Transcript for April 2

GEN. ZINNI: You know, they need amongst the population—this is classic insurgency—they need either fear, apathy or support, sympathy. If they get a combination of those three—and right now they have a combination. If there’s a viable government, there’s an opportunity for jobs, if there’s a program that shows hope for the future for their children, they’re going to turn against these people. We haven’t given them that in three years.

MR. RUSSERT: Is Iraq more dangerous now than it was with Saddam?

GEN. ZINNI: Well, it can be. I mean, this is like comparing heart disease with cancer. You know, you may cure one; neither one is good. The—probably the good news in all this is the potential for Iraq to come out of this better off is there, where there was no hope under Saddam. But the problem is that we’ve wasted three years here. They may go, in the worst case, through a period that looks something like Lebanon did in the ‘80s. And it may take them a while—five, 10 years of this kind of violence and destructive behavior, sectarian violence that they perpetrate on each other, for them to get out of this. And I think we lost ground when we had an opportunity in the beginning to freeze this situation and gain control, and we let all these snakes come out.

MR. RUSSERT: In your book, and I’ll quote from it, “The Battle For Peace,” it says, “Our current war in Iraq may be turning into a repetition of Vietnam. The military out there goes from operation to operation, our leaders in Washington assure us we are powering ahead from success to success; yet our young nineteen or twenty-year-old soldiers are now asking hard questions: ‘I can win any battle; but am I winning this war?’

“I’ve heard these questions before in Vietnam. The answer there was ‘No.’

“My answer for Iraq is, ‘I don’t know.’ Nobody can tell our soldiers if they’re winning or not. But the parallels are disturbing.” Explain.

GEN. ZINNI: Well, you know, you can see almost every day on TV a young lieutenant colonel, colonel, a young sergeant that’s out there trying to make a difference that tells you that, in this village, in this province, “My unit is connecting to the people. We’re trying hard.” The frustration is they leave and the next unit in may not repeat it. They’re successful, but there is no national program that takes hold. All their efforts out there at the local level, the successes that they’re trying to achieve on the scene aren’t solidified into some national movement forward.

The, the remarkable similarities to Vietnam is I saw in places in Vietnam where we were making a difference in the villages, where we had programs that innovative commanders were exercising, where there were troops that were dedicated to changing the lives of the Vietnamese. Meanwhile, back in Saigon, we had the revolving generals, coup after coup, while we sat there and watched, and this wasn’t the kind of government that the people felt they could risk their lives for.

What I’m saying is don’t mistake the efforts of the troops on the ground. We just saw Colonel McMasters, Tal Afar, we know General Petraeus, General Mattis, others that have made a difference on the ground. But that’s like putting your foot in a bucket of water. You pull it out, no one’s going to know you were there unless there is a national program, a belief in that government in Baghdad, a hope for the future, a belief that staying together as united Iraq is better for these people in the long run. That has to come from a strategic plan, from a, a set of policies emerging out of Washington and Baghdad. It isn’t going to be built from the bottom up, from the Anbar provinces, and the Ramadis and the Mosuls out there.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe the American media is distorting the news from Iraq, or presenting an accurate picture?

GEN. ZINNI: Well, I think the American media’s being made a scapegoat for what’s going on out there. At last count, I think something like 80 journalists have been killed in Iraq. It’s hard to get outside the green zone and not risk your life, or risk kidnapping, at a minimum, to get the story. And it’s hard to blame the media for no good stories when the security situation is such that they can’t even go out and get the good stories without risking their lives. And you have to remember that it’s hard to dwell on the good things when the bad things are so overwhelmingly traumatic and catastrophic, you know?  So I think that’s an unfair blame that’s put on the media. I think that there probably are good things at the lower level, but are they balanced out by the bad things that are happening?  All the good things happening out there will mean nothing if the unity government doesn’t come together.

MR. RUSSERT: I want to bring you back to a book you co-wrote with Tom Clancy called “Battle Ready.” And you wrote this: “In the lead-up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw, at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence, and irresponsibility; at worst, lying, incompetence, and corruption.” That’s very serious.

GEN. ZINNI: Yes.

MR. RUSSERT: Where did you see that?  At what level?

GEN. ZINNI: Well, I—first of all, I saw it in the way the intelligence was being portrayed. I knew the intelligence; I saw it right up to the day of the war. I was asked at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing a month before the war if I thought the threat was imminent. I didn’t. Many of the people I know that were involved in the intelligence side of this, or, or in the military felt the same way. I saw the—what this town is known for: spin, cherry-picking facts, using metaphors to evoke certain emotional responses, or, or shading the, the context. We, we know the mushroom clouds and, and the other things that were all described that the media’s covered well. I saw on the ground, though, a sort of walking away from 10 years worth of planning.

You know, ever since the end of the first Gulf War, there have been—there’s been planning by serious officers and planners and others, and policies put in place. Ten years worth of planning, you know, were thrown away; troop levels dismissed out of hand; General Shinseki basically insulted for speaking the truth and giving a, an honest opinion; the lack of cohesive approach to how we deal with the aftermath; the political, economic, social reconstruction of a nation, which is no small task; a belief in these exiles that anyone in the region, anyone that had any knowledge would tell you were not credible on the ground; and on and on and on. Decisions to disband the army that were not in the initial plans. I mean there’s a series of disastrous mistakes. We just heard the secretary of state say these were tactical mistakes. These were not tactical mistakes. These were strategic mistakes, mistakes of policy made back here. Don’t blame the troops. They’re the ones that perform the tactics on the ground. They’ve been magnificent. If anything saves this, it will be them.

MR. RUSSERT: Should someone resign?

GEN. ZINNI: Absolutely.

MR. RUSSERT: Who?

GEN. ZINNI: Secretary of defense, to begin with.

MR. RUSSERT: Anyone else?

GEN. ZINNI: Well, I think that, that we—that those that have been responsible for the planning, for overriding all the, the efforts that were made in planning before that, that those that stood by and allowed this to happen, that didn’t speak out. And there are appropriate ways within the system you can speak out, at congressional hearings and otherwise. I think they have to be held accountable.

The point is, those that are in power now that have been part of this are finding that their time is spent defending the past. And if they have to defend the past, they’re unable to make the kinds of changes, adjustments, admit the mistakes and move on. And that’s where we are now, trying to rewrite history, defend the past, ridiculous statements that, “Well, wait 20 years and history will tell you how this turns out.” Well, I don’t think anybody wants 20 years to continue like it is now.

MR. RUSSERT: Should the president say to the country, “I was wrong about weapons of mass destruction, wrong about troop levels, wrong about the cost of the war, wrong about the level of insurgency. But we need to put all that behind us and come together as a nation, because this is too important to lose”?

GEN. ZINNI: I, I think the president of the United States ought to certainly say that there were mistakes made at each of those levels. In some cases, these were presented to him. It may not be necessarily the case that he was wrong. He was given bad information. Every president in history has held people accountable and moved on. Look at President Lincoln in the conduct of the war. He went through every general till he found Grant. Senator McCain mentioned Douglas MacArthur. Well, when he screwed up, the president relieved him. You know, you have to make tough choices. You know, integrity and getting on with the mission and doing it right is more important than loyalty. Both are great traits, but integrity, honesty and performance and competence have to outweigh, in this business, loyalty.

MR. RUSSERT: I want to bring you back to August 26, 2002. The Veterans of Foreign War had a convention, a meeting. Vice President Cheney was the guest speaker. You were honored, as you can see the medal around your neck there. This is what the vice president said on that day.

(Videotape, August 26, 2002):

VICE PRES. DICK CHENEY: Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is not doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us.

(End videotape)

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