WASHINGTON, 25 May 2004 — Retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former chief of the US Central Command, has accused senior Pentagon officials of failure in executing the Iraq war and is calling for their resignations.
Speaking on CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday night, Gen. Zinni said: “Somebody has screwed up. And at this level and at this stage, it should be evident to everybody that they’ve screwed up. And whose heads are rolling on this? That’s what bothers me most...”
Gen. Zinni, commander-in-chief of the US Central Command from 1997 to 2000, was in charge of all American troops in the Middle East. He says planning for the Iraq war and its aftermath was flawed from the start.
“I think there was dereliction in insufficient forces being put on the ground and (in not) fully understanding the military dimensions of the plan,” said Gen. Zinni.
“If you’re the secretary of defense...you’re responsible for that (and) you’re responsible for that planning and that execution on the ground.
“If you’ve assumed responsibility for the other elements, non-military, non-security, political, economic, social and everything else, then you bear responsibility,” Gen. Zinni said, but did not refer to the current secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, by name.
Before his retirement in 2000, Zinni drew up invasion plans that called for deploying 300,000 troops, more than double the roughly 140,000 now in Iraq.
Following his retirement from the Marine Corps, the Bush administration thought so highly of Zinni that it appointed him to one of its highest diplomatic posts — special envoy to the Middle East.
But Zinni soon disagreed with the administration over the war in Iraq, and now, in his harshest criticism yet, has handed up a derisive condemnation of the Pentagon and its conduct of the war in Iraq.
In a new book about his career, “Battle Ready,” co-written with Tom Clancy, due to be released this week, Zinni writes: “In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption.”
Gen. Zinni says Iraq was the wrong war at the wrong time. He said this was a war the generals didn’t want — but a war the civilians at the Pentagon wanted.
