Word: centcom
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...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...
...election in which voter dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq played a significant role in the Democratic takeover of Congress. Groups that are planning rallies are protesting Gen. Abizaid’s central role in the war in Iraq. “He’s the commander of CENTCOM, therefore ultimately responsible for troops in Iraq,” Adaner Usmani ’08, a member of HIPJ, wrote in an e-mail. “We think it would be absolutely unacceptable if his presence here were to go un-protested.” Usmani also lamented...
...came to Iraq when the situation had already degenerated into a complex insurgent fight. More criticism is being directed at Abizaid, who was a key military planner for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon before becoming Director of the Joint Staff, and then No. 2 at CENTCOM to Gen. Franks...
...John Abizaid, the Centcom commander who has been a key decision maker, been openly criticized or sharply questioned by Congress about his strategy. The get-along, go-along culture of the top brass creates tensions with officers in Iraq, who complain that their requests for more troops are often ignored because senior officers do not want to deliver more bad news to the Pentagon. A sharp contrast is provided by the Israeli military, which started an inquiry into its own failures in Lebanon last summer even before the fighting ended. "The Israelis demand accountability for poor performance...
...that it would be a liberation, not an occupation. You've got to be prepared for the worst case, and the worst case involving Iran takes you down to boots on the ground." All that, he says, makes an attack on Iran a "dumb idea." Abizaid, the current Centcom boss, chose his words carefully last May. "Look, any war with a country that is as big as Iran, that has a terrorist capability along its borders, that has a missile capability that is external to its own borders and that has the ability to affect the world's oil markets...