General Anthony Zinni's Speech to the Middle East Institute Annual Conference, October 10, 2002

 

Ambassador Edward S. Walker, Jr.: We'll get started. Are you ready? Grab your last cups of coffee and let's come to order. On behalf of the chairman of the board of directors, Wyche Fowler, the MEI staff, and myself, I would like to welcome you to the 56th annual conference of the Middle East Institute. This year's conference theme captures the dynamism and the danger of the current moment in international affairs. With the backdrop of a possible war with Iraq and a simmering Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we have chosen to focus our conference this year on turbulence and transition in U.S.-Middle East relations.
Over the next two days, we'll be looking at issues such as the positions of our allies and the posture of the United States in the UN. In this connection, I recommend that you take a look at the new study that has just been put out by Lee Hamilton on the U.S. approach to the United Nations and how we might strengthen our position there.
We'll be looking at energy, energy security and the questions that come about because of that. We'll be particularly interested in the new Bush doctrine, which may be new and may not be so new, but we will take a hard look at that and what it means for the United States and for the world. We also want to have a little focus on Islam, particularly liberal Islam and where that stands in the region and in this country. Finally, we want to deal with the military in the Middle East and our own military posture.
Before turning to today's program, I would like you to take a look at the new image of MEI. We have a new look. You may have noticed it in your conference materials today; there is a new logo and a new brochure describing the Middle East Institute. This is a symbol of the energy we are putting behind our program and our effort to have an impact in the United States and in the region. Because of this time of turbulence, our mission is more critical than ever. Over the past year, we have been building our capabilities to respond to help both Americans and those in the Middle East to make sense of the daily developments that affect all of our lives.
We've introduced four issues that we'll be looking at over the next year. First is political, social, and economic development. We're going to look at the challenge for the region and what it means for U.S. policy. Our energy program will work to improve America's understanding of the facts of supply and demand and what energy security really means. Our regional security program will examine the broad balance of power in the Middle East, and our program on conflict resolution will look at some of the longer-term issues that may cause conflict in the region, such as water, refugees, borders, fundamentalism, and other issues for the future. These will be the cores of all of our programs over the next year.
All of our efforts are focused on achieving one goal, which is building bridges across the region and between the region and the United States. The past decade of Middle East peace efforts promised a new reality for the men, women and children who live in the region, and the Middle East Institute shares that vision.
Now I want to introduce our keynote speaker, who is more qualified than virtually anyone else I can think of to address the issues of peace and war in the region. He is no armchair warrior; he is a recipient of the Purple Heart and many other combat medals. He didn't get his experience in Washington politics or as a guru in a think tank; he was a Marine company commander in Vietnam. He was in command of the unified task force in Somalia and has some experience with nation building. He was the deputy commander and then commander of CENTCOM. He designed and implemented the footprint of U.S. forces in the Gulf. As an ambassador in the Gulf, I know for a fact that he was the best ambassador of goodwill that we had to the region, and probably the best we will ever have to the region. This is a man who is both a soldier and a diplomat, and he knows of what he speaks. He is not shy. At times, Presidents have been a little bit nervous listening to him, but it's very important that they listen to people like Tony Zinni. It's a great pleasure for me to introduce General Tony C. Zinni. (applause)
General Zinni: Thank you. Ned asked me to look at the possibility of military action in Iraq and sort of describe the lane between best-case, worst-case and maybe the most-likely-case scenarios and where the minefields may be.
Let me start with the best case. Last night I sat down and said, "What would have to happen to make any military action to turn out in the best possible way?" I wrote ten conditions for this war that would have to happen. The first condition is that the coalition is in. The second is that the war is short. The third is that destruction is light. Fourth is that Israel is out. Fifth is that the street is quiet. Sixth is that order is kept. Seventh is that the burden is shared. Eighth is that the change is orderly. Ninth is that the military is not stuck. Tenth is that other commitments are met. That's an easy list. (laughter) If we design our strategy and our tactics based on that, it will all work out.
Now let me go back and get to the rumble strips on the other side of the lane and maybe walk down each one of those. I think everything has been said in the debate that's taking place in Congress and elsewhere about what the potential pitfalls are. I'll start with the first one. In order to succeed, I think everybody agrees that we cannot go it alone. Everybody is relieved in many ways that we are going to the UN and attempting to get the legitimacy of a UN resolution. If we do anything there, we need partners. We certainly need the partners in the region that we have had. We need the relationships and the alliances we created over half a century ago, beginning with FDR and moving through many troubled times but always managing to work out in a way that, despite our differences and issues, we have stayed close and been partners. We need to hold that sort of loosely organized, informal but very powerful alliance together.
It works through a number of ways. One is a lot of consultation, a lot of patience, a lot of dialogue, a lot of hard work on the ground, and the connection of a lot of personalities that represent the leadership in the region. It is not an easy thing to maintain; it is high maintenance, but it is necessary to pay the price to do the maintenance to keep those relationships strong. I really worry about some of the things I hear now that tend to want to create adversarial relationships with friends that we have worked very, very hard through very difficult issues to maintain the connection and the relationship. Being one of those people on the ground that had to maintain those relationships and work at it, I saw the power when these relationships were strong, kept strong, and the support was there.
A lot of the support is done quietly. Sometimes it is done in a way that should be known, especially here, but isn't known. Almost every year when I testified before Congress, I had to remind them of the support we received in the region, of countries that have shown up with us in Somalia such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE. I had to remind them of countries that have shown up with us in Bosnia and Kosovo like Jordan and the UAE. They are showing up again in places like Afghanistan. They have made the military commitment beyond just the Gulf War to be by our side and to put their own troops in harm's way.
The price that is paid, the cost of maintaining our presence and stability that is shared out there, often doesn't get a lot of attention but runs in the hundreds and millions of dollars. The careful way we construct that relationship is important. We have no assigned forces in the U.S. Central Command. There are no divisions or air wings; there are no fleets that are full-time, created, and organized just to be there. We have rotational forces that we borrow from other unified commands. We do this in a way to show that we are not a colonial power; we are not there to occupy. We are there as long as an element of security is needed, and we want to do it in a cooperative way. We share bases. We share technology in the region, sometimes far more technology than people realize. Those that claim a double standard often don't look deep enough into the things we do on the military side to prove that this is not the case, that if we're going to go into harm's way, we're going to do it with our soldiers on either side having the best capability in the world.
Anything we do in this region requires regional coalition, support, and partnerships to work. The number one ingredient that makes it work--I heard this term time and time again--is consult, consult, consult. Understand what is going on on the ground. Listen to your partners. We all have interests; some of those interests collide. How can we smooth out the rough edges? How can we work out solutions that don't destabilize?
My first question when I became the Commander in Chief of Central Command--we're not allowed to say Commander in Chief now, so this is an old term. By the way that's the sum total of transformation, we have just changed the lexicon. We can't say engagement, we can't say Commander-in-Chief, and we can't say National Command Authority. So far we're transforming the language (laughter)--when I was the combatant commander in Central Command, the first thing I asked all my friends and counterparts was, "Why do you see the U.S. military presence here as important?" The answer I had was stability, stability, stability. You can, and you do, if it's done right, provide a tremendous amount of stability to a very volatile region.
But to maintain that stability, we need to consult when action is taken. You need to understand from our eyes and our viewpoint what happens when an action is taken. You have to day-in and day-out work that relationship and try to see those situations from those other eyes. You have to try and find a way to mutually fulfill our interests or obligations and take care of our threats.
Again, if we do something here, that particular partnership has to be involved and has to be maintained. If rifts or divisions come out and are magnified by this, who comes and who doesn't come, and problems are created for those relationships, then we're going to have trouble. We have a potential failure.
Even outside the region, we need partners--partners who were with us before in the Gulf War, partners who have an interest in this region, partners whose lifeline and well-being depends economically and otherwise on the stability for this region. We definitely have to approach this with global partners and international legitimacy, or whatever we do on the ground is going to be tainted from the beginning.
My second point is that the war has to be short. There is no doubt in my mind that conventionally, tank for tank and plane for plane, any coalition or forces that we put in would prevail. But war is never predictable. I saw a poll recently where the question was asked how many Americans would support a war that had 500 or less casualties, how many would support a war that had 1,000 or less, how many would support 5,000 or less. Obviously as the casualties increased, the support diminished. You can't dial a casualty number.
Generals can't walk in and predict when you roll the dice, the friction and fog of war. We can give you a general idea of how we feel things might turn out based on analysis. But in war, shit happens, and it happens often, and you can't predict it. You can be lucky. You can be good. You can be unlucky and at the wrong time be not so good. If this war drags on, if the combat drags on, it's going to become messy. There will be more opportunity for more bad things to happen inside the country where the combat is taking place and outside in many different areas, in relationships and in politics. Street reaction could disrupt any good that might come out of this.
My third point was that destruction has to be light. Civilian casualties, collateral damage, destruction of the infrastructure, and the images that could be created regardless of who causes this will not sit well in the region, will cause problems in the long run and will add to the difficulty in the aftermath. This has to be done in a way where, if it is undertaken, it is done in a way that can be executed as quickly as possible. You obviously have an enemy that will not want this to happen as quickly as possible. The enemy doesn't see a possibility on his side that he can win quickly, so it is in his interest to drag this out and make this the messiest, bloodiest kind of war that can possibly be made. So you're attempting to do things quickly against an enemy that's attempting to slow it down and make it messy.
Who will prevail? There are a lot of unknowns and variables as to what could happen. You hear these discussed. Will the combat drag us into the cities and become bloody, urban, with combat in the streets where our technology and advantages are diminished? Could it become the kind of war that drags out in chasing people around that are difficult to find? We see that in Afghanistan. Are there elements of weapons of mass destruction that could come into play to make this messier and drag it out even further?
My next point was that Israel is out. Every attempt will be made to drag Israel into this war, not just by Saddam but by all those who may see this as an opportunity--the extremist groups and those that support extremist groups. The image they will want is a forced Israeli reaction, whether it's inside Iraq, in the West Bank, or in Gaza. Those images on Al Jazeera, Abu Dhabi TV and elsewhere would be explosive. Every attempt will be made to pull them into this fight in some way. Again, the longer the war goes on, the greater the opportunity that something like this could happen.
The next point I made was that the street had to remain quiet. A short war helps that, but the mood is not good. Anti-Americanism, doubt about this war, concern about the damage that may happen, political issues, economic issues, social issues have all caused the street to become extremely volatile. I'm amazed at people that say that there is no street and that it won't react. I'm not sure which planet they live on, because it isn't the one that I travel. I've been out in the Middle East, and it is explosive; it is the worst I've ever seen it in over a dozen years of working in this area in some concentrated way. Almost anything could touch it off.
What would the reaction be? We can see the events that are taking place now in Kuwait with our forces. Will we have security issues, embassies, military installations, American businessmen, or tourists there? Do we become vulnerable? Do others that are involved with us become vulnerable? Are the regimes of our friends and the governments that are friendly to us vulnerable? Do we need to see demonstrations and blood in the streets? Do we need to see friendly governments that operate economically, politically and pretty close to the edge being pushed by a street that is resisting support and cooperation in the conduct of the war? It is a great unknown, and it's easy to blow it off by comments that there is no street or that it won't react and nothing will happen.
The greatest moment on the street came after 9/11 when Osama bin Laden called for the Jihad. I told my friends to watch the result. I told them I could predict there would be no Jihad, that they might see some isolated demonstrations, but that we would see the true heart of the people in the region. We saw it in October, November and December. A year later now, we have lost that goodwill. We have lost that connection; we have lost that compassion. We have lost that moment when we could have corrected things, and now the language is getting hostile and bitter. We have the crazies that represent the ends of the religions and societies involved in this who are saying things that are inflammatory, inciting, and not helping. We need a lot of repair work on those relationships, culture to culture and society to society, let alone government to government.
My next point was that order has to be kept. If we think there is a fast solution to changing the governance of Iraq, then we don't understand history, the nature of the country, the divisions, or the underneath-suppressed passions that could rise up. God help us if we think this transition will occur easily. We are going to need a period of order. We're going to need to have people come together. We're going to have to lower the passion, and we're going to have to control events in some way.
That's going to be extremely difficult. There were 98 opposition groups the last time I counted; I think now it has increased a little bit. If you believe that they're all going to rush to the palace, hold hands and sing Kum Ba Yah, I doubt it. (laughter) If you think that people won't see opportunity to do things that will cause concern in the region, whether to the Iranians, the Turks or others, and go against what we hope will happen and against agreements that will be made, then I think you could be sadly mistaken. If you think it's going to be easy to impose a government or install one from the outside, I think that you're further sadly mistaken and that you don't understand this region.
My next point was that the burden has to be shared. I don't only mean cost. I saw an estimate done by some of our financial analysts. They have predicted that the impact of a war would be an immediate 13 percent drop in the DOW and 14 percent in some of the tech stocks and NASDAQ. I'm sure the price of oil will spike; I doubt seriously that we could avoid that. The cost of this war can be great, especially if it becomes messy and long-term and if reconstruction becomes a significant issue.
The burden has to be shared not only in cost and resources but also on the ground, in who inherits this problem and who brings order. The burden is going to have to be shared in working with the people on the ground to create something different and new. The burden is going to have to be shared in terms of responsibility of patching up whatever damage is left, not only physical but also political or societal. Those are the kinds of things we are going to need help with and allies to make it happen. Going it alone is too expensive and will drain us and move us from other things that we need to be doing.
The change has to be orderly. The change will not be immediate. There is no history of Jeffersonian democracy here. If we think that this is going to happen overnight, we're wrong. In my experience with any involvement I've had in nation building--and I've had some--you need a period of transition. You need an immediate sense of order; you need to assess what is happening on the ground. You need to correct some things that are not going in the right direction. You need to build confidence. You need to rebuild institutions. You need to create a system of governance that will last, that the people can understand, participate in and feel confident in. If you think you're going to do that in a month or two, or even a year or two, I think you're dreaming. I've never seen it done like that.
The attempts I've seen to install democracy in short periods of time where there is no history and no roots have failed. Take it back to Somalia and other places where we've tried. It's not an easy concept. It's not an easy form of governance to put in place and to be understood. Remember it happened well for us. We had a revolution of elites in this country, which is the exception. Every place else where this has happened, it's been bloody, difficult, and long-term with a lot of friction. We can ill afford that in this part of the region.
My next point was that our military cannot become stuck. I would expand that not just to the military but also to everyone else involved in other very important things around the world--law enforcement; other government agencies working on issues in Afghanistan, Central Asia, Pakistan, and Yemen. We have to help countries not fail, not become endangered, not become potential sanctuaries for extremism, and not end up in a chaotic state. That doesn't help us; it breeds the kinds of problems we are facing now. If our military, resources, government agencies, those that are working and cooperating with us, NGOs, PVOs (phonetic), and IO's around the world are sucked into this one issue and drawn away from those others, we will end up with bigger problems.
It's the onset of winter in Afghanistan. President Karzai faces a situation with massive refugee problems, major reconstruction problems, and tremendous political fragility in his ability to govern from Kabul. You'd better fix that one. The last time we went to help them, we left. We ended up with Mullah Omar and the Taliban. That is burned into the memories of the people in the region; they're going to be looking to us to see if we will stick this one out and stay with them until they get there. How many of these can you put on your plate? You can't have those fail where you want to see a turnaround.
We have change happening in the most significant place of all, in Iran. Whether that change and moderation takes six months or six years, who knows; it will probably take longer. But it is happening. If we do something in here that upsets that change and reinforces and encourages the hardliners to have the father of extremism, the land where it all began, where the revolutions and the Ayatollahs began to spread through the region, change and turn 180 degrees around is the most significant thing that can happen there, in my mind.
How do we help and not stop that process of reform and change? We haven't quite figured out what our role is. We'd better figure it out. We worry about reinforcing or encouraging the hardliners, not doing enough for the reformers, and choosing which reformers we're going to support. That could be something that could be upset by this process and set back, which I think could be, second to the peace process, the most dramatic thing that can happen in the region.
My last point was that our other commitments have to be met. We have embarked on a global war on terrorism, GWOT as they call it in the Pentagon. If we are going to be involved in a global war on terrorism, we'd better understand that it goes beyond the tactical. The tactical means you go into the field, you go after the terrorists with your military, your law enforcement agencies cooperate to take down cells, your financial institutions work to peel away the resources needed, but you are treating the symptoms. Terrorism is a manifestation of something greater. There is extremism out there that is manifesting itself in the violent way of terrorism.
What are the root causes of this extremism? Why are young people flocking to these causes? Could the issues be political, economic and social? Could disenfranchisement or oppression be what drives them rather than the religious fanaticism that may be the core element to only a few? How do we cooperate to fix these problems? How do we help a part of the world that's trying to come to grips with modernity?
I would suggest that we ought to think in terms of a Marshall Plan -- not a Marshall Plan in terms of a large dole necessarily, but one that is international and cooperative, one that looks at what needs to be done on the economic, political and social fronts to help this important critical part of the world get through this rough patch. There are questions out there about a great religion in the process of transformation adjusting to modernity. There are questions out there about the forms of governance and whether they're going to evolve into something more responsive to the twenty-first century. There are questions out there about issues of human rights and different ways we see individual rights.
Do you best work through those issues in confrontation or cooperation? I think you best work through them with cooperation. Our other commitments require that as the leader of the world now and the last empire standing, not one of conquest but one of influence that has attempted to be the beacon for the world and not to conquer the world, how do we best exert that influence? How do we reach that hand out? How do we muster the resources of the world, of others who look to us for leadership, to help in this region now? How do we cooperate with those in the region that want to see change and that want stability and reform? How do we do it in a way that minimizes friction instead of always resorting to what I spent thirty-nine years doing, which is resorting to the gun? When you unleash that kinetic energy on a part of the world, you never know what's going to come out of the other end. More often than not, it makes the conditions worse. Thank you. I'd be glad to take any questions you might have. (applause)
Ambassador Edward S. Walker, Jr.: I'm going to moderate the questions, but I'll take the first one myself, a prerogative of the chair. Tony, you talked about the position of a government. We read in The New York Times today that there is a debate actually going on in the Administration between one group of people who feel that we should take the opposition elements, the INC, and place them in Iraq as a government, then as we take over militarily, expand their influence so that they become the core of the new leadership of Iraq. Then there are also those who feel that this is not a feasible solution, that we need to build a coalition of forces and try to move a lot more slowly. I wonder if you could give a little of your sense of what the region feels about this and how they might react to such an approach that the Times called the Charles de Gaulle approach.
General Zinni: I haven't had any strong opinions about the INC in the past, but I will attempt to answer the question about what happens the day after. I think that the key words that would alarm me and will alarm people in the region are terms like "place" or "install." If we intend to install, place, dictate or directly sponsor the follow-on government, it won't be received well in the region. I doubt seriously that it would be received well on the streets of Baghdad, Basra, or elsewhere. I think we need to go in with the policy that eventually the Iraqis have to decide on their own government. I think that in order to do that, my experience has shown that you will need a period of transition and a period of order. I think within that period, you'll try to make sure that underlying passions that may erupt in violence are contained, that time is spent with key Iraqi leaders representing all factions and all groups, that time is spent deciding the form of government and how they will best be representative of what is acceptable, that time will be spent making sure the institutions are rebuilt and that the confidence of the people is reassured, and at some point with a subtle hand, we help guide them to make the decisions they need to make.
I am against any imposition or installation or placing of something that we form in our mind as the right answer; it's doomed to fail. We have not had a great history of imposing our guy in place and it working out, in the many different ways we have tried that. I would say, in the long run, get transition, keep order, establish what you want to have happen, make sure it's acceptable and it comes from the people from Iraq, and then let it come in place when the time is right.
Ambassador Edward S. Walker, Jr.: I have a number of questions here. Let's take an easy one. What level of troops do you think that we're going to have to invest in order to carry out an operation in Iraq?
General Zinni: I'm a subscriber to Colin Powell's doctrine: use overwhelming force. I said that the war should be short. The way you make the war short is to rapidly and quickly overwhelm the situation, if you elect to do it. You present a situation where units in the field can be cut off from Baghdad and don't have someone in their rear. I would hope and like to see that if this happened, that we would have much of the regular army willing to change sides and willing to shuck off the shackles of Iraq's regime. That will not be done if we confront them directly or try to minimize our involvement and forces on the ground; we will get dragged into situations where they are unsure about who is going to prevail or whether their backs are covered. As a military man, I bristle against ideas of small forces and of surrogate forces that we trust that can draw us into things. We then become responsible for their actions and for their welfare; that can suck us into cities and places where units are still fighting that wouldn't normally fight us if we overwhelmed the situation. I'm not going to give you a number. I wouldn't give you a number because in my time, I was privy to my war plans, and I don't want to discuss plans that may still be relevant. I would do it in a way that we emphasize as short and as bloodless action as possible to try to resolve this. We do not want to get involved in something that is done on the cheap or that is done in a way that maximizes destruction or leaves doubt in the minds that might fight us that they have any other options and don't have a clear way out of this to remain intact and have a possible role in the future to a much more viable Iraq.
Ambassador Edward S. Walker, Jr.: There are several questions people would like to know. Do you think the war is unavoidable? (several people talking in background) Does this microphone work? No, that's the problem. I will talk louder. The question is whether the war is unavoidable. Do you think that we are rushing into the war with Iraq without studying the consequences?
General Zinni: I'm not convinced we need to do this now. I am convinced that we need to deal with Saddam down the road, but I think that the time is difficult because of the conditions in the region and all the other events that are going on. I believe that he can be deterred and is containable at this moment. As a matter of fact, I think the containment can be ratcheted up in a way that is acceptable to everybody.
I do think eventually Saddam has to be dealt with. That could happen in many ways. It could happen that he just withers on the vine, he passes on to the afterlife, something happens within Iraq that changes things, he becomes less powerful, or the inspectors that go in actually accomplish something and eliminate potential weapons of mass destruction--but I doubt this--that might be there.
The question becomes not one of whether there are other options at this moment, because I think there are. The question becomes how to sort out your priorities and deal with them in a smart way that you get things done that need to be done first before you move on to things that are second and third. My favorite analogy in this light is to shoot the wolf on the sled, and don't be popping the one in the wood line. He's not the one that's going to eat you right away. I think this wolf can be left for another shot. There are plenty of wolves on the sled.
If I were to give you my priority of things that can change for the better in this region, it is first and foremost the Middle East peace process and getting it back on track. Second, it is ensuring that Iran's reformation or moderation continues on track and trying to help and support the people who are trying to make that change in the best way we can. That's going to take a lot of intelligence and careful work. The third is to make sure those countries to which we have now committed ourselves to change, like Afghanistan and those in central Asia, we invest what we need to in the way of resources there to make that change happen. Fourth is to patch up these relationships that have become strained, and fifth is to reconnect to the people. We are talking past each other. The dialogue is heated. We have based this in things that are tough to compromise on, like religion and politics, and we need to reconnect in a different way.
I would take on those priorities before this one. My personal view, and this is just personal, is that I think this isn't number one. It's maybe six or seven, and the affordability line may be drawn around five.
Ambassador Edward S. Walker, Jr.: I have two questions. I want your opinion of what the Iraqi people want. Are they going to greet our troops as liberators? Do they have a concept of what they want for their own government after thirty years of repression by Saddam Hussein?
General Zinni: I think that, again depending on how this goes, if it's short with minimal destruction, there will be the initial euphoria of change. It's always what comes next that is tough. I went in with the first troops that went into Somalia. We were greeted as heroes on the street. People loved to see us; when the food was handed out, the water was given, the medicines were applied, we were heroes. After we had been there about a month, I had someone come see me who said there was a group of prominent Somalis that wanted to talk to me. I met with them. The first question out of their mouths was that we'd been there a month, hadn't started a jobs program, and when were we going to fix the economy? Well, I didn't know it was my Marines unit's responsibility to do that. Expectations grow rapidly. The initial euphoria can wear off. People have the idea that Jeffersonian democracy, entrepreneurial economics and all these great things are going to come. If they are not delivered immediately, do not seem to be on the rise, and worse yet, if the situation begins to deteriorate--if there is tribal revenge, factional splitting, still violent elements in the country making statements that make it more difficult, institutions that are difficult to re-establish, infrastructure damage, I think that initial euphoria could wane away. It's not whether you're greeted in the streets as a hero; it's whether you're still greeted as a hero when you come back a year from now.
Ambassador Edward S. Walker, Jr.: I have two related questions. One asks if you believe that Iraq is the endgame or if this is only the precursor to engagement in Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia as some journalists have projected. If there is this widening role for the United States in the region, do we have the necessary military forces and other resources to confront this kind of mega-involvement?
General Zinni: I have a couple of heroes. One is George C. Marshall, a great general that led us through a great war to victory. Look what that general did after the war. He didn't look to fight more wars; he didn't look to leave the situation in the condition in a place where those wars would re-breed themselves. Look at General MacArthur in Japan. He was a man who suffered through Bataan and Corregidor and lost his troops to a horrific enemy. He reached out to the Japanese people and used other means to recreate stability and prosperity. Look at Generals Grant and Lee, where Grant wanted the mildest of surrenders where dignity was maintained and where friendship and connection could happen, where Robert E. Lee did not want to go into the hills and fight guerilla wars. He knew it was a time to heal and to do it at the best level.
Look at General George Washington who avoided a second war with England, despite everybody pressing him to go to war a second time. He had been through the pain of the fighting with the Continental Army. Look at General Eisenhower who didn't see a solution in Indochina in getting involved when the French were engaged with the Viet Minh. He saw that as a loser strategy, despite everybody clamoring about the dominoes that would fall.
Like those generals who were far greater than I am, I don't think that violence and war is the solution. There are times when you reluctantly, as a last resort, have to go to war. But as a general that has seen war--Ned said I have a Purple Heart. It didn't take any great act of bravery or courage to get the Purple Heart; it's just being dumb enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time--I will tell you that in my time, I never saw anything come out of fighting that was worth the fight. I'm sure my brother who served in Korea, my cousins who served in the Pacific and in Europe in World War II, and my father who fought for this country in World War I with the other 12 percent of Italian immigrants who served in the infantry may all have different views of their wars.
My wars that I saw were handled poorly. I carry around with me a quote from Robert McNamara's book In Retrospect. Unfortunately this was written thirty years after a war that put 58,000 names on that wall, caused 350,000 of us to suffer wounds that crushed many lives. Let me just quote two short passages. He said, "I want to put Vietnam in context. We of the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, who participated in the decisions on Vietnam, acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of this nation. We made our decisions in the light of those values, yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why. I truly believe that we made an error, not of values and intentions, but of judgment and capabilities."
He went on further to say, "One reason that the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations failed to take an orderly, rational approach to the basic questions underlying Vietnam was the staggering variety and complexity of the other issues we faced. Simply put, we faced a blizzard of problems. There were only 24 hours in a day, and we often did not have time to think straight." Well, Mr. McNamara, my 24 hours a day and my troops' 24 hours a day were in a sweaty hot jungle bleeding for these mistakes. When he resigned in 1968, he didn't want to do it in a way where he objected openly to the war. There were many more years of that war left, and many more casualties occurred. I wish he had stood up for that principle.
I would just say to you that if we look at this as a beginning of a chain of events, meaning that we intend to solve this through violent action, we're on the wrong course. First of all, I don't see that that's necessary. Second of all, I think that war and violence are a very last resort, and we have to be careful how we apply it, especially now in our position in the world. (applause)
Ambassador Edward S. Walker, Jr.: Is this working? Good, thanks. Talking about last resorts is a very difficult question and not one that we can answer here; it's up to another country really. What do you think Israel should do if it is hit with non-conventional weapons?
General Zinni: I think every country has the right to defend itself, and every country has that reserved right to protect its people. I don't think we could dictate to any nation what it's reaction ought to be. That's a political decision their leadership must make. The Prime Minister will have to make that decision as to what he feels is in the best interest of his own people and in his own interest. There is no doubt that this will be tested.
(Side A ends; Side B begins)
General Zinni: (continues) wouldn't want to generate a lot of casualties. I think it will be tremendously explosive. The reaction will play into the hands of extremists that will want to draw out that kind of response, and I think it will be catastrophic for the entire region when it happens.
Ambassador Edward S. Walker, Jr.: General, how do you think the war on Iraq would affect regional allies, particularly Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia?
General Zinni: I think Pakistan will be extremely worried about us getting distracted from the subcontinent, central Asia and Afghanistan. There is the possibility that it will encourage or incite extremists within that region and within their own country to react. They're going to look, I think nervously, to see whether we stay committed, that we're able to handle two fronts or more. For Jordan and Egypt, if the war is drawn out, the reactions on the street are going to be extremely dangerous for both regimes and may present significant problems in their abilities to support and deal with problems that may emerge from their own street. I think Saudi Arabia will support us. I think they are going to have a lot of difficulty with the decision to go in, unless a clear case is made. It will help in all these countries that there is a clear UN resolution that supports this; they can do it in the name of the UN. I think in all cases the biggest problem is going to be internal. The images that come back and burn across the region are going to decide the greatest problems that each one of those is going to have to deal with.
Ambassador Edward S. Walker, Jr.: Another question is how important in this planning process is consultation with our close European allies, particularly the British and the French?
General Zinni: I think the strongest and most successful security alliance, and one that has changed the region after centuries of conflict, is NATO. I think we wisely kept NATO in being, not necessarily because it had a threat, but because it was an organization that helped order within a region that, if you go back several centuries since the peace of Westphalia and before that, was just a hotbed of small wars and instability, much like the region we have now. We have worked closely with our NATO partners. We have built a military system with them that is inter-operable and cooperative. Even at that, there are certain inter-operability and compatibility problems but far less than we would have anywhere else. These are significant allies, not only on the field with military units that have worked with us and are quite competent but also because of their political influence, their positions on the Security Council, and their interests in the region. The international legitimacy and cooperation that would be signaled by their presence is vital for us in this region. I think we need to have them by our sides.
The Brits have stood with us for over a decade of containment and still maintain a level of support that's very difficult for them economically and politically. They have been good allies, and I think those who have been good allies ought to be part of what we do and have a voice in what we do. There are many interests in this part of the world, and they're not just ours. There are interests of countries in the region and interests from countries outside the region. The stability of this area and the economic reliance on this area mean that it goes beyond just what our interests are and how they're defined. Again, the first on the list is that the coalition has to be in, and that coalition ought to be as broad as possible and certainly include our key European allies.
Ambassador Edward S. Walker, Jr.: A final question is that in your talk, you used the phrase "in order to succeed." Could you define success in the context of a military operation and what failure might be?
General Zinni: Well, success in a military operation isn't only defined in military terms. We tried to do that in Vietnam by body counts, and it didn't work. Success in a military operation has to be measured in success in the political objectives that you're out to achieve. After all, as Clausewood (phonetic) said, this is just politics by other means. It is a form of power; it is one of our elements of national power along with diplomacy, our economic means, our social means, and our informational needs.
I think success will not be measured by what happens in the fight. I would hope in a military context that casualties are minimal all the way around; that destruction is minimized; and that the rapid conclusion of the fighting occurs in a way that we don't create long-standing hatreds, frictions, or security problems in the region. But the military success of this is just the beginning of the beginning. What is going to end up being a deciding factor as to whether this is a success will be what happens to Iraq in the aftermath, whether it stands up as a viable democratic multi-representational nation with its territory intact, not threatening its neighbors, and disavowing weapons of mass destruction. All of those component parts are going to be difficult to pull together. That will be the measure of success.
I don't believe that we ever lost a battle in Vietnam. I don't believe we ever lost a battle in Somalia. I don't believe we ever really lost a battle once we committed ourselves to Korea, but we didn't resolve the situations politically the way we wanted to in any of those instances. So military success, in and of itself, is never the complete answer. Success will have to be measured, not in military terms but in political terms in what is left behind. That will be the mark of what we are--what we leave behind in this. Thank you. (applause)
Ambassador Edward S. Walker, Jr.: Thank you very much. We have a lot of topics ahead for careful scrutiny and study. I'm going to ask that you take a break but be back here sharply at 10:15. At that time, the chairman of the board of governors of MEI, Wyche Fowler, a former senator, former ambassador and couple of other formers too, will take charge. We will lead off with a discussion of the UN and United Nations. Thank you.