By Elaine M. Grossman
Inside Defense, 09 December 2004
Retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni, a former U.S. Central Command chief, believes the United States will continue to be involved in rebuilding Iraq for at least another decade.
Speaking this week at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, where he is a senior adviser, Zinni enumerated a laundry list of objectives in stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq. Each essential item on the “to do” list will take years to accomplish, he said.
Zinni served as the top U.S. commander in the Middle East from 1997 to 2000, and after retirement from the military had a brief stint as a State Department special envoy to the region.
“In my experience -- all around the world now -- three things have to happen,” Zinni said in response to a question from the audience following his Dec. 7 speech. “One is that you have to get the security situation down right. People have to live without fear. People have to be able to understand that they can do what they need to do without worrying that they’re going to pay a price for it or [that] they’re living in an atmosphere of chaos and violence and anarchy.”
A second requirement is to “build capacity,” creating institutions and processes necessary for a functioning nation, he said.
“If you’re going to change societies, especially societies that have never experienced these things you want to transform them to, they need capacity,” Zinni said. “They need rule-of-law capacity [and] a judicial system. You need to build governing systems, [and] transparency in the systems that have been corrupt or authoritarian in the past. You need the ability to administrate.”
The third part, he said, is economic development.
“Businesses need to thrive” and create jobs, Zinni said. “Foreign investment needs to come in. In some cases, the existing production capability and businesses need to be restarted or reformed. In some cases, we need to create businesses in these environments.
“All that has to be done if you’re going to change a place like Iraq,” he continued. “That’s not going to be done in one year or two years.”
Training new Iraqi security forces to maintain stability is “a minimum five-year problem,” he said.
Moreover, creating a whole new political system will take enormous time and effort, he said. Zinni called the Iraqi elections set for Jan. 30 “a minor step” in light of all that must follow if the nation is to have a stable and democratic governing regime.
“All we’re getting [as a result of the elections] is a group that’s going to write a constitution,” he said. “This election doesn’t solve anything; it starts a whole other set of frictions and debates.”
For example, Iraqis must decide whether they want to create a bicameral or unicameral legislature, how power is divided and whether the system will include checks and balances.
“You’re not going to build that in a year or two or five or six or 10” years, Zinni said.
“So you want my guess, which is completely pulled out of the air?” Zinni asked. “Ten years from now, we’ll be here and we’ll still be involved to some degree or another. And we still won’t have it where maybe it should be or where we want it to be. That’s not bad news -- it’s reality.”
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Citation: Elaine M. Grossman. “Zinni Predicts U.S. Involvement in Iraq Will Last Another Decade,” Inside Defense, 09 December 2004.
Original URL: http://www.insidedefense.com/secure/defense_docnum.asp?f=defense_2002.ask&docnum=PENTAGON-20-50-6
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