No he didn't. It took 500,000 to get Iraq out of Kuwait in Gulf War I.
General Zinni's plan would deploy 250,000 up to 300,000 depending on the resistance during occupation.
Generals Powell, Scowcroft, Shinseki, and even Weasel Clark concurred.
He said there would be 5-10 thousand US killed doing it !
Uhmm where'd you get that? Maybe you confused former SecNav James Webb w/ Gen. Zinni.
Actually, he did not say it would take 250,000 to 300,000 to handle any "resistance during occupation."
He often said it would take that many to keep the three major factions from a major civil war as soon as Saddam was removed from power.
Zinni was a great guy...who turned out to be as wrong as all the rest of us. There was no civil war that began as soon as Saddam was removed from power.
He also said we would need tens of thousands of troops to protect the oil fields from Saddam-who would blow them all up as soon as the war started. Again, we all agreed with him. He was as wrong as all of us...but that may have been partly because we did focus so much of our effort to ensure that did not happen.
We are one year into what averages 4 years to accomplish. I am confident things will turn out fine. Others are not. Neither group can "prove" their point yet because it is in the future.
Zinni has always been very hesitant to use force. He was very nervous about Desert Thunder and Desert Fox in 1998, and often had to be pushed by President Clinton even to take action. Again, not saying that makes him a bad guy...just incredibly cautious. One of the reasons I believe he supported Bush, even though he is from a Democratic family, is because he thought Clinton and Cohen were too forceful in the Middle East.