Rating: 
Summary: Informative
Review: Clancy has written a number of books now with retired Generals, and this is, if not his best than very close (Into the Storm is also excellent). As a professional army officer and a Canadian, I wasn't concerned about the political aspects of the book in relation to the current administration in the white house.
What I found facinating was the coverage of a subject not discussed often enough, Operations Other Than War (OOTW). Gen Zinni's experience as an officer involved in the operational level conduct of OOTW, in Somalia, Iraq, etc, gave insight into some of the issues and the learning processes that were experienced during the 90s and that is still going on today in Iraq.
The portions of the book which cover the early career of Gen Zinni, while interesting on a personal level, are not very different from the experiences of many other military biographies I have also read. His career as a diplomat does make him differ from others. It provides a different view of the peace process and negotiations that occur every day and the public has little understanding of.
In short, this book stands out because of the portions of Gen Zinni's life that made him different from other Generals of his era. So if you want to know more about OOTW and the peace process read this book, if your interest is the current Iraq war or a junior officer's experience in Vietnam there is plenty of other interesting books out there.
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: 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: :-) Another watson werdy wreview.
Review: Biographic Memoir spanning the career of Retired General Anthony Zinni from Vietnam to Diplomat. Another in Clancys series, following the US military from its nadir to current professional level and the men who made it work.
CLANCY's thread is getting old. I hope Clancy's next work will focus on the terrorism war, Afghanistan and Iraq invasions and pacification efforts. Reading is sometimes hard to distinguish where Clancy is writing and Zinni is narrating. Zinni is italicized but some passages in normal font seem to be from the horses mouth.
ZINNI Occasionally engages in fuzzy/wishful thinking but comes across a very impressive, tell it like he see's it, irreverent, thoughtful and open minded person who has a lot to reveal. Zinni tells it as he saw it, as the book progresses we see how he matures, advances and see's the situation from other shoe's and learns from it. He gives a rich and fascinating account, a first hand view of the major events of our generation.
VIETNAM Zinni's career starts as Marine Lieutenant on the "Hearts and Minds" front in Vietnam, this is the root of his character and career in the Corps and as Diplomat. Zinni's accounts are fascinating, revealing and heartfelt. Clancy is at his best making interesting this worn and much trodden over subject. Detectable is Clancy's love for Elite forces and disdain for the ordinary grunt.
POST USSR Here Zinni is at his weakest, but naturally so since he has not worn the shoes that make those decisions. Wishfully he believes a World wide Marshal Plan aught have been enacted to shape the new world. Correct... but we seem to have misplaced our magic wand somewhere. Looking at Post WWII Marshal Plan and Post USSR similarities would point out the immensity of the problem. The Marshal Plan was created solely for W. EU and Japan financed by the US.
Now rebuild all E. EU and all of former USSR, countries in catastrophic economic and environmental ruin with kaleidoscopic cultural problems. Think how it happened, so quickly that no one could believe it, let alone know what to do about it. Zinni partially answers his gripe seemingly unwittingly, where he describes his part in the efforts to rebuild. The effort was feeble and disjointed as it would be in face of myriad problems. Zinni proposes a world wide plan. If we knew not what to do with merely the entire northern hemisphere and its infinite complexity, what makes us think we know better to do with the other half? What makes us (and he) think we know the solutions for everyone? We muddled along helping where we could, best we knew how in the face of domestic problems, chaos in nations who had 30000 nuclear warheads, in face of revolts revolutions and counter revolts and not really knowing who to support.
The point... We do what we can, that is moral. To do less than that, is evil. To do more than what we can, is stupid.
SOMALIA Fascinating account from first involvement to the debacle's close. He reveals the initial and fatally flawed political cross purposes of our entry. Gives controversial view's on the leadership of Somalia but as point man he gets benefit of the doubt. Zinni confirms top down what I have heard bottom up of the "Black Hawk Down" event, thus am inclined to accept his conclusions.
IRAQ Though Zinni was a former CinC CentCom, General Franks was point man in this operation, Franks point of view I give benefit of doubt. Zinni states the operation is/was undermanned requiring 300k men. Ok. Gen Franks apparently didn't think so. I recall the 5th day of the invasion, a hue and cry raised by some general officers, that the operation was undermanned, ill planned, bogged down quagmire. A week later Sadam's statue in Firdos square was torn down. Such general officers did not offer congratulations. Outspokenness to be a good quality must be tempered by Grace.
He may be referring to reconstruction. Ok. I agree in entirety that the military is undermanned. So where does the balance come from? I also agree with Sec. Rumsfeld that the best place to make up for lack of trigger pullers is in the bureaucracy. Does Zinni take into account the rest of the coalition? The Iraqi contribution? The NGO's? What would double the # Americans with guns look like to Iraqi's? Or the rest of the Mid East? Could planning have been better? Yes! Where couldn't it have been... hmm where did I misplace my crystal ball to now?
CONCLUSION Another well done book by Clancy but the thread is worn out. Zinni is at his best when point man, weakest where he's not but demonstrates ability to learn. Wether I agree with him or not, he is a fascinating read and great direct source of info. He takes a couple cheap shots at Bush, paints with broad strokes at times and spouts party line a bit. There's a lot of room between isolationism and engagement that he misses. He believes conventional warfare is obsolete, that nations will fight us asymmetrically. True... So what? If we realign to fight un-conventionally, other aggressive nations would notice and seek to fight us conventionally. Zinni strikes me as genuine, and direct with thought coming from the heart and mind and I hope he will continue to be an asset to our nation.
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: not about Iraq, but some good descriptions for Vietnam 1970
Review: I agree with reviewers angry that this book is not about Iraq much. No analysis of current war. I got through the early portions of the book that include Lieutenant Zinni's experiences in Vietnam before realizing that nothing more on Iraq would be said other than the openning description of Clinton's 1998 strike just after the inspectors were taken out then.
I was in Vietnam myself in 1968-1970 in the same area that Zinni was. I found his descriptions accurate, something I have not found in other books or descriptions of that war. Zinni was with Vietnamese Marines just south of Saigon, around the area where refugees would later take off to the seas to get out of Vietnam (Nha Be). (Not all of these refugees were anti-communist, however.) Zinni speaks well of Vietnamese commanders and marines. I would recommend this section of the book for reading, but even for Vietnam Zinni does not analyze the political situation for the civilian population, or reflect on what a communist government means for its people.
Rating:
Summary: Marine General Questions Wisdom of Bush
Review: I bought this book because of my interest in the War in Iraq and what I feel is the Bush administration's mishandling of the situation. That's not what I got. I found the first part of the book about Tony Zinni's career in the military especially the war in Viet Nam really interesting. Since I am the same age as Zinni I would probably have been in the military with Zinni but for the fact that I am female. Zini's courage and reasoning and ultimate change in philosopby about the explanation for the War in Viet Nam was intersting and highly commendable. Since I have a son in the Marines, his insights into the Marine Corp and its mentality was also interesting. But as with most books by former service persons, I got tired of descriptions of General So and So, "one of the finest officers I've ever served with." Maybe it just comes with the turf, but there was a lot of that. No one was a rotten SOB and I'm sure that he met a few. One of the problems with the book it too many authors. Perhaps the old adage about too many cooks, also goes along with too many authors. There were too many voices. This made the message very mixed. If you want a biography of an officer and his career, read the book. But the criticisms of the current political and military situations that Zinni voiced on TV are not in the book. His message is that the military is not prepared for the current world situation and that the military changes very slowly. But it takes a whole book about many other subjects before he gets to that.
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.
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