Battle Ready

Rating:
Summary: Thats it..?
Review: "In the lead-up to the Iraq War and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence, and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption."

No description, no names, no real proof. Sure, we all know that the military has the same trappings as society, but I expected a little more in depth detail on the subject of "Iraqi Freedom" than just one general paragraph, given the face time he got in the press. This was no insiders critique, just a biography of a great man.

Rating:
Summary: Best Book Clancy Has Offered Recently, Zinni is Superb!
Review:
For the serious, this book absolutely merits a careful reading, together with Dana Priest's "The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America's Military," and--for a fuller and free overview--my varioius reviews on emerging threats, strategy and force structure, and why our current "military only" approach to foreign policy is ineffective.

There are some tremendous gems in this book, some of which I summarize here.

1) Zinni is mpressive in his grasp of grand strategy, of the urgency of understanding the threat, devising a full approach that mixes and matches *all* instruments of national strategy, and that focuses--as Zinni learned to focus in Viet-Nam, on the hearts and minds of the people rather than the force on force battles (a means to an end, not an end in themselves).

2) Zinni's understanding of war comes across very early in the book when he describes the six completely different wars that took place in South Viet-Nam, each with its own lessons, tactics, and sometimes equipment differences--nuances that conventional military policy, doctine, and acquisition managers back in the US still do not understand: a) Swamp War, b) Paddy War, c) Jungle War, d) Plains War, e) Saigon War, and f) DMZ War.

3) Zinni has read SLA Marshall on "The Soldier's Load", and he notes that the equipment that the South Vietnamese carried was lighter and better for their needs--the US military-industrial complex burdens our Armed Forces with overly heavy things, too many of them, that actually impair our ability to fight. Perhaps even more fascinating, Zinni sees that buying equipment for our troops locally cuts the cost by 4/5th. Not what your average US contractor wants to hear, but precisely what I as a taxpayer am looking for--with the added advantage that this puts money into the local economy and helps stabilize it.

4) Within the center of the book, there are rich lessons about war-fighting and peace-making that will stand the test of time. Most impressive is Zinni's focus on pre-emptive relationship building across the region.

a) Relationships matter, and relationships forged in advance go a very long way in avoiding misunderstanding and defusing crises. If you have to fight, relationships are the single best means of reducing the fog of war and assuring good integration of effort across cultures, nations, and armies.

b) Speed and mixed forces matter. Zinni was the master, in four different timeframes, of using speed and properly mixed forces to achieve effects not possible with larger forces arriving late. In Viet-Nam he worked with "the Pacifiers", especially reinforced company-size units that had been specially augmented with flamethrowers, extra machine guns and mortars, and their own engineers and scouts, all trained for instant deployment. At Camp Hansen, during the times of race riots, he learned the value of a fast, big guard force *combined with* constant and open dialog with the troops in distress. In humanitarian operations, he learned that rapid delivery of food tended to rapidly reduce the violence--get the food flowing fast, and reap the peace benefits. And finally, in developing the Marine Corps variant of special operations capable forces (not to be confused with the uniquely qualified Special Operations Forces), he developed the original capabilities of doing special things "from the sea."

c) Non-state entities, both tribal threats and non-governmental organizations, are the heart of the new battle. Repeatedly Zinni comments on how poorly we do in terms of thinking about strategy, operations, and tactics for the sub-state war, and how badly we do at intelligence about tribes, and at coordinating with non-governmental organizations. Zinni finally discovered the true value of Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations as a flag officer, and ended up nurturing the creation of Civil Military Operations Centers, and a new language, such as "Humanitarian Relief Sectors" instead of "kill zone."

5) Zinni makes some other observations throughout the book that are relevant now.

a) His respects Clinton as a quick study. Without disparagement, he makes it clear that Sandy Berger and Bill Cohen were mediocrities. He admired James Baker, who tried to do Marshall Plan kinds of things and could not get the beltway crowd to see the light. He is cautionary on General Wayne Downing (who went on with the Rendon Group to sponsor Chalabi--Zinni, on page 343, makes it clear he knew Chalabi was a thief and liar as early as 1998). He is admiring of Ambassador Bob Oakley.

b) With respect for foreign capabilities, among the insights are the integrity and capability of Pakistani and Bangladeshi troops, who maintained and then returned US complex equipment in better condition than it was received, with every single tool in every single kit present and accounted for; Italian military field hospitals; African troop tactical fighting discipline and capability.

6) The book wraps up with Zinni's recommendations for change, all of which are on target: use retired Service and theater chiefs to constitute the Joint Chiefs of Staff, rather than the Service Chiefs with their parochial interests; earmark budgets for the theater commanders--inter-agency budgets; create an inter-agency strategy and operations center to make the government, not just the military, "joint."

Zinni's final observations deal with ethics and the obligation to avoid spin and always speak the truth. Zinni is smarter than the current crop of military leaders, who mistake loyalty to specific individuals with loyalty to the Constitution. He also differs from them in understanding that Operations Other than War (OOTW) is where it is at and will be for the foreseeable future.

Missing from the book is any reference to national and military intelligence, other than one small section where he notes it simply was not reliable and not available at the tribal level. Also missing from this book are any references to John Boyd, Mike Wylie, Bill Lind, or G.I. Wilson, all four of whom were, in my opinion, the legs of the intellectual stool that Zinni constructed for himself over time.

This is a serious book.

Rating:
Summary: Short on analysis
Review: Anthony Zinni was Commander of the US Central Command from 1997 to 2000, after Norman Schwarzkopf and before Tommy Franks (who was followed by John Abizaid). Following his retirement, Zinni was asked by Colin Powell and his Deputy, Richard Armitage, to be the Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for the Middle East.

Zinni has subsequently been a strident critic of the Iraq invasion and the Bush administration, particularly the neo-cons in and out of the Pentagon; he has been mentioned as a possible running mate for John Kerry. This book is Zinni's life story, ghost written by a third party and marketed by Tom Clancy. But that's about all it is: what it is not is either an insightful history or a thoughtful policy commentary.

Zinni's military career began in Vietnam in 1961 and spanned a period of exceptional changes as America emerged from the slump of the 60s and 70s to take over the mantle of World Leader after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The US military has been faced with unprecedented requirements to adapt, and Zinni was in the middle of it for 40 years. His story is disappointingly one-dimensional, though, more a discussion of his career than an analysis of the issues.

Critical of the Peace Dividend and the failure to see that difficulties would arise from the ashes of the Cold War, Zinni's analysis is that East-West tensions were replaced by North-South tensions and that states have been replaced as the key players by non-states such as al Qaeda, NGOs and multi-national corporations, enabled by the "global information revolution" and cheap transportation for poor people wishing to emigrate, primarily Muslims to Europe. Zinni laments the absence of a post-Cold War Marshall Plan to deal with the rising tensions. Whether his or anyone's vision was actually so clear in 1989 is open to question.

Zinni's largest missions were the massive and successful relief effort in Iraqi Kurdistan after the first Gulf war and the support of the international relief mission in Somalia (Black Hawk Down). According to Zinni, the problem in Somalia was the UN, focused not on relief as much as on the political mission to establish democracy, excluding the warlords from the process. Zinni is actually quite sympathetic to Mohamed Farah Aideed whom he says was working with the US before the turnover of command to the UN and Zinni's departure.

A supporter of Clinton's instinct for engagement and critical of isolationist tendencies in the Congress that kept resources tight, Zinni identifies 1998 as the year terrorism became an institutional threat. Al Qaeda created a network to link previously disorganized groups to provide training, planning and funding, announcing its arrival that year with the East African embassy bombings (the WTC bombing five years prior is not mentioned). Also that year Zinni met Ahmed Chalabi, supported among others by John McCain, proposing to topple Saddam Hussein with US help; Zinni expressed his disdain, referring to a "Bay of Goats" with "Gucci Guerillas". As Zinni was transferring command to Tommy Franks in 2000, the USS Cole was bombed in Aden and Zinni took the hit before Congress and in the press.

Immediately following 9/11 Colin Powell asked Zinni to take the point on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, another in a long line of well-meaning but utterly doomed such attempts to make peace.

The book is easy reading but there's not a lot of meat unless you're really interested in Tony Zinni's career, per se.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent; not an easy book to write
Review: Both authors of this book, Clancy and Zinni, started out as Bush supporters. The point is not so much that they oppose a war with Iraq, it is that they oppose Bush's conduct of the war. Here are 10 criticisms Zinni makes (via the Center for Defense Information):

"And I think that will be the first mistake that will be
recorded in history, the belief that containment as a policy
doesn't work. It certainly worked against the Soviet Union,
has worked with North Korea and others.

"The second mistake I think history will record is that the
strategy was flawed. I couldn't believe what I was hearing
about the benefits of this strategic move. That the road to
Jerusalem led through Baghdad, when just the opposite is
true, the road to Baghdad led through Jerusalem. You solve
the Middle East peace process, you'd be surprised what kinds
of others things will work out.

"The third mistake, I think was one we repeated from
Vietnam, we had to create a false rationale for going in to
get public support. The books were cooked, in my mind.

"We failed in number four, to internationalize the effort.

"I think the fifth mistake was that we underestimated the
task . . . You are about to go into a problem that you don't
know the dimensions and the depth of, and are going to cause
you a great deal of pain, time, expenditure of resources and
casualties down the road.

"The sixth mistake, and maybe the biggest one, was propping
up and trusting the exiles, the infamous "Gucci Guerillas"
from London. We bought into their intelligence reports.

"The seventh problem has been the lack of planning . . . And
I think that lack of planning, that idea that you can do
this by the seat of the pants, reconstruct a country, to
make decisions on the fly, to beam in on the side that has
to that political, economic, social other parts, just a
handful of people at the last minute to be able to do it was
patently ridiculous.

"The eighth problem was the insufficiency of military forces
on the ground. There were a lot more troops in my military
plan for operations in Iraq.

"The ninth problem has been the ad hoc organization we threw
in there. No one can tell me the Coalition Provisional
Authority had any planning for its structure.

"And that ad hoc organization has failed, leading to the
tenth mistake, and that's a series of bad decisions on the
ground. De-Baathifying down to a point where you've
alienated the Sunnis, where you have stopped having
qualified people down in the ranks, people who don't have
blood on their hands, but know how to make the trains run on
time . . .

"Almost every week, somebody calls me up, if it's not Mark
Thompson it's somebody else, and says "What would you do
now?" You know, there's a rule that if you find yourself in
hole, stop digging. The first thing I would say is we need
to stop digging. We have dug this hole so deep now that you
see many serious people, Jack Murtha, General Odom, and
others beginning to say it's time to just pull out, cut your
losses. I'm not of that camp. Not yet. But I certainly think
we've come pretty close to that.

"I would do several things now. But clearly the first and
most important thing you need is that UN resolution. That's
been the model since the end of the Cold War, that has given
us the basis and has given our allies the basis for joining
us and helping us and provided the legitimacy we need."

Read it and weep. Weep for our brave young men and women who died unnecessarily. Weep for our country's lost honor. And weep for the lost opportunity to bring peace to the middle east.

Rating:
Summary: Misrepresented on CNN
Review: I rushed out, bought the book and read all of it after seeing the authors promote it on CNN. They gave the impresson that it brought General Zinni's substantial experience to bear in a vital critical analysis of the current Iraqi War. Further, they hinted that their findings were so profound as to cause them to shift their political loyalities far to the left. Nonsense. We have all seen Nancy Reagan deal the Bush Administration harder blows. If the reader is interested in their "profound" political critique, it is summarized in the last paragraph on page 426. Read that paragraph while having coffee in the bookstore and save $29.
Overall, the book has a hurriedly thrown together feel. It is part biography, part autobiography, part oral history, part military history, a little bit of political science. Zinni talks to Clancy, Clancy paraphrases Zinni for a few pages, Zinni has a few pages in italics (direct quotes), then the pattern repeats.Thankfully, this does not go on for a thousand pages as does some of Clancy's output.
Zinni had an interesting career. He has talent that has been recognized and rewarded for good reason. As military history, this is a worthwhile book.

Rating:
Summary: Demolishes stereotypes
Review: I suppose that professional military people will read "Battle Ready" avidly, following, as it does, the very interesting career of Tony Zinni, who retired as a four star Marine Corps general. But it serves a non-military audience admirably, as well.

When I go to a Hollywood movie with a military character in it, I am pretty resigned to the fact that that character will be cartoon-like: some Hollywood writer's cliche of what a military man is like. I grew up in a military family, so I know better; but many people don't. And of all the services, I think the Marine Corps is the most vulnerable to such stereotypes.

You can't read this book and retain such a stereotype in your mind. Tony Zinni is brilliant, subtle and nuanced. His subtlety and brilliance come across in many ways, including his perspective on various well-known leaders he encountered in his forty-year career in the Corps and his peace-making special missions at the direction of the State Department after he retired from the Corps.

For example, even though I very much enjoyed the book "Black Hawk Down" and recommend it, this book gives you a different perspective. Tony Zinni was the chief of staff of the Joint Task Force in Somalia before the catastrophe occurred that is described in "Black Hawk Down". Formerly, I had read with grim satisfaction about the violent death of Mohammed Aideed, who is widely blamed for the American and Somali deaths in that episode. Zinni has a differenty analysis. He did not admire Aideed in the same way, for example, that he admired General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, but he considered Aideed manageable, and, in fact, he believed that Aideed was the only Somali leader with the ability to bring order to the chaos that was and is Somalia. After Zinni left, the U.N. authorities and the U.S. military leadership that succeeded Zinni tried to marginalize Aideed, erroneously, in Zinni's opinion. The events that led to the book "Black Hawk Down" were a miscalculation by all parties.

Zinni's perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is equally interesting, though less surprising. The Bush (43) administration sent Zinni to the Middle East as a special envoy to facilitate the peace process. Zinni portrays Ariel Sharon as genuinely in love with his country, down-to-earth and direct. He characterizes Yasser Arafat as charming but an unmitigated impediment to peace, who wants to be remembered as the great leader of the Palestinians who never yielded. Zinni also describes in some detail the sickening role of extremists like Hamas in the impasse.

In all, "Battle Ready" is thought-provoking reading and highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Marine General Questions Wisdom of Bush
Review: I voted for Bush. I am no liberal. But when I saw Marine General Tony Zinni, a conservative Republican, interviewed on "The Charlie Rose Show," I was intrigued enough to buy Zinni's book "Battle Ready." General Zinni had a 40-year career in the Marines and at the end was General Schwarzkopf's successor as Commander and Chief of CENTCOM (Central Command), and then Colin Powell's envoy to the Middle East.

In his career, Zinni faced and successfully adjusted to the new realities brought about by the collapse of the Soviet Union. After his service in Vietnam, Zinni's career as a soldier and diplomat took him to many of the world's hot spots, from Somalia to Indonesia. He foresaw the threat of terrorism.

In attempting to forge a new strategy to fit a chaotic new world, Zinni earned a reputation for candor. This trait was the result of a decision he'd made in Vietnam, after a wounded marine asked him, ''Sir, why are we here?'' Zinni, then a captain, replied with ''the party line,'' though he didn't believe it himself. Realizing his answer had been less than straightforward, he vowed never to give one like it again. ''If I felt something was wrong that put the lives of our troops in needless risk,'' he writes, ''I swore I would speak out.''

Toward the end of ''Battle Ready,'' Zinni declares that in the buildup to the Iraq war and in its conduct he saw, ''at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility; at worst, lying, incompetence and corruption''. In recent times, he appeared on ''60 Minutes,'' and called for heads to roll at the Pentagon, saying that American policy in Iraq is ''headed over Niagara Falls.'' In this way, Zinni's critique is far more serious than Michael Moore or anything else that the might be written off as left-liberal. It brings into question the very wisdom of the leadership of the Bush Administration.

Rating:
Summary: A General Speaks Out
Review: This is the latest installment of war thriller fiction author Tom Clancy's entry into the ranks of military biographies with his Commanders series. This is by far the most controversial entry given the subject matter and level of current debate.

Anthony Zinni hailed from Philadelphia and chose the Army as his career. Clancy covers his fascinating and highly successful career including his stint in Vietnam as well as various other outposts up until the time of his crowning Army pinnacle, commander of Central Command, the same post occupied by Norman Schwarzkopf and Tommy Franks.

Zinni's experiences at Cent Com provide the basis for the hot discussion of the book, not to mention its swift rise to the highest echelons of bestseller charts. The General's prominence along with his message regarding the rush to war in Iraq enabled him to jump start the book's celebrity status with an appearance on Sixty Minutes on CBS.

The outspoken Zinni writes that he suspected trouble at the outset where Iraqi policy was concerned. His book comments dovetail with press accounts, which had him warning his government about the dangers involved in a swift approach to combat. He lays the blame on the Defense Department, arguing that America was left unprepared for the task involved and the turbulence that resulted after the first phase of the war ended, at a time when victory was declared.

Zinni's outspoken comments are reminiscent of those of two prominent battlefield commanders at the time the Vietnam War was escalating. Generals James Gavin and Matthew Ridgway were heroes of World War Two and the Korean War respectively. They warned about the dangers of a prolonged conflict in Vietnam. They did not believe that conditions were conducive to the kind of decisive victory being foreseen at the Pentagon. Regrettably their warnings were not heeded.

Zinni has a better chance of getting through with his message, given the fact that the public response to attendant continuing difficulties has been much quicker than in the case of Vietnam. Also, many prominent figures from the military, the government, and the media have echoed sentiments Zinni expresses in the book.

General Zinni is a great patriot who loves his country. His critical warnings are meant to enhance America's best interests. He deserves an attentive audience.

Rating:
Summary: Tough critque from a Marine Corps legend
Review: Tom Clancy lives up to his reputation...he has chalked up another best seller. "Battle Ready," is a stirring narrative of Anthony Zinni's legendary 40-year Marine Corps career.

Clancy's eloquent certification of Major General Zinni's military credentials provides a formidable platform for a very tough critque of the intellecutual authors of the United States invasion of Iraq. Moreover, Clancy's well-known hawkish convictions adds volume to Zinni's powerful charge that the Bush administration failed the American people.

The former United States Central Command Commander in Chief points many fingers...and backs it up with solid facts. Zinni is a classic gentleman and officer and like many other Marines I know from Philadelphia...he tells it like it is. To this end, Zinni has articulated the most powerful charges I have ever seen a retired Marine Corps officer use against an administration at war. Highly recommended.

Bert Ruiz