Monday, May 24, 2004

Gen. Zinni: 'They've Screwed Up': "“There has been poor strategic thinking in this,” says Zinni. “There has been poor operational planning and execution on the ground. And to think that we are going to ‘stay the course,’ the course is headed over Niagara Falls. I think it's time to change course a little bit, or at least hold somebody responsible for putting you on this course. Because it's been a failure.... 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.”"

""[Bremer] has made mistake after mistake after mistake.... Disbanding the army,” says Zinni. “De-Baathifying, down to a level where we removed people that were competent and didn’t have blood on their hands that you needed in the aftermath of reconstruction – alienating certain elements of that society.”

"Zinni believes [neo-conservatives] are political ideologues who have hijacked American policy in Iraq. “I think it's the worst kept secret in Washington. That everybody - everybody I talk to in Washington has known and fully knows what their agenda was and what they were trying to do,” says Zinni."

* Zinni could have added that everybody in the world knows who these people are and what their agenda is. The neo-conservative clique, their ideology and membership, their takeover of the Whitehouse - all this was fully exposed before the war even started.

"“And what we have become now in the United States, how we're viewed in this region is not an entity that's promising positive change. We are now being viewed as the modern crusaders, as the modern colonial power in this part of the world.”"

No comments: