Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Norman Schwarzkopf contro la guerra in Iraq(!!)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52450-2003Jan27.html
 
Desert Caution 
Once 'Stormin' Norman,' Gen. Schwarzkopf Is Skeptical
About U.S. Action in Iraq
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 28, 2003; Page C01 
TAMPA--Norman Schwarzkopf wants to give peace a
chance.
The general who commanded U.S. forces in the 1991 Gulf
War says he hasn't seen enough evidence to convince
him that his old comrades Dick Cheney, Colin Powell
and Paul Wolfowitz are correct in moving toward a new
war now. He thinks U.N. inspections are still the
proper course to follow. He's worried about the
cockiness of the U.S. war plan, and even more by the
potential human and financial costs of occupying Iraq.
And don't get him started on Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld.
In fact, the hero of the last Gulf War sounds
surprisingly like the man on the street when he
discusses his ambivalence about the Bush
administration's hawkish stance on ousting Saddam
Hussein. He worries about the Iraqi leader, but would
like to see some persuasive evidence of Iraq's alleged
weapons programs.
"The thought of Saddam Hussein with a sophisticated
nuclear capability is a frightening thought, okay?" he
says. "Now, having said that, I don't know what
intelligence the U.S. government has. And before I can
just stand up and say, 'Beyond a shadow of a doubt, we
need to invade Iraq,' I guess I would like to have
better information."
He hasn't seen that yet, and so -- in sharp contrast
to the Bush administration -- he supports letting the
U.N. weapons inspectors drive the timetable: "I think
it is very important for us to wait and see what the
inspectors come up with, and hopefully they come up
with something conclusive."
This isn't just any retired officer speaking.
Schwarzkopf is one of the nation's best-known military
officers, with name recognition second only to his
former boss, Secretary of State Powell. What's more,
he is closely allied with the Bush family. He hunts
with the first President Bush. He campaigned for the
second, speaking on military issues at the 2000 GOP
convention in Philadelphia and later stumping in
Florida with Cheney, who was secretary of defense
during the 1991 war.
But he sees the world differently from those Gulf War
colleagues. "It's obviously not a black-and-white
situation over there" in the Mideast, he says. "I
would just think that whatever path we take, we have
to take it with a bit of prudence."
So has he seen sufficient prudence in the actions of
his old friends in the Bush administration? Again, he
carefully withholds his endorsement. "I don't think I
can give you an honest answer on that."
Now 68, the general seems smaller and more soft-spoken
than in his Riyadh heyday 12 years ago when he was
"Stormin' Norman," the fatigues-clad martinet who
intimidated subordinates and reporters alike. During
last week's interview he sat at a small, round table
in his skyscraper office, casually clad in slacks and
a black polo shirt, the bland banks and hotels of
Tampa's financial district spread out beyond him.
His voice seems thinner than during those blustery,
globally televised Gulf War briefings. He is limping
from a recent knee operation. He sometimes stays home
to nurse the swelling with a bag of frozen peas.
He's had time to think. He likes the performance of
Colin Powell -- chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
during the Gulf War, now secretary of state. "He's
doing a wonderful job, I think," he says. But he is
less impressed by Rumsfeld, whose briefings he has
watched on television.
"Candidly, I have gotten somewhat nervous at some of
the pronouncements Rumsfeld has made," says
Schwarzkopf.
He contrasts Cheney's low profile as defense secretary
during the Gulf War with Rumsfeld's frequent
television appearances since Sept. 11, 2001. "He
almost sometimes seems to be enjoying it." That,
Schwarzkopf admonishes, is a sensation to be avoided
when engaged in war.
The general is a true son of the Army, where he served
from 1956 to 1991, and some of his comments reflect
the estrangement between that service and the current
defense secretary. Some at the top of the Army see
Rumsfeld and those around him as overly enamored of
air power and high technology and insufficiently
attentive to the brutal difficulties of ground combat.
Schwarzkopf's comments reflect Pentagon scuttlebutt
that Rumsfeld and his aides have brushed aside some of
the Army's concerns.
"The Rumsfeld thing . . . that's what comes up," when
he calls old Army friends in the Pentagon, he says.
"When he makes his comments, it appears that he
disregards the Army," Schwarzkopf says. "He gives the
perception when he's on TV that he is the guy driving
the train and everybody else better fall in line
behind him -- or else."
That dismissive posture bothers Schwarzkopf because he
thinks Rumsfeld and the people around him lack the
background to make sound military judgments by
themselves. He prefers the way Cheney operated during
the Gulf War. "He didn't put himself in the position
of being the decision-maker as far as tactics were
concerned, as far as troop deployments, as far as
missions were concerned."
Rumsfeld, by contrast, worries him. "It's scary,
okay?" he says. "Let's face it: There are guys at the
Pentagon who have been involved in operational
planning for their entire lives, okay? . . . And for
this wisdom, acquired during many operations, wars,
schools, for that just to be ignored, and in its place
have somebody who doesn't have any of that training,
is of concern."
As a result, Schwarzkopf is skeptical that an invasion
of Iraq would be as fast and simple as some seem to
think. "I have picked up vibes that . . . you're going
to have this massive strike with massed weaponry, and
basically that's going to be it, and we just clean up
the battlefield after that," he says. But, he adds, he
is more comfortable now with what he hears about the
war plan than he was several months ago, when there
was talk of an assault built around air power and a
few thousand Special Operations troops.
He expresses even more concern about the task the U.S.
military might face after a victory. "What is postwar
Iraq going to look like, with the Kurds and the Sunnis
and the Shiites? That's a huge question, to my mind.
It really should be part of the overall campaign
plan."
(Rumsfeld said last week that post-Saddam planning "is
a tough question and we're spending a lot of time on
it, let me assure you." But the Pentagon hasn't
disclosed how long it expects to have to occupy Iraq,
or how many troops might be required to do that.)
The administration may be discussing the issue behind
closed doors, Schwarzkopf says, but he thinks it
hasn't sufficiently explained its thinking to the
world, especially its assessment of the time, people
and money needed. "I would hope that we have in place
the adequate resources to become an army of
occupation," he warns, "because you're going to walk
into chaos."
The Result of a Bad Ending?
Just as the Gulf War looks less conclusive in
retrospect, so has Schwarzkopf's reputation diminished
since the glory days just after the war, when, Rick
Atkinson wrote in "Crusade," Schwarzkopf "seemed
ubiquitous, appearing at the Kentucky Derby, at the
Indianapolis 500, on Capitol Hill, in parades, on
bubblegum cards."
Twelve years and two American presidents later, Saddam
Hussein is still in power, and the U.S. military is
once again mustering to strike Iraq.
Some strategic thinkers, both inside the military and
in academia, see Schwarzkopf's past actions as part of
the problem. These experts argue that if the 1991 war
had been terminated more thoughtfully, the U.S.
military wouldn't have to go back again to finish the
job.
"Everyone was so busy celebrating the end of the
Vietnam syndrome that we forgot how winners win a
war," says one Gulf War veteran who asked that his
name not be used because he hopes to work in the
administration.
Schwarzkopf in particular draws fire for approving a
cease-fire that permitted the Iraqi military to fly
helicopters after the war. Soon afterward, Iraqi
helicopter gunships were used to put down revolts
against Hussein in the Shiite south and the Kurdish
north of Iraq. Only later were "no-fly zones"
established to help protect those minority
populations.
"It's quite clear that however brilliant operationally
and technologically, the Gulf War cannot be viewed
strategically as a complete success," says Michael
Vickers, a former Special Forces officer who is now an
analyst for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessments, a defense think tank.
Added one Pentagon expert on Iraq, "With benefit of
hindsight, the victory was incomplete, and the luster
of the entire operation has faded."
When Army colonels study the Gulf War at the Army War
College nowadays, notes one professor there, "a big
part of the class is discussing war termination."
For all that, few experts contend that Schwarzkopf is
really the one to blame for the way the Gulf War
ended. "Insofar as Gulf War 1 didn't finish the job,
blame is more likely and appropriately laid on Bush 41
and, to a somewhat lesser extent, on Colin Powell,"
says John Allen Williams, a political scientist who
specializes in military affairs at Loyola University
Chicago. 
Schwarzkopf himself doesn't entirely disagree with the
view that the war was ended badly. "You can't help but
sit here today and, with 20/20 hindsight, go back and
say, 'Look, had we done something different, we
probably wouldn't be facing what we are facing today.'
"
But, he continues, Washington never instructed him to
invade Iraq or oust Saddam Hussein. "My mission, plain
and simple, was kick Iraq out of Kuwait. Period. There
were never any other orders." Given the information
available back then, the decision to stop the war with
Saddam Hussein still in power was, he says, "probably
was the only decision that could have been made at
that time."
'Tell It Like It Is'
Schwarzkopf was never as lionized in military circles
as he was by the general public. Like a rock star, he
shuns commercial air travel mainly because he can
barely walk through an airport without being besieged
by autograph seekers and well-wishers. But his
reputation inside the Army has "always been a bit
different from the outside view," notes retired Army
Col. Richard H. Sinnreich, who frequently participates
in war games and other military training sessions.
Sinnreich doesn't think that many in the armed forces
blame Schwarzkopf for the inconclusive ending of the
Gulf War. "I know of no Army officer, active or
retired, who holds such a view," he says. "The
decision to suspend offensive operations clearly was a
political decision that I suspect the relevant
principals now profoundly regret, even if they're
loath to admit it."
But what did sour some in the Army on Schwarzkopf,
says Sinnreich, was his "rather ungracious treatment
of his Gulf War subordinates."
Schwarzkopf raised eyebrows across the Army when, in
his Gulf War memoir, he denounced one of his generals,
Frederick Franks, for allegedly moving his 7th Corps
in a "plodding and overly cautious" manner during the
attack on the Iraqi military. He elaborated on that
criticism in subsequent rounds of interviews. This
public disparagement of a former subordinate rankled
some in the Army, which even more than the other
services likes to keep its internal disputes private.
"I think his attack on Franks was wrong," says Army
Maj. Donald Vandergriff, in a typical comment.
"It wasn't meant to be an attack on Fred Franks,"
Schwarzkopf responds in the interview. Rather, he
says, he was trying to provide an honest assessment,
in the tradition of the Army's practice of conducting
brutally accurate "after-action reviews." "No matter
how painful it is, [when] you do your after-action
review, tell it like it is."
The other behavior that bothered some was
Schwarzkopf's virtual absence from the Army after the
Gulf War. Many retired generals make almost a
full-time job of working with the Army -- giving
speeches at West Point and at the Army War College in
Carlisle, Pa., visiting bases to mentor up-and-coming
officers, sitting on Pentagon advisory boards, writing
commentaries in military journals.
"The fact that Schwarzkopf . . . did not make himself
available to speak to the many, many Army audiences
anxious to listen to him won him no friends in the
Army," notes retired Army Brig. Gen. John Mountcastle.
Adds Earl H. Tilford Jr., a former director of
research at the War College's Strategic Studies
Institute: "You never saw him at Carlisle, never."
Likewise, a professor at West Point recalls repeatedly
being brushed off by Schwarzkopf's office.
Schwarzkopf says he avoided those circles for good
reason. After the Gulf War, he says, he decided to
take a low profile within the Army because he didn't
want to step on the toes of the service's post-Gulf
War leaders. There were sensitivities about
overshadowing those generals, he says, especially
after word leaked that he had been considered for the
post of Army chief of staff but had declined the
position.
Seeing that "open wound," he says, "I purposely
distanced myself for a reasonable time."
The Army War College's location in rural Pennsylvania
makes it difficult to reach from his home in the Tampa
area, he says. And he notes that he has done much
other work behind the scenes on behalf of the Army,
including meeting with presidential candidate Bush to
lobby him on military readiness issues.
He also has been busy with nonmilitary charities.
After a bout with prostate cancer in 1994, he threw
himself into helping cancer research; no fewer than 10
groups that fight cancer or conduct other medical
research have given him awards in recent years.
No More Heroes?
Perhaps the real reason that Schwarzkopf's reputation
has shrunk has more to do with America and less to do
with Schwarzkopf's actions. American wars used to
produce heroes such as Washington, Grant and
Eisenhower, whose names were known by all
schoolchildren, notes Boston University political
scientist Andrew Bacevich.
But in recent decades, Bacevich says, "military fame
has lost its durability." Sen. John McCain may appear
to be an exception, he says, but he is someone noted
less for what he did in the military than for what he
endured as a prisoner of war.
More representative, Bacevich notes, may be Army Gen.
Tommy R. Franks, the officer who would lead U.S.
forces in any new war with Iraq. Franks "has not
ignited widespread popular affection," says Bacevich,
himself a retired Army colonel.
It may be that American society no longer has an
appetite for heroes, military or otherwise, says Ward
Carroll, a recently retired naval aviator and author
of "Punk's War," a novel about patrolling the no-fly
zone over southern Iraq. American society may not be
making the kinds of sacrifices that make people look
for heroes to celebrate. "You don't have rationing,
you don't have gold stars in the window, and the other
things that made [war heroes] a part of the fabric of
American life" in the past, he says.
Even Schwarzkopf's own Gulf War memoir was titled "It
Doesn't Take a Hero."
Or it just may be that America no longer puts anyone
up on a pedestal. "Even our sports heroes aren't
heroes anymore, in the way that Lou Gehrig and Mickey
Mantle were," says Carroll. "The picture is a lot more
blurred nowadays."
Washington Post researcher Rob Thomason contributed to
this report. 
© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Andrea
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