HH: Now General, when I was looking over your bio to prepare for this, you’ve
served a whole bunch of places in the world, Germany, Korea, Kuwait, of course
now in Iraq, so you’ve seen a lot of different foreign armies operating. Is the
quality of the Iraqi officer corps of the sort that can preserve a military
supporting a civilian government over the long haul? Or as we’ve seen before, a
lot of Arab governments have fallen to a lot of army officers with guns drawn in
coups. What’s that situation like?
JS: That, you know, Hugh, that’s a real good question. I have not personally observed political motivation from the senior leadership in the Iraqi Army. And what I see is some dedicated professionals who are seriously interested in the welfare of Iraq as a nation,
and they are concerned about getting the insurgency under control, and making
sure that they have an army that’s capable of defending Iraq against her
traditional enemies here in the Middle East. Of course, there is a history in
Iraq of the army selecting the leadership of the government. I mean, that has
certainly happened here in Iraq during its relatively short history as a modern
nation. But I have not seen that in dealing with the majority of the senior
folks that I deal with. Now what I would tell you is that when you get further
down the system, and you get down to the captains and the majors, they are very,
very strongly influenced by our young leaders that are out there on the
battlefield with them every day. And they are embracing the idea of the American
armed forces about selfless service and dedication to the nation, and I see that
as those more junior officers continue to develop and grow into leadership
positions, that the Iraqi Armed Forces has a potential to have a very capable
and professional armed forces that is loyal to the elected government.
If this report from Gen. James E. Simmons is accurate, then Iraq has a strong potential to survive as a country. This will be attacked by people on the right as propaganda because it doesn't fit the picture that they have of Iraq. They will claim that it is a whitewash, I think that even if half of what he is saying is true, then the country has a stronger future than many might believe right now.
Click on the link to read more of the interview.
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