John Abizaid
John Abizaid
John Philip Abizaidis a retired United States Army general and former U.S. Central Commandcommander, overseeing American military operations in a 27-country region, from the Horn of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, to South and Central Asia, covering much of the Middle East. CENTCOM oversees 250,000 US troops. Abizaid succeeded General Tommy Franks as Commander, USCENTCOM, on July 7, 2003, and was also elevated to the rank of four-star general the same week. He was succeeded by Admiral William J. Fallon on...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSoldier
Date of Birth1 April 1951
CountryUnited States of America
It's a workable document from which good things can flow.
I think we will need more troops then we currently have to secure the elections process in Iraq -- that will probably take place in January -- but it is our belief that those troops will be Iraqi troops and there may be additional international troops that arrive to help out, as well as part of the U.N. mission. So I don't see need for more American troops, but we can't discount it.
is to build an Iraqi security capacity, all the way from the police level up to the national army level, that is militarily effective and loyal to the established civil government.
We've got to get more senior Iraqis involved -- former military types -- involved in the Iraq security forces, ... In the next couple of days, you'll see a large number of senior officers being appointed to key positions in the Ministry of Defense and the Iraqi joint-staff and in Iraqi field commands.
Well, the hardest thing to do, as we know from our own experience on 9/11 is protect everything all the time.
The real target is creating enough chaos in Iraq so that an extremist government can emerge there that would be friendly and conducive to the form of ideology that bin Laden, Zawahiri and Zarqawi believe in.
Yet, we believe that that's probably the vigilance of Iraqi security forces and some of our proactive measures the night before probably saved lives.
There are peaks and valleys that you go through, but overall the trend is good,
When we continue to pick at the wound and show the pictures over and over again it just creates the image - which is a false image - that this is the sort of stuff that's happening anew, and it's not,
The people who were low-level Baathists need to know they have a part in the future of their country,
There are certainly considerations that we must make with regard to the level of the forces,
If a legitimate government emerges in Iraq that is broadly seen as being representative of Sunni, Shia and Kurdish interests, I think there's no reason to suppose that we can't bring force levels down in the spring,
We must help others in the region help themselves by promoting self-reliant partners who are willing to face the enemy.
We must fight the terrorists together so that we can have a free and prosperous future for the Iraqi people,