Joseph L. Galloway
is the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and a nationally syndicated columnist.
One of America's preeminent war correspondents,
with more than four decades as a reporter
and writer, he recently concluded an assignment
as a special consultant to Gen. Colin Powell
at the State Department.
Galloway, a native of Refugio, Texas, spent
22 years as a foreign and war correspondent
and bureau chief for United Press International,
and nearly 20 years as a senior editor and
senior writer for U.S. News & World Report
magazine. His overseas postings include tours
in Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Singapore
and three years as UPI bureau chief in Moscow
in the former Soviet Union. During the course
of 15 years of foreign postings Galloway served
four tours as a war correspondent in Vietnam
and also covered the 1971 India-Pakistan War
and half a dozen other combat operations.
In 1990-1991 Galloway covered Desert Shield/Desert
Storm, riding with the 24th Infantry Division
(Mech) in the assault into Iraq. General H.
Norman Schwarzkopf has called Galloway "The
finest combat correspondent of our generation
-- a soldier's reporter and a soldier's friend."
Interview with Gen. John P. Abizaid at CentCom forward headquarters in Doha, Qatar, on Dec. 5, 2003. Taped and transcribed by Joseph Galloway.
Q: Let's talk the political piece first; what has changed since our last interview?
It's clear to me now that we've got to reach out to the Arab Sunni community in particular in an effort to cause some moderate political activity to take place so they join the future of Iraq. For whatever reason there seem to be a split that has developed and hardened in the Arab Sunni community where there is an awful lot of pro-Baathist activity and there's a certain amount of religious extremism that is developing. Neither of which are the sorts of things you would hope would develop in that grouping of people that would allow it to participate in the future of Iraq.
So I'd say the Number One concern is how do you take this grouping of people, — and you have to watch out about using terms that make everything seem absolute, (roughly a quarter of the people of Iraq) — and encourage them to be part of the future.
What's going good ... the economy has actually improved quite a bit even in the areas where there is fighting going on. Lot of commerce, entrepreneurial activity that I don't think the Iraqis have seen in a long time. There is a lot of political activity in the Shia south and Kurd north and in Baghdad in particular there's a tremendous amount of intellectual activity taking place spurred on by the opportunity of freedom of expression and freedom of the press. So there are signs of hope and there are parties and groups getting organized and there will be a pretty debate and political activity as we move toward June.
On the one hand it is good for those people who have elected to participate in the economic life of the country; on the other hand for those who have opted out it probably creates a condition for greater instability and greater violence and of course there is no tradition of a smooth transfer of power in that country.
Q: Have you given thought to the fears of the Sunnis that they have no hope or place in the Iraqi future; that they become the minority they are and have no future in the hands of their bitter enemies?
They have fears that are coupled with two things: No. 1 they were the community that had the power in the country so losing relative power is certainly of concern to them. The other thing is because they were the group that primarily made up the Baathist leadership there is a tremendous amount of intimidation taking place within that community that prevents people who might otherwise come forward and form a moderate political organization. It is a huge problem, the intimidation within their community. But the truth of the matter is that there is there is an opportunity for them to participate in the economic and political future of the country and certainly in the security life of the country. We are hiring ex-officers of the former regular Army and allowing them to participate in the new Iraqi Army and the Civil Defense Corps, so to say that they do not have an opportunity to participate is not true. There are a lot of them who are participating but it is a greater challenge for them than it is in any other part of the country because they are heavily intimidated by the ex-forces of Saddam Hussein.
Q: Do they have representation in the governing council?
There is Sunni representation in the council. As I go out and talk to many of the Sunnis they say they don't feel it is necessarily their representation. That is a problem which is self-correcting, however, because as you move toward governance and this transition government that will be formed it becomes very apparent that local groups have a greater and greater say in what's going on. Tribal and local and ethnic and political representation will be accounted in the new grouping and as that comes together and they will see there is a chance, and because of that, because it's actually a good plan as you move toward representational government, the forces that have nothing to gain from a moderate political government emerging in Iraq will really ratchet up the pressure.
Q: You've sat down with Sunni sheiks. What do you tell them?
I tell them you need to participate in the future of the country; that there's a lot of information they believe to be true that is not true. For instance, that the de-Baathification decrees go all the way through nearly every member of the Baath Party and that's not true. People who did not participate in crimes against the Iraqi people; people who weren't in the top layers of the Baathist hierarchy certainly have an opportunity to participate in the new government.
When I talk to members of the governing council I don't sense a form of retribution being developed in their minds and I think there is a clear possibility that the average person who went to the Baath Party and didn't commit crimes actually has as good a stake in the future as anybody else.
I tell them they need to get on the team. I also tell them if they continue resistance in certain areas we won't hesitate to use whatever means at our disposal to inflict damage on the people who attack us, so there is no future whatsoever in this. It's just resistance on the part of people who have no vision of the future, no plan; if they somehow think that the majority of the Iraqi people are going to allow the Baathists to come back they are sadly mistaken.
When you talk to them and ask: who's causing this trouble? They always say: it's outsiders. Of course to Americans the term outsiders means outside Iraq. But to an Iraqi it means someone not from this local area. It's an interesting notion this idea of who an outsider is but the truth of the matter is while we have a lot of military action going on against former regime elements in Sunni Arab areas, we also have a lot of cooperation going on. Provincial councils have been created in the provinces that are primarily Sunni Arab. I believe there is certainly more Sunni police and military people joining pro-Iraq efforts.
I think you will see a lot of strains develop in the political process that will result in violence everywhere in the country — but it's controllable, it's workable and it will lead to a much better future for these people.
Q:In recent weeks we have mounted some large operations in those areas of concern. Is this part of your strategy? Who's pulling the trigger on these colorfully named offensives like Iron Hammer?
Ric Sanchez is the commander in Iraq. We talk every day and I am there a lot and, of course, the division commanders have a view. It was clear in the late October/early November timeframe that the number of incidents against coalition forces was increasing and we decided to step up military operations. The important thing was there was a clear recognition that we had to conduct vigorous offensive operations, and at the same time continue civil-military operations in the areas where we were conducting tough military operations. Also enabled to a large extent by improving picture of the enemy as well.
Q: Do you think the tradeoff is worth it? That you are gaining more than you are losing by these operations?
You know as well as I do that counterinsurgency is a very nuanced type of military operation. You have to pick your targets very precisely and we endeavor to do that in every way we can. The question that every military commander has to have in the back of his mind is whether or not the offensive operation is actually decreasing the problem and not increasing the problem. In other words, for every 10 enemy you kill you bring on 20 new recruits to their anti-coalition cause then essentially you are working against yourself.
But my view is these battalion and brigade commanders and division commanders are comfortable in the environment, very savvy about it, they are all professional soldiers from most senior to most junior person in the battalion. They understand what they are doing; they understand the nuances; they know that they have to build Iraqi security capacity at the same time they have to destroy the former regime elements.
My view is that we are making progress certainly in most of the country. Most of the country is stable. The view that most of the country is not stable comes about from the visual media which focuses in on a single incident and makes it appear like it's happening everywhere in the country. On any given night there is between 10 and 20 incidents taking place and most of them are geographically isolated. I think that military operations are achieving their part of the puzzle. We should not, any of us, think that military operations are the single solution to the puzzle because they are not. For example, as we conduct military operations in towns like Al Ramadi and Falluja there needs to be corresponding political activity taking place there that reaches out to the political elite that says: what is it that we need to do to help you come toward a more moderate activity that doesn't fuel violence and doesn't support folks who ran things in the bad old days?
I believe we are doing fine.
Q: What in counterinsurgency realm is working best?
I think what actually works best is local-level individual targeting of key leadership nodes. When I say local level I mean battalion and brigade level. The commanders at that level have a very good view of the enemy they face at the local level. As you go up the chain you have progressively less clarity. They do a very good job of handling the local situation and all of them are very confident about their local situation. What I am less confident about is our ability to understand their regional levels of leadership and whether or not there's some national level of leadership. There's some indication that there certainly is coordination, political activity going on, that creates an image of national leadership but the image does not actually correspond to national command and control. At the regional level it is there and we have to focus in on who those people are, get a better view of it, and provide that to our units in the field so they can do the precision targeting they need to do. There is also a mistaken notion that a large percentage of our forces are engaged every single night and that is manifestly not true. You know, there are 150,000 coalition troops operating in Iraq and a very small percentage of them are actually engaged in combat. Most of them are engaged in stability operations, patrolling, training Iraqi forces, conducting joint operations with the Iraqi civil defense corps and police and doing civil-military operations. For every one combat operation there must be a hundred civil-military operations going on.
Militarily we are not in any danger of losing. We can't be defeated militarily based on what the enemy currently throws against us. We could be defeated if there was to be a loss of will in the country as a whole for whatever reasons might arise politically. But militarily that won't happen.
Again, coming back to this issue, there has got to be synchronized political, military, economic and diplomatic activity that takes place not only within the U.S. interagency process but in the international community that moves Iraq toward the better future that we hope they can achieve.
Q: Feeling among general public there is some sort of monolithic enemy of former Saddam regime people, but your commanders tell me there are 5 or 6 different enemies out there.
Characterizing the enemy, I think we have been fairly clear in the way we have done this, but being clear and getting through are two different things.
First of all, I think the number one problem remains the former regime elements and their ability to have ammunition and money and hire young people, unemployed or street thugs or criminals, and have them do operations against us. So that gives you two elements. That group when it comes together really provides the bulk of military activity that we have to deal with.
Second group is the foreign fighter element. The Iraqis would like for us to believe that this is not Iraqis who are causing us trouble — that the foreign fighter element is pretty big. There are various web site and propaganda outlets that say these foreigners are flooding in and yet our operations show it is a distinct minority, certainly no more than 5 to 10 percent of our operations ever find a foreign fighter or show involvement of foreign fighters. This is not to discount them. They are out there and we see them on the battlefield every now and then.
Then there are the organized groups of international terrorists that we have to watch out for. They are the most ruthless, most organized, most secretive and the hardest to get at. There's Al Qaeda links to Ansar al Aslam, and undoubtedly Al Qaeda and Ansar links to foreign fighters. Also some indication of a degree of cooperation that exists between the former regime elements and the foreign fighters, so it's possible the foreign fighters could provide a bridge. But it certainly isn't an ideological fit and it's really a coordination of convenience. It's definitely not to the point where we would say there's a national resistance movement.
I think I've named four groups. There's another group which I would characterize as religious extremists — I hate to use the term religious because their ideology is not Islamic; it is very extreme and very intolerant and this is the group of Iraqi anti-Western religious extremists that appear primarily in Sunni areas.
And then there is a potential group of people who can give us trouble ranging from pro-Iranian Shia groups to other splinter Shia groups. I don't want to overstate the pro-Iranian thing; I would say anti-American Shia groups that believe the United States is their enemy. But they are in the minority; they haven't really shown themselves on the battlefield to any great extent. Then there are other groups such as the former PKK up in the Kurdish area. A number of groups out there.
Q: Extraordinary special operations teams formed operating in concert with your forces to specially target the opposition. What's going on here? Is this another Operation Phoenix?
No. This is just standard operating procedure. I wouldn't describe anything we are doing as Operation Phoenix-like. There are conventional forces, there are special operations forces that work in concert with one another and when we have a hard target that requires a lot of particular intelligence and it's a high-value target then we put our best special forces against that target.
But as you recall in the Uday/Qusay operation there were conventional forces, 101 Airborne (101st Airborne Division), and special operations forces operating together. I would tell you that if there is anything extraordinary going on in Iraq with regard to special forces and our regular forces it is the level of cooperation between them; it is about as tight and timely as I have ever seen. I am extremely pleased with our ability to get intelligence, pass it to the special operations forces, have coordination with the conventional forces and then a coordinated move made against a specific target. There is also coordination with the Iraqi civil defense corps and police and that is going to increase.
Interagency cooperation is good; we are working well with the intelligence agencies; we are working well with the FBI. We can always do better but I am very pleased with level of cooperation with our special forces and our regular forces operating in the field.
Q: You are coming into a period of maximum danger; entire force rotating out, replacements coming in; all taking place in a U.S. presidential election year.
There's no doubt perceptions are heightened during a presidential election year, but I talk to the President and the Secretary of Defense and they tell me not to worry about it and I don't worry about. They know we've got a job to do out here; they're extremely supportive and they are very tough-minded people and they're not going to be frightened away based on presidential politics. So I couldn't ask for better bosses in that regard. This is not to discount how it magnifies perceptions. It does.
We're not worried about it. We are going to be here. Or at least I think we're going to be here. It will be interesting to see how things develop in our negotiations on the security arrangements. I assume we will be here but a lot of political negotiations have to go on with the Iraqis to work that out.
The two biggest issues in front of us really have nothing to do with our presidential elections. They have to do with moving toward a June interim transitional authority that is Iraqi-run at the same time rotating our forces.
We absolutely have to rotate our forces because most of the units here have been here a year and a year is about the right amount of time. No doubt they have great situation awareness; they know the people; they know what's going on; they are very effective in their areas. But we also have a responsibility to rest our troops, get them home, and give them a break. Most of these forces were here during the intense period of offensive operations in March and April.
The force rotation inevitably brings about a period of what I call Green Troop Syndrome. We've all seen it but our joint force is so good and so professional. They taken a lot of training, done a lot of reconnaissance, and leaders have been formed but when you go to a tactical unit these days and you ask: how many of you guys have been to Afghanistan you get a lot of hands raised. You say: how many are on your second trip to Iraq you get a lot of hands. And you go to Afghanistan and ask those questions you get a lot of hands raised there too.
We have a very operationally savvy group of young soldiers and leaders, and it's the young lieutenants and captains and sergeants that really win this kind of counterinsurgency fight, they know what they're doing.
There will be a period when they have to get their feet under them. Of course, we are not changing out every unit on one day. It's a change over four months period. There's an overlap between units, varies depending on how difficult the sector is and how much previous reconnaissance has been done.
This is manageable tactically.
I have told all my commanders that the highest mark of professional competence is to turn over your area better than you found it, and to ensure that the people taking over know every possible thing you can tell them, and that the first 60 days their performance is really based on how well you've prepared them. I believe that so I expect the outgoing force to be as professional as it has ever been in turning over their battle positions and it is essential that they do so.
Q: Some say the one-year tour contributed to what was wrong in Vietnam. Is this any different?
This situation is different. It's different because we rotate in units.
As you know better than just about anyone in your profession, units carry a strength all their own that cannot be replicated anywhere else. So I'm willing to take the risk of changing units over much more than I would be willing to do individual replacements. I think the problem in Vietnam was individual replacements, not the one-year tour.
Depending on where you are some of these kids have literally been in combat every day for a year, in a sense, and that's plenty. We have been able to give some of them R and R or regional or local rest breaks. Resting people in this very-intense combat environment is essential, and rotating them out is also essential. It ought to be clear to all of us that with five of the 10 division headquarters serving somewhere in the Centcom Area of Responsibility, either in Afghanistan or in Iraq, there's only so many forces out there to rotate and we have got to keep people rested.
Look. I think I'm as good a judge of morale in the field and you are too. You've been around soldiers all your life. Morale is good; troops are confident; leaders are capable. If I could take the confidence, competence and commitment of the troops and bottle it and sell it at home I would be a millionaire. I would be a rich man.
On the other hand, being able to express that to people who aren't in our profession is sometimes difficult. I wish I could do a better job at it.
The other thing that's different about this force is it's not a draftee force. It doesn't have that same dynamic in it that took place back in the Vietnam War. People can judge for themselves what is better, but as a professional soldier, having professionally trained units coming in that are experienced, that are operationally savvy, it really provides us with the military force we need to get the job done and to hang in there when the going gets tough.
Q: Talk a bit about the Shia. Sistani? Is he a threat, a problem? Does he have huge influence among Shia at large?
Sistani is a very important religious leader and as such he has a certain degree of political clout. But too many people have this idea of a monolithic Shia religious movement that translates into political power and that isn't the reality of Iraq. Many of the Shia are secular, as secular as you or I in their outlook. They listen to what Sistani has to say, and other religious leaders, then they determine that they want to be a member of some political party that espouses a secular tradition. It's pretty clear that many Shia believe that they want to participate in politics and keep their religion out of it as much as possible. Many, not all.
I don't see Sistani as a threat. I believe there could come a time if things went in a direction where the Shia community considered the coalition presence to be threatening or unfavorable to their long term hopes then I would anticipate problems. But this is a matter of working with political, religious, local, tribal, all the various levels of leaderships, regardless of their ethnicity. There are political parties in Iraq which have Sunnis, Shias and Kurds in them and they are very nationalistic in their outlook. There are parties which are very religious in their outlook.
It will be interesting to see what mainstreams develop as we start moving toward political activity that is capable of manifesting itself without intimidating pressures from Baathism. I don't regard Sistani or any other religious leader as being necessarily threatening to the success of the coalition. There is a nationalism in the Shia community that is pro-Iraqi, looking forward to an independent Iraq in which they have a role to play. They haven't had a role to play in a long time and they certainly will in any new government.
Q: Are the Shia fairly cautious as a consequence of their persecution over the years?
As a group it is fair to say the Shia have been the dispossessed in Iraq and they have an opportunity to gain economically and politically in a way that they have not seen since the founding of Iraq.
That they may be cautious, deliberate, feeling their way, organizing themselves may be a result of inexperience as a result of that experience.
You have to beware any simplistic view of Iraq, like trying to bring a view of the Bosnia model. Much more complicated than that; I think there is a firmer view of Iraqi national identity than you see in most of the Arab world. And that is something that will add to the ability of Iraqis to be successful.
Q: Is the real failure in this operation CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority)?
First of all, it isn't my lane to be criticizing the CPA and I'm not going to criticize them. I would ask you: what is it about our culture the that makes us believe that any force on earth could have got their hands around this country and these problems any faster or any more capably than the people who have been working at it? I've heard people say if we just left it in the hands of the military it would have been fine. I don't agree with that because the military is well suited for security matters and organizing things with regard to civil-military projects but they are not well suited for politics. The CPA has folks from State Department and other agencies, who are not soldiers, who are not paid to get shot at, who go out and put themselves in harm's way, and do one of the most difficult tasks I have ever seen anywhere: to take a society that has completely crumbled, a society that has absolutely no tradition of democracy, and mold it into something that is going to be unlike anything that has ever existed in that part of the world.
That they are progressing as well as they are should not be overlooked. Paul Bremer is a brave and noble and competent administrator and also is operating in a lot of personal danger as well. The courageousness of what he does should not be underestimated. You can always ask yourself could we be better organized, could we be more agile in working between the agencies, could we have had better personnel policies, well, yeah, but we've never done this sort of thing before. It's easy to be critical about where we are but show me the organization that has ever accomplished what they have accomplished in the time allotted. There is no doubt that it has been done with very close cooperation from Lt. Gen. Ric Sanchez, and I think they recognize that. But if I go back to the UN civil administration in Bosnia and Kosovo, there was no movement comparable to the movement I have seen in Iraq.
We are trying to get people to come forward and cooperate with you in an environment which still has a lot of intimidation and danger associated with it. We are actually trying to reorganize. We went into Vietnam with a working bureaucracy. The British had been in Malaya for years. But we are fighting a counterinsurgency operation at the same time we are building a society and forming it to get out there and be representational, and I think that is the hardest thing any country has ever attempted to do.
We've got to keep it in perspective and they deserve a lot of respect for tackling the job the way they have. Now, am I satisfied with things like rotational policy, somebody coming in for only 90 days when my soldiers are staying for a year, no, I think we ought to harmonize the opportunity for folks to stick around long enough to have an effect. I don't think you can have an effect in 90 days. You've got to stick around for a year or so.
The other thing I think that needs to be remembered is that we have a tradition of civilian authority and I think that is something that needs to be shown to the Iraqis. You can't do that with a lot of military governors running around, or some kind of military authoritarian structure. You have to set the example right from the beginning. There is only a limited amount of time for us to get this right. You've got to move out. It's going to be an exciting six months ahead of us.
Q: Are you an optimist?
Yes. I'm an optimist but I am also a realist, and my optimism is based on what my junior commanders say in the field, and I ask them the same questions all the time and what they tell me is: We're winning. It isn't easy. It isn't going to happen tomorrow. But we are winning. And we just need to stay with it. It's about perception; it's about will; it's about brave American soldiers, already having made sacrifices, and we are within sight of the goal line. Let's just keep moving down the field. We can do it.
Q: You've got a big area of operations. How about Afghanistan?
If I look out into Centcom area of operations, which goes from Kurdestan to Sudan and down into Kenya and up to the Turkish border, the two immediate problems we face have to do with stability in Iraq and stability in Afghanistan. I believe over time, with difficult but workable military, diplomatic and economic actions, we will be successful in both those places.
But there is this underlying dynamic in the region that feeds the global war on terrorism and that is a danger we should not underestimate. Al Qaeda, Ansar al Islam, various other anti-Western terrorist groups are dangerous to our country, to our way of life, and to the local governments within the region where CentCom operates.
We look into Saudi Arabia and we see the difficulties the Saudis are having; and we look over to Pakistan and we see how President Musharaf works against the extremists in his country, and we know it's very important that we just not focus on Iraq and Afghanistan but on the region as a whole to help people help themselves. The vast majority of people in this region are just like Americans: they don't believe in extremism, they don't believe in terrorism, they want to have a better future, and that better future comes from hope for a better life for their children. It requires a bigger force than is currently available in the region itself, and that is the United States and the international community. I believe that is the right thing to do and over time we have to get ourselves more organized not only at home but also here to help people help themselves in a manner that will stamp out this problem. It is a long, long fight; tens of years, not months.
