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33 The actual choice is made by a selection board, but the procedure is for the commandant to personally notify all the selected colonels.
34 Regulation required new general officers to have a joint tour of duty as a first assignment if they did not have a previous joint tour.
35 Later expanded to include new “flag-level” State Department and intelligence professionals.
36 NATO has recently taken on a major role in Afghanistan.
37 The Russian gave Zinni an excellent biography in English of Marshal Zhukov, which Zinni later read with pleasure.
38 These problems remain.
39 Western fears of a military coup in Russia weren’t totally misplaced. There were crazy generals running loose on the peripheries of the military. Some of them had gotten elected to the Duma, the parliament. And some took part in the attempt to unseat President Yeltsin in 1991 (giving him his unforgettable photo op on the tank). But there weren’t many of these crazies, and they were too ineffective to have become much of a real threat.
40 The first Vlad the Impaler, a Hungarian nobleman who lived centuries ago, is thought to be an inspiration for Count Dracula.
41 Poland, Hungary, and Romania.
42 For more on this story, see Tom Clancy’s Into the Storm.
43 EUCOM’s Air Force component, U.S. Air Forces Europe.
44 Southeastern Turkey is largely Kurdish, and a significant part of this Kurdish majority wants to join their brothers in the Kurdish portions of Iran, Iraq, and Syria in a unified Kurdish state—Kurdistan. In Turkey Kurds have frequently signaled their separatist intentions by means of guerrilla insurrections and terrorist acts.
45 Tangney, as a lieutenant general, was later the commander of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command.
46 This story is told more fully in Tom Clancy’s Shadow Warriors, chapter 14, “The Face of the Future.”
47 Both leaders maintained ongoing negotiations with Saddam during our relief operation. At one point, Barzani asked for advice about what to settle for that the U.S. might support. He never got an answer from us—in my view, a serious missed opportunity.
48 Teams from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) came in to help.
49 DART, which operates out of the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), is a civilian agency whose mission is to assess and handle foreign humanitarian relief. They send out teams to make on-the-ground evaluations, and they coordinate with other government agencies and civilian contractors. Dayton Maxwell was a senior-level professional with the OFDA.
50 He was recalled back to Baghdad toward the end of our initial operation. We heard he was executed for plotting against Saddam.
51 We had twelve casualties from land mines, which littered the area and were a constant source of concern both for our troops and the local Kurds. The operation ended up costing the Coalition seven dead and 130 injured from a variety of causes.
52 One big reason they don’t trust the militaries: They’re used to trying to fix the disasters that result from militaries in conflict.
53 This was the base used in 1948 for the Berlin Airlift; it therefore had an ironic and historic significance.
54 Toward the end of Provide Hope, much effort was put into the problem of stabilizing the ruble.
55 The Marine counterpart to the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).
56 The son of a legendary Marine general.
57 In the military, the chief of staff is something like a civilian chairman of a board of directors. He’s the senior man on the staff who pulls together all its sections—administration, operations, logistics, planning, etc. He’s also third in command after the commander and his deputy.
58 Somalia was in the CENTCOM area of operations.
59 Aideed was a highly intelligent man, Western-educated and Western-trained militarily, but also cunning, violent, and brutal. After rising to the rank of general in Siad Barre’s army, he had turned against Barre and then had been imprisoned for seven years. After his release and “rehabilitation,” Barre made him Somalia’s ambassador to India, to get him out of the way. He turned against Barre again after his return.
60 Operation Provide Relief was absorbed by Operation Restore Hope in February 1993.
61 Newbold had a distinguished career in the Marine Corps, and retired as a lieutenant general.
62 There was also a Pakistani battalion already in Mogadishu under UNOSOM I, but they were largely ineffective, with neither sufficient forces nor mandate to make a significant impact.
63 Oakley and Hirsch have written the best account so far of recent events in Somalia in their book, Somalia and Operation Restore Hope (United States Institute of Peace Press, 1995).
64 Our problems in Somalia were greatly compounded when medical problems forced Phil Johnston to leave for two months. Though he was sorely missed, our officers in the HOC/CMOC did a great deal to fill in the gap left by his absence; and I did what I could to stay close to CMOC operations, to meet with relief workers to hear out their concerns, and to work out problems before they grew too great. We made the system work, but it took a lot of effort from everyone.
65 I later added a ninth HRS as our forces increased.
66 That is, the collection of weapons in secure locations.
67 The Mogadishu airport was their base.
68 The nonlethal issue stuck with me. After I returned from Somalia, there has been a major effort to develop more sophisticated capabilities. And over the years, I have been called to testify before several congressional committees and attend numerous conferences and study groups on this subject.
69 Annan is a tremendously impressive human being, with a rare intellect and the common sense to handle the most complex situations. His selection as UN Secretary-General was a splendid choice—and a much-needed change.
70 Zinni was replacing General Butch Neal, one of his oldest, closest friends in the Corps. After extensive experience in CENTCOM (three tours of duty in the command), General Neal had been selected for promotion and assignment as the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps.
71 Units that were not based permanently in the region but which rotated in and out from other U.S. bases.
72 Facilities operated jointly with the local governments.
73 Just as the term implies, we help other nations improve their security situation by improving their military and security forces.
74 The current Bush administration has seriously limited the powers of the CINCs; and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who has a passion for centralized control, has changed their name. They are no longer CINCs; they’re “Combatant Commanders.”
75 Some journalists have accused the CINCs of becoming the proconsuls of this new American empire. This opinion is flattering, but far from the truth. Dana Priest has developed this point of view very well in her interesting and provocative book The Mission.
76 There were hundreds of these military and civilian personnel in the CENTCOM AOR—all worth their weight in gold to the CINCs. They administered the extensive programs of military assistance to the friendly countries in the region. They coordinated and administered foreign military sales, military exercises, military school attendance, training, and other cooperative efforts with local militaries. Along with the military attachés at American embassies, they provided the CINCs and diplomats with a vital link to local leaders. They were the day-to-day connections to the local militaries, and were an invaluable means of communications to the military and political leadership in the various countries. The job they do has never been valued by superiors, and promotions for those in the military have never come easy.
77 One problem we were never able to adequately tackle was the differences in assigned geographical areas from one government agency to another. As an example, the assigned AOR for CENTCOM overlapped four regional bureaus at the State Department, while State’s assigned regions had countries that were not in the CENTCOM AOR.
78 Our six closest
friends in the Gulf.
79 DOD has set up several centers to deal with regional security issues. For example, the Marshall Center focuses on Europe, Eastern Europe, and Russia. The Asia-Pacific Center focuses on that area. The Near East, South Asia Center focuses on that area. And the African Center for Strategic Studies focuses on Africa. Some of these centers, like the Near East and the African, had only just recently been formed.
80 The name in Arabic means “base” or “foundation.”
81 Before becoming CINC, I had testified several times before these committees, and also the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
82 The Bright Star exercise was key to pulling together a major coalition operation, and was our major preparation for any future repeat of Desert Storm. Nowhere else in the region did we have the land, air, and sea space for exercises of this scale.
83 Though even the military has its complement of moderates.
84 He has recently left the State Department, and now heads Seeds of Peace, an organization that brings young Palestinians and Israeli kids together.
85 I’d known Mofaz since 1982, when I was an instructor at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College and he was a student there.
86 The Iftar meal breaks the daily Ramadan fast.
87 The Oslo Agreement broke down the occupied territories into three areas: A, B, and C. Area A would be policed by the Palestinians; the Israelis would not go into it. In Area B there would be some kind of interim security. Area C contained the settlements and the areas immediately around them. When violence broke out, the Israelis made incursions into Area A. Though these violated the agreement, they claimed they had to do it for their own security reasons.
88 In its essentials, the Weinberger Doctrine is very close to the Powell Doctrine: We should not consider using military force unless we are prepared to field decisive/overwhelming force; to have clear objectives; and to obtain the full support of the American people.