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Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Washington File

25 June 2003

Rebuilding Iraq Is the Toughest of All Missions, Abizaid Says

(Congressional Report, June 25: Gen. Abizaid Confirmation Hearing)
(640)
Washington -- 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.
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)



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