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
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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.
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We must help others in the region help themselves by promoting self-reliant partners who are willing to face the enemy.
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Clearly, we understand that we've got an enemy that's in for the long term, al-Qaida and the associated groups that are aligned with it, ... We know that they've got a long-term strategy to fight, to gain ground, to gain influence. And it's very very clear that we've got to have the same sort of long term strategy to contest it. But the keystone to this strategy is helping the people in the region help themselves.
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The international community needs to continue to help and you can certainly count on the United States to continue to help as well,
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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.
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Some of them did very well and some of them did not. And in the south, a number of units, both in the police force and also in the ICDC did not stand up to the intimidators of the forces of Sadr's militia and that was a great disappointment to us,
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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.
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Why (anyone) would want to move against us in an overt manner that would cause us to use our air or naval power against them would be beyond me... We can generate more military power per square inch than anybody else on Earth, and everybody knows it... If you ever even contemplate our nuclear capability, it should give everybody the clear understanding that there is no power that can match the United States militarily,
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Well, the hardest thing to do, as we know from our own experience on 9/11 is protect everything all the time.
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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.
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There are a lot of people in the Middle East who believe our weakness is our inability to stay the course, and they believe that two casualties today, two casualties tomorrow, four the next day, will eventually drive us out,
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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.
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There are peaks and valleys that you go through, but overall the trend is good,
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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,