iraqis' favor? What they've got going
for them is that our maladroitness politically and diplomatically has put us in
a real bind. There is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein is an unpopular
guy in Iraq, but he's
running against George Bush. If you're an Iraqi, you've gotta decide who you're
going to vote for here. General,
did you expect, as did the Bush administration, that our troops would be
treated as liberators?
I hate it when
military plans are made with optimistic assumptions of that kind. I never made
a plan that relied on the courage of my own troops. You hope that -- and they
generally will -- fight bravely. Your plan ought to be predicated on more
realistic assumptions. And if we
sent the 3rd Infantry up there naked, by themselves, because somebody assessed
that they'd be throwing bouquets at us, that's the worst thing you could say
about political leadership, is that they made optimistic assumptions about
warfare. Now I'm not saying
they did, and I'm not prejudging this case. We're only a week in here. If we were at a football game, then we're
in the first quarter here, and we haven't scored yet, but we're down to the red
zone. The fans don't boo at that point. So we've got no right booing what is really quite
remarkable progress so far. Is
time on the United States' side in this battle? Yeah. I really think
time is on our side here. This is a fragile society, a little old one-town country, the size of
Nebraska, maybe a little bigger, with the GDP about half the Army budget. So if this is a hard problem, we ought
to get ourselves some new generals. I mean there's no reason why this shouldn't be a walkover. And the pacing of it should be
determined by us. We decide whether this is going to be quick, slow or in the
middle. After
the worst of Iraq is over, do you anticipate that the Bush administration will
launch military action against North Korea? My guess is that we
will very quickly agree to bilateral talks. What I would expect is as soon as
we can gracefully do it, hand off Iraq to some sort of military-slash-civilian
administration; then Washington will be ready to turn to the next problem,
which is Korea. It's a bandwidth problem in Washington. It
can only deal with one thing at a time. (end of excerpts) http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/1048770098290210.xml |
Diplomatic failures concern to retired US commander.doc
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