Iraq, bin Laden, Base Closures and China

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Gen. Richard B. Myers

Apr. 11, 2005 12:00 AM

As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers serves as the chief military adviser to the president, secretary of Defense and National Security Council.

Myers, who grew up in Kansas, flew combat missions over Vietnam in F4 jet fighters, commanded U.S. air forces in the Pacific and served as commander in chief of the Space Command in Colorado Springs. He has a bachelor's degree from Kansas State and an MBA from Auburn University.

Myers, back from a trip to Iraq, recently met with The Republic's Editorial Board. Here are excerpts from that meeting, edited for length and clarity. advertisement 

On the outlook for Iraq

I think there is cause for some optimism in Iraq. That's not to say there aren't a lot of issues yet, and there certainly are. They've got to come up with their transitional national government . . . Infrastructure still needs to be improved; it still gets attacked . . .

Terrorist incidents are at the lowest level they've been in about the last year. Thirty to 40 (or) 50 incidents a day, sometimes 60, half of them have no effect, and we see no effect on personal property, no effect on people. The other half do, some of them are obviously great tragedies. We saw well over 100 killed in (al) Hillah at the mosque when somebody took a vehicle bomb in there.

On "Mosul Most Wanted"

In Mosul they have an Iraqi-started TV program, something like Mosul Most Wanted. (It) shows insurgents confessing to the deeds they did. The families or the people who have been impacted tell their side of the story.

It's hugely, wildly popular but I think it also has had an effect in turning the Iraqi citizen against these insurgents who aren't offering any hope really and are murdering their Iraqi citizens.

I think it is becoming pretty clear who the good guys and the bad guys are. If we didn't have the word terrorist or extremist or insurgent to use, what would we call these people? Well, you'd call them murders and assassins and vandals.

They vandalize the public infrastructure and they assassinate people.

On the strategy of terrorists

The strategy has evolved. It's based on this notion that if you exert enough pain on your adversary, in this case the West, that the West is inherently weak and they'll leave. There's some reason to believe that. We didn't go back in (Yemini port) after the USS Cole was blown up; we didn't go back into Somalia;, we didn't go back into Lebanon.

They (terrorists) made some strategic errors and clearly one of them was 9/11 because they were trying to create fear and the world responded and Americans responded with courage, not with fear. I think that took them by surprise.

On the impact of the Jan. 30 elections

(The elections) really increased Iraqi's confidence because they saw their friends, neighbors, family, all come out (and) go to the polls.

One polling place had people milling around, nobody willing to go to the door because everybody was told you were going to die if you vote. An older lady finally said, "I've been waiting years to do this, I'm going to go vote." Once she did everybody kind of fell in line, queued up and they were off.

The insurgents tried their best and had no impact on the elections. Absolutely zero impact.

On the changing role of soldiers

I met a 21-year-old (U.S) soldier. He'd had his calf partially blown away by an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade). He didn't lose his leg, was young, was doing well, and I said what do you do in the Army?

He said, "Well, I'm an artilleryman." What were you doing in Iraq? "I was helping Kirkuk develop their municipal government."

What did you think about that? You were trained to do one thing and you did another. "Oh, I loved it, I felt like a rock star every time I went to work. All the kids wanted to take their pictures with me. I don't know where a guy 21 years old without a college education can have this kind of impact on a place, but I just loved it."

On the hunt for Osama bin Laden

We spend a lot of resources on the al-Qaida leadership, trying to determine where they are and then develop the means to go after them. We do the same thing with Zarqawi, the leader in Iraq.

We do not know where Osama bin Laden is . . . there are some good guesses. We suspect he's not very mobile; he's not able to move around a lot; that he's paying for his protection.

If he were in the federally administrated travel areas of Pakistan, where the Pakistan government hasn't been forever, it's a tough place to operate. It's a sovereign country so we can't stomp around. It's a place where Pakistani troops aren't welcome, although they now have, as opposed to last year, about 70,000 in that area. The Pakistani government is stepping up to that problem. I think over time that will yield intelligence that will continue to knock this problem down.

On reducing U.S. military forces

The more the Iraqis take the lead (in their own security), which is the plan, the more effective we're going to be against insurgency. Because the Iraqis are the ones who hopefully can stop some (attacks) and have the language skills to get the information they need. I came away (from a recent trip to Iraq) thinking that all of those lines are moving in their right direction.

The United States and, in some cases, our coalition partners are putting a substantial amount of money to train security forces. Because we know that's the way we'll be able to reduce our forces is to get Iraqis in charge.

On upcoming base closures

There is excess infrastructure in the United States that the Department of Defense needs to get rid of. The Number 1 criterion for evaluating our needs is military value.

In May, the Department of Defense turns this over to the BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) commissioners. They look at it until September and they can modify, they can question, they can do whatever they need to do, and then it goes to the president, and then Congress. It's an up or down sort of situation . . .

There are some terrific facilities here (in Arizona) . . . The estimates before this process started (were) between 20 and 25 percent excess infrastructure. I don't know if we're going to find that percentage, particularly given that there's going to be a fairly large realignment globally with substantial number of forces coming back to the United States.

We don't want to get down to such a bare-bone minimum that we have no surge capability, so that'll be considered as well.

On training future officers

We're putting a premium on people with degrees and different areas of expertise. Not (just) romance languages but Chinese, Arabic. You'll see a change over time as we try to build the kind of officers and NCOs that we need.

It's not always going to be conflict; there's going to be a lot of thing like a Bosnia where it's going to be peacekeeping, not necessarily peacemaking.

On the growing presence of China

China is having a huge economic impact on the region and the world. They are an emerging world power and you hope they develop in a way that is peaceful to its neighbors and to the region.

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