Word: centcom
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...much of the three and a half years of the Iraq war, top-level military officers like CENTCOM Commander Gen. John Abziaid mostly stood by mutely while Bush and now-departed Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly said the commanders in Iraq were orchestrating the military strategy on the ground. (The message: if the war isn't going well, ask the generals why.) The Joint Chiefs of Staff - the top officers of all four services and the Chairman and Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - never aggressively challenged Rumsfeld's micromanaging. Nor did they object when Rumsfeld broke...
...November, Gen. John Abizaid, the CENTCOM boss, balked at the idea of a troop surge, telling the Senate Armed Services Committee he didn't need more troops to pacify Baghdad. Besides, he added, a surge presented two additional problems: it would discourage rather than encourage the Iraqis to take responsibility for their security. And it would not be sustainable. Abizaid said U.S. forces that have rotated out of Baghdad and back to the U.S. now lack the equipment to increase the "op-tempo," the Pentagon phrase for work rate...
...some retired Marine officers argue that at least one of the two Army generals running CENTCOM should be replaced by a Marine, since traditionally the two services have switched off in the past. The three senior Marine generals with Iraq experience who are not seen as "Rumsfeld men" are Lt. Gen. John Sattler, who is currently the military's top policy maker in the Pentagon; Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who led the successful initial invasion of Iraq for the Marines; and Lt. Gen. Robert Blackman, who worked on the planning for the invasion, but now heads Marine Forces Command...
...Levin, in his questioning, read to Gates the response of CENTCOM chief Gen. John Abizaid at a Nov. 15 Armed Service Committee meeting, when McCain pressed him on his proposal to send more troops to Iraq: "I've met with every divisional commander, General Casey, the corps commander, General Dempsey - we all talked together. And I said, 'In your professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American troops now, does it add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq?' And they all said no. And the reason is because we want the Iraqis to do more...
...that either side has much latitude here anyway. In a pair of hearings last Wednesday that seemed to produce little news, CENTCOM boss Gen. John Abizaid made it remarkably clear that he didn't see any good options. He said that he didn't want to add more troops (except to train Iraqis) because the Maliki government would never take responsibility for security if he did. But he doesn't want to draw forces down either. Why? He said that none - as in zero - of the nearly 100 already trained Iraqi army units were ready to operate independent...