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
We certainly will take whatever military action we need to defend ourselves and to prevent the enemy from taking advantage there,
The scope of devastation is gigantic. The level of work which has to be done is very immense,
there's actually some indication, based on intelligence information that we have, that ammo is starting to be difficult for them to obtain in certain areas.
We have decided to make sure that we're cautious about how we're operating, and I have nothing to say further than that,
Boots per square inch is not the issue. You have to have solid intelligence in a conflict such as this, so you can get to the terrorists,
Tell them we are winning, ... You don't define success as the absence of hard losses. You define it - are you defeating the enemy?
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.
If a legitimate government emerges that is broadly seen as being representative of Sunni, Shia and Kurdish interests, I think there is no reason to suppose that we can't bring force levels down in the spring,
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,
I believe, with the addition of those additional Iraqi forces, with the gelling of the Iraqi chain of command, with good leadership by Prime Minister Allawi and his ministers, that the elections will be able to be held,
I believe that there are elements of extra-legal militias that are moving around doing some of this damage. There may be people with misguided loyalties in some of the security services, although less in the army than in the police.
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 need to make it very clear to the Iranians, the same way we made it clear to the Soviet Union and China, that their first use of nuclear weapons would result in the devastation of their nation.
What I've asked for is essentially to have a strong mobile combat arms capability, ... That's probably about two brigades worth of combat power, if not more.