Rebuilding Iraq is the toughest of all missions, Abizaid says
Iraq-USA, Politics, 6/26/2003

Resolving reconstruction and stability issues in Iraq presents a complex set of problems that are not strictly a military concern, but instead require a vast array of support, says President Bush's nominee to lead the U.S. Central Command.

"First of all, there is no strictly military solution to the problem of bringing stability to Iraq. It requires a national effort. It requires bringing together not only all of the resources of the national community, of the interagency [process], it also requires bringing together a lot of the resources of the international community," Army Lieutenant General John Abizaid said June 25 in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Abizaid said this is really the toughest of all missions facing the United States and the coalition in Iraq. "There's no real tradition of democracy as we know it in Iraq," he said, which makes rebuilding that much more difficult.

Abizaid, an Arabic-speaking Lebanese-American, has been nominated to assume command of Central Command (CENTCOM) from retiring Army General Tommy Franks, who directed military operations in Afghanistan and in Iraq. CENTCOM oversees U.S. military operations from the Horn of Africa to Central Asia, including Iraq and Afghanistan and a large section of the Middle East. The Senate committee was conducting Abizaid's confirmation hearing.

Abizaid said he has found it perplexing that no weapons of mass destruction have been found to date in Iraq, when the evidence from intelligence reports before military hostilities was so pervasive that it did exist.

He told the Senate committee that he met with the CENTCOM intelligence staff after the main hostilities ended and asked if anyone believed they would not find any WMD in Iraq. "To a man and to a woman, they all said we would find it," he said.

Abizaid said he believes that "when the Iraqi Survey Group conducts their work, that through the documents we look at, through the interviews that we conduct and through the people that are going to come forward, that we'll piece the picture together, but I think it will take some time."

Abizaid holds a master's degree from Harvard and is an expert on the Middle East. He said the military mission of bringing security and stability to Iraq is a task the current forces, which number 145,000 troops, are adequately prepared to meet. But he said the coalition forces are not prepared to rebuild governmental institutions.

CENTCOM looks to Ambassador Paul Bremer, who heads the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), and his staff to support a start-up of political activity that is acceptable to the Iraqi people and that will allow civilian institutions to help the country move forward, Abizaid said.

Ambassador Bremer "brings together all the civil side of the house in ensuring that all the resources that the United States government and the coalition can [bring] together are brought together to help Iraq move forward and rebuild institutions," he said. CENTCOM, Abizaid said, can bring its ability to provide a secure environment in which governmental meetings can be held, and in which the people can express their opinions and needs.

Abizaid said the coalition is prepared to draw down the number of military troops currently stationed in Iraq, but that depends on the number of civilian police forces that are functioning and reliable within Iraq, the number of coalition forces from other nations that will come into Iraq, and the degree of progress the coalition makes in creating a new Iraqi army.

"For the foreseeable future, we will require a large number of troops for Iraq," Abizaid said.

He said there will be less military activity directed against coalition forces as progress is made on the economic, diplomatic and political fronts.

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