Zgram - 6/21/2004 - "The Neo-Cons have had their day"
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Sun Jun 20 16:46:36 EDT 2004
Zgram - Where Truth is Destiny: Now more than ever!
June 21, 2004
Good Morning from the Zundelsite:
The title says it all:
[START]
"The Neo-Cons Have Had Their Day
Now It's Time for a Clean Sweep!"
{General 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 [of the
Executive Intelligence Review] 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. And the reason, of course,
was the much higher priorities: the protection of the United States
through the development of the Homeland Securities activities; the
completion, successfully, of the Afghanistan campaign; and the
destruction of al-Qaeda; all seem to me to be much higher priorities
than going after Iraq. And you know the arguments as well as I do:
the weapons of mass destruction, the threat to the United States, the
connection between al-Qaeda, and then finally, the reason was
indicated that this was a rogue regime, that punished its citizens,
and its human rights record was abysmal and so forth. We all know
that story. The fact remains, that this would have been a very
difficult undertaking under the best of circumstances, and
unfortunately, with the exception of the Phase I military operation,
which terminated essentially with the end of organized resistance
over a year ago, the rest of it has been a disaster.
EIR I was at an event, where both Gen. [Anthony] Zinni
[USMC-ret.] and Chas Freeman, former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia,
spoke, and this was about eight months before the outbreak of
fighting, in March 2003, and they both basically thought that the
real troubles would begin after the ``hot phase'' of combat, when
American forces would be there as an occupying force. And they
rejected the neo-con and Cheney thesis, that this would be a cakewalk
and we'd be greeted as liberators.
What was your sense of the neo-con vision of what was doing to happen in Iraq?
Hoar Well I think that there were two problems: The first one was
that they created a set of circumstances that didn't exist on the
ground, and they were aided and abetted in this process by Ahmed
Chalabi, who, to this day, is still on the U.S. government payroll.
And Chalabi is a fraud. He was in the early 1990s, when I first came
across him. Tony Zinni has spoken out against him, and got in a lot
of trouble with [Sen.] Trent Lott [R-Miss.], for fighting to prevent
the Congress from giving Chalabi's Iraqi Congress $94 million a few
years ago. Chalabi very quickly realized that the neo-cons wanted to
hear certain things, and he obliged them, by giving them information,
including planting erroneous intelligence. All of the stories, from
dancing in the streets, to the locations of weapons of mass
destruction, were all fabrications. And the people in the government
bought into this, and there's some evidence that they even cooked the
books, with respect to intelligence information, so that they could
cherry-pick unrefined information that had come to the United States,
through intelligence sources, in order to make the case.
The second piece, of course, is that once they had made the case--if
erroneously--to invade Iraq, they did an unbelievably poor job in
planning for the reconstruction of the country. And this is evidenced
by the fact, that a year after that phase of the operation began,
that services, jobs, and security, are still woefully lacking in the
country as a whole, and that we have done something that virtually no
ruler of Iraq has been able to accomplish, in the past: and that's to
unite Sunnis and Shi'as in a common cause, against an external enemy;
namely, the United States.
EIR How do you assess the present situation on the ground? Word
came back a few hours ago, that there's fairly heavy bombing and
fighting in Karbala and Najaf, in addition to the situation up north,
in the Fallujah area. How serious do you consider the situation on
the ground, in terms of the building resistance against this U.S.
occupation?
Hoar Well, I think, that going back to the beginning of the
reconstruction phase, all activities, once organized resistance was
defeated a year ago, should have been turned over to political
people, under the supervision of the Department of State. Because all
activities going forward are, in fact, political activities. The
military's responsibility is to provide security, and the exercise of
force, in this circumstance, is much more useful when it's threatened
than when it's actually used. And we find again and again,
particularly in counterinsurgency operations, that when force is used
amid an uncommitted, or generally hostile population, that the
perpetrator of the force continues to lose political support.
And this, after all, is what this campaign, this current campaign,
should be all about: Is winning the willing support of Iraqi citizens
for the U.S. program going forward? And, by conducting large-scale
operations in key cities, like Najaf and Karbala, we risk the popular
support, or even grudging support of the Shi'a population, which we
badly need, in order to bring about any successful transfer of power
and movement toward democracy.
EIR It seems that there are widely different approaches being
taken in different parts of the country, and even disagreements on
implementation. I'm referring to Gen. [James] Conway's decision to
attempt to bring stability to Fallujah by putting together a new
Iraqi military force in the city, to take up the primary security
responsibilities. It seemed as if, after he had taken that move,
which seemed to be a pretty smart move in my view, there was a lot of
flak from back in the Pentagon civilian bureaucracy back in
Washington, from [Paul] Wolfowitz and [Douglas] Feith and people like
that. What's your assessment of what General Conway was doing up
there, in Fallujah?
Hoar Well, I have said it several times, and at least a couple
of times publicly: Paul Wolfowitz is a very bright guy, but he
doesn't know anything about war-fighting, and I suspect he knows less
about counterinsurgency operations; and that Jim Conway has done
exactly the right thing.
The attempt is to pacify Fallujah. If we get into the business of
trying to conduct punitive operations against people in Fallujah,
without specific actionable intelligence about who was responsible
for the killing and the atrocities against the four civilian
contractors, we're going to ultimately lose out.
Fallujah is a tribal city. It was a problem for Saddam Hussein. It
has been a problem for virtually every government that has ruled
Iraq, with the exception of a period prior to Saddam Hussein's rule;
there was a military ruler who came from Fallujah. The solution to
Fallaujah has to be, to work through the tribal leaders in that city
and that area, and that includes security, and ultimately to gain
intelligence about the people that are in that city that are a
problem.
The difficulty, of course, is that there is a larger disagreement
within the U.S. military environment, and it extends to the uniformed
services. The disagreement on how to conduct counterinsurgency
operations, between the Army and the Marine Corps, goes back to
Vietnam. When, in Vietnam, the Army's view was to meet and destroy
main force Vietnamese units out in the hinterland. And the Marines'
view, was to conduct counterinsurgency operations, to overcome the
Vietcong infrastructure in the more populated areas. And, it seems to
me, that these two divergent mind-sets have perpetuated themselves
into Iraq. There is evidence that the U.S. Army continues to favor
major operations, although I think a major diversion from that point
of view was the 101st Air Mobile Division, which conducted very
successful counterinsurgency operations in their area of
responsibility, before rotating back to the States. But, other
divisions, for the most part, favored large military operations, as
well.
As I said earlier, these kinds of operations tend to alienate a
population, and most especially those people that might have had
positive attitudes towards the U.S. occupation, or at least were
neutral in their views.
EIR There's another dimension to what's going on now in Iraq,
that I think is a rather new phenomenon in American experience, and
that's the significant role of private contractors, both fulfilling
logistical-type functions, and also a large number of security
functions. The original idea of this outsourcing and privatization,
as far as I know, emerged during the period when Vice President
Cheney was Secretary of Defense, when he commissioned the original
Halliburton study of which functions could be outsourced. What's your
evaluation of this added factor of private contractors, including
private security, quasi-mercenary elements on the ground, there, in
Iraq?
Hoar Well, I think, as a concept, the idea really goes back to
the Vietnam War, where there were contractors that deployed with Air
Force, Navy, and Marine aviation units, in order to help service the
aircraft. And to my knowledge this was the first time that major
combat operations were undertaken with civilians working under
contract to directly assist the military in performing their
functions.
Additionally, there was a great deal of construction work that was
done in Vietnam, by, I believe, American construction companies, but
I'm not sure of that. Cam Ranh Bay was an example of the large port
that was built in central Vietnam.
So, the concept predates Mr. Cheney's time as the Secretary of the
Defense. Further, in the 1970s, the United States Army reorganized,
to make sure--as I understand it--that the U.S. Army would never go
to war, again, without activating the Reserves. You'll recall that in
Vietnam, the Reserves were never called up, and the United States
Army had a well-balanced force, in which virtually everybody that
served was in an active-duty unit.
The change that took place in the '70s took many combat support
activities--for example, medical hospitals, stevedore battalions that
would open ports--in fact, all the day-to-day requirements for
logistic throughput in a combat zone, from ships to ports, to trucks,
and movement to the front, were accomplished by military units that
had been transferred to the Reserves. And this makes a lot of sense,
because in peacetime operations, there is no requirement for
literally tens of thousands of soldiers, whose primary responsibility
is to run a port operation, or to drive an 18-wheel truck in a combat
zone.
And so, the theory made sense from a practical point of view, and
perhaps from an ideological point of view as well. I think that the
logical extension of this, was in the '90-91 war, that the Reserves
{had} to be called up. There was no way that we could conduct an
operation that involved 500,000 American forces, without calling on
the Reserves to perform these absolutely essential combat support
missions. And so, I think, that while Halliburton has done a great
deal of work, Halliburton was doing work for the U.S. government, in
places like Yugoslavia and Somalia, prior to this time. And indeed,
if I'm not mistaken, Halliburton's association with providing
contractual support to the U.S. government goes back to the time when
Mr. Lyndon Johnson was the President.
EIR We talked last week, about a proposal that Mr. LaRouche has
put forward to stabilize the situation, through a fairly dramatic
change in the present concept underlying the mission there: to keep
American forces there, but under a radically different status of
forces agreement; put much more emphasis on reconstruction, and turn
the whole effort really officially, over to [Lakhdar] Brahimi and the
UN to try to work out some kind of arrangement, with a more credible
interim government, minus the Chalabi types.
What's your recipe for what can be done now? It's obviously a year
into an insurgency situation; it's more difficult. But, what kinds of
things do you think need to be done, to both bring stability to the
Iraq situation, and to repair whatever damage has been done to the
U.S. image in the Arab world and more broadly?
Hoar Well, I think--to speak, first of all, about the image--I
think it's imperative that there be some major changes. The most
recent disclosure about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners is a good
example of this. One of the reasons the Administration has used for
the need to go and invade Iraq, was the abusive nature of the Saddam
Hussein regime. It does us no good, to find ourselves being abusive
to prisoners in the same prison where Saddam Hussein was abusive to
Iraqis!
There is no question that we need to broaden the international
support. And the place to start, is with the UN. And the place, more
specifically, is with the UN Security Council. We need a UN Security
Council resolution that would authorize a UN Chapter 7 peacekeeping
operation, with the United States as the lead; that would allow us to
continue going forward with the UN operation, rather than solely a
U.S. operation; with the UN taking the lead on the transition from
the occupation force to an independent Iraqi government, and the
conduct of elections there sometime in the future.
The fact of the matter is, there have never been enough troops on
the ground to provide adequate security, starting with Day One when
the invasion began, up until the present time. We have tried to get
by on the cheap, with disastrous results. There have never been
adequate resources, directed toward the reconstruction of Iraq. I'm
told that unemployment in the country still remains at about 80%.
[The United States] is a country that, during the Depression, put
people to work on public transportation, public welfare projects for
roads, dams, buildings, power. It seems to me, that so much more
could be done to enhance the quality of life of Iraqis, more than
just painting schools, and going about some of these minor programs;
but rather, major programs to help revitalize the Iraqi economy,
particularly since the original estimates about the ability of the
oil sector of the Iraqi government to pay for the most of the
expenses incurred during this reconstruction period, have been
woefully incorrect.
So, there's a great deal of things that need to be done. Services
and jobs and security are the three key things that the occupying
power, whether it is us or the UN, needs to provide; and that costs a
lot of money. And it costs a lot of people on the ground, in terms of
providing security. And without improving those three
things--services, jobs, and security--we are not going to have a
successful ability to change the attitudes of the people in Iraq.
EIR What would you see as the consequences, regionally, of
failure to make those policy corrections?
Hoar Well, I think we are certainly at a pivotal point, in terms
of what is going on in Iraq. The first thing is, that there is no
possibility that we can walk away from Iraq. The consequences of that
would be enormous. Secondly, the success of our efforts is really
dependent on broadening the base of those that are involved in the
operation, namely through the UN and perhaps ultimately bringing NATO
into it, as well.
But, the consequences for the neighbors are quite large, because,
while there's no evidence that al-Qaeda was present before the
invasion, it appears that a virtually misguided, but perhaps
idealistic Muslim, who feels that the United States has been unfair
to Muslim countries, wants to go to Iraq to fight Americans. And, if
a power vacuum were created there, it would be fertile ground for
terrorists of all stripes; it would be fertile ground for neighboring
countries, particularly Iran, to attempt to make inroads in the
political structure; and it would be fertile ground for al-Qaeda to
enter into a failed state that was about to implode on itself.
And so, the United States must stay. In order to be successful, in
my judgment, we need to broaden our base of support through the UN,
and spend more money and more time, and more ambitious programs, and
more armed soldiers on the ground. And if those soldiers don't come
from other countries, we're going to have to provide them ourselves,
in order to make this work. Even at the cost of severely upsetting
the nature of our rotation policy for soldiers and Marines, we must
do this on an emergency basis, until we gain the upper hand, and gain
some modicum of control. If we can bring other countries in to help
us, so much the better.
EIR How significant a linkage do you see, between the
Israel/Palestine situation, and the challenges on the ground in Iraq,
and throughout the whole region?
Hoar There's enormous significance. And there are many people in
government and elsewhere in the United States that have attempted to
decouple the inter-connectedness of these two issues. They are
connected, because 1.2 billion Muslims--worldwide, but largely spread
out between the Philippines and all the way across South Asia and
North Africa to Morocco--believe that the United States has unjustly
taken the part of Israel, in the Palestine/Israel confrontation. Many
of our activities in the region, including the invasion of Iraq, are
connected to our support for Israel.
And, our public diplomacy in this regard, has been horrendous, in
that we have taken the back seat to Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, two of
the most prominent cable television stations, which have cameramen
and newspeople on the ground all the time, and are looking for
opportunities to make this case. Now, whether the case is a good one
or not, from our point of view as American citizens, it's important
to point out that there is linkage in the eyes of Muslims worldwide;
and if we don't deal with that problem, it makes the problem in the
region--and more specifically in Iraq--more difficult.
And so, when the President stands with Mr. Sharon, and makes
statements that are patently not in congruence with the work of the
Quartet and the Road Map that had been put together by the
Quartet--namely, the United States, the EU, Russia, and Kofi Annan,
UN Secretary General--that that is immediately read as another
example of how the United States unjustly supports Israel. And in
fact, the timing of it could not have been worse, given the internal
unrest that exists right now in Iraq, and then, on top of that, the
events of this maltreatment of Iraqi prisoners.
So, it's a major part of this. It's a major issue in terms of public
diplomacy. It's a major issue, because throughout the Arab world and
the Muslim world, the larger Muslim world of 1.2 billion people, we
are perceived as an occupying power, and treating the Palestinian
issue unfairly, while at the same time, our circumstances in Iraq are
not improving.
EIR As someone with a great deal of experience in the region as a
whole, how do you appraise the situation with the major regimes that
have been historically pro-American: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan?
Does this combined Iraq problem and the failure to deal justly with
Israel/Palestine create, in your judgment, serious threats of
instability in those countries, also?
Hoar I think very much so. It's interesting, that in perhaps more
elegant terms, both President Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah of
Jordan have said essentially what I've just said a moment ago, with
respect to the linkage between the Iraqi business and the
Israeli-Palestinian issue. Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has
carried forward a peace proposal to the Arab League, and received 25
votes to nothing, unanimously supporting it, which in large measure
looked very much like the Oslo Accords, with some differences, but
certainly, a place where the negotiations could begin again. It seems
to me, as a representative of a government in the Middle East said to
me some months ago, but after the invasion of Iraq, that the United
States makes it very hard to be friends with them. And, I think, in
the Middle East, the countries that encircle, or are neighbors of
Iraq, which have historically had close ties to the United States,
find it very difficult to be supportive of U.S. policy in the region,
and at the same time, be responsive to their own, indigenous
populations.
EIR Do you see any evidence, from within the particularly
neo-conservative circles within the Bush Administration, that there's
any sense of lessons learned, any kind of rethinking, as the result
of the mess that we're in on the ground right now in Iraq?
Hoar Well, the military doesn't always get it right. But, one of
the things that the military has learned over the years, is that you
continually have reviews about how organizations perform. And you
have after-action reports, you have critical discussions about what
went well, and what went wrong. I see no evidence of anybody in this
government going back and looking back at the events of the last
couple of years, with an effort to try and determine what went well,
and what went wrong. And, I mean on the ground. I don't mean the 9/11
Commission, and some of these others that are more narrowly focussed.
We have had a Congressional committee to look at intelligence.
But, what went well with the offensive campaign, that allowed us to
seize Iraq in a relatively short period of time; what went wrong in
that portion of the campaign; and similarly, what steps had been
taken during that period in planning, and what had taken place in
execution in the post-offensive operation phase of this; without the
ability to go back and be critical of your own actions, it seems to
me that there's very little ability to make changes in the future.
And I would just point out one example: the manner in which we
handled the Iraqi Army. You will recall, shortly after the offensive
operations terminated, the decision was made to disband the Iraqi
Army. This was done, at least in part, on the recommendations of Mr.
Chalabi, that these people were all Ba'athists and couldn't be
trusted in the government. But, as I recall, within a day or two,
soldiers came out on the street and rioted. U.S. Army troops were
called out; they fired into the mob, killed some number of protesting
former soldiers of the Iraq government. The next day, it was decided
that there would be a stipend for soldiers. So, they were all sent
home with their rifles and their rocket-propelled grenades, with a
small stipend. And then, we come full circle, in almost a year, where
we have now decided, that perhaps we're going to have to hire some of
these people back again, if we're going to establish an effective
force, border patrol, police, and so forth.
And, finally coming to the realization that there were many people
who joined the Ba'athist Party during the Saddam Hussein regime, only
to make a living, and be able to get by, where any kind of promotion
or any kind of status--whether they were academics or in the
government or in the military--was dependent on their membership in
the Ba'athist Party. And that all of those people were not
necessarily ardent supporters of Saddam Hussein.
So, I think that the neo-conservatives had their day, by selling to
the President the need for invasion of Iraq. I think it's now time
for a clean sweep--and it has been for some time, in my judgment--to
get rid of these people. And, to see if we can put together a more
coherent policy than has existed for the last couple years.
EIR Any closing comments, you'd care to make? I very much
appreciate your time.
Hoar Well, Jeff, I don't think all is lost. But, we're getting to
the point, where it is becoming increasingly more difficult to make
the case that our purposes were noble and that the end of this
occupation will be a better day for the Iraqis. We have a lot of
convincing to do, to convince the Iraqis of our nobility and our
honest efforts, with regard to a new Iraq. And, without their belief
in our noble efforts, and without their active support, the success
of this endeavor is almost certainly doomed to failure.
There are some things that can be done: the UN multinational effort;
a serious increase in resources, both in terms of troops on the
ground, and also money to help rebuild the country and convince these
people that we have their best interests at heart.
But, I think we're running out of time. If something is not done
soon, I think it may be irretrievable.
EIR With some pretty horrifying consequences, both for the region
as a whole, and also elsewhere around the planet.
Hoar Well, and for the reputation of the United States. We are
certainly not going to come out of this, with our reputation as a
beacon for democracy intact. In fact, it's seriously damaged already.
[END]
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