Posted on 01/16/2004 5:05:24 PM PST by Destro
January 16, 2004
DISPATCHES
The General in Dean's Corner
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 — Joseph P. Hoar fought in Vietnam. He served as the Marine Corps' top operations officer during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Rising in the ranks, he succeeded General H. Norman Schwarzkopf as the four-star head of the United States Central Command, which has responsibility for the Middle East.
These days, however, General Hoar has assumed a new and unfamiliar role: adviser to Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor in hot pursuit of the Democratic presidential nomination.
One of General Hoar's most important military assessments, in fact, may have been the one he conveyed to Dr. Dean in a telephone conversation last spring. The retired general told the candidate that the administration of George W. Bush would have enormous difficulty stabilizing Iraq and that Dr. Dean should "stay on message" on Iraq.
General Hoar recalled in an interview this week that he told Dr. Dean "that he was absolutely right, that the war was the wrong war at the wrong time, that it was not going to be easy, that we were going to continue to lose people, that it was going to be enormously expensive and that somebody in this administration needed to be held accountable for that."
Retired officers have been an important part of political campaigns in recent years. Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, endorsed Bill Clinton in 1992, a move that helped Mr. Clinton rebut conservative criticism that his lack of service in Vietnam signaled that he was antimilitary. In a satellite address to the Republican National Convention in 2002, retired General Schwarzkopf backed George W. Bush.
In the case of Dr. Dean, General Hoar has played several roles. He has reinforced the candidate's decision to hammer away at President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq. He has also publicly endorsed Dr. Dean. General Hoar and Merrill A. McPeak, a retired former Air Force chief of staff, are the only two former top-ranking military officers visibly associated with the Dean campaign, a potentially important connection for a candidate who has been criticized for being outside the mainstream.
If Dr. Dean were to make it to the White House, General Hoar's advice might well carry special weight. General Hoar asserted that there was little chance that Iraq could be transformed into a genuine democracy. If Mr. Dean were to be elected president, General Hoar said, his first step should be to share responsibility with the United Nations and NATO for the political and economic reconstruction of Iraq.
"The first thing he should do in January of '05 is go to New York, speak to the Security Council and lay out the fact that his predecessors had made serious mistakes, that he is an internationalists, that he is favor of significant involvement of the U.N. in the reconstruction of Iraq," General Hoar said. "His second stop ought to be Brussels to do the same thing."
After 37 years in the military, General Hoar, still looks every inch a marine. His hair is cropped short and he works out regularly. Since his retirement, General Hoar, who is 69, has worked as a consultant for American companies that do business in the Middle East.
At first glance, General Hoar and Dr. Dean seem the proverbial odd couple. The general served in Vietnam as an adviser to South Vietnamese marines while Dr. Dean avoided military service during that conflict because of a medical deferment. "It probably would have bothered me in 1966 and 1967," said General Hoar said. "But it is not an issue for me."
General Hoar said it's now clear that the American decision to go war in Vietnam was a mistake and that many other American politicians had also avoided military service there. (President Bush served in the Texas Air National Guard and did not go to Vietnam, while Vice President Cheney had a series of draft deferments that kept him out of the military.)
A native of Massachusetts and a Democrat, General Hoar has not involved himself in politics before, and decided to back Dr. Dean after concluding that the Bush administration's doctrine of military pre-emption, its troubled relationship with important allies and its decision to attack Iraq had put the United States on a dangerous course.
"Of the major candidates that had a possibility of gaining the nomination, Dean was the only one making Iraq a major issue," General Hoar said.
General Hoar has a long history of involvement in Iraq issues. Before taking over as the head of the Central Command in 1991, he served as General Schwarzkof's chief of staff there. As commander of Central Command, General Hoar oversaw airstrikes against suspected weapons sites in southern Iraq and the establishment of a no-flight zone in southern part of the the country. He was also the Central Command chief during the American intervention in Somalia. He retired from the military in 1994.
Unlike a Central Command successor, Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the war last year to topple Saddam Hussein, General Hoar has never argued that invading Iraq was an essential part of the American fight against terrorism. Indeed, General Hoar has long argued vociferously against the war.
Testifying in Congress before the war, General Hoar asserted that there was no link between Al Qaeda and Iraq, and added that the Bush administration had not given adequate thought to what would be required to bring stability to Iraq once Saddam Hussein was removed from power.
After the war began, General Hoar wrote an Op-Ed article in The New York Times arguing that the Bush administration had not sent enough troops to remove the regime and occupy the country afterward, essentially endorsing the position of General Eric Shinseki, who was the Army Chief of Staff at the time.
That led to a feeler from the Dean campaign and a series of telephone conversations with the former governor in which General Hoar reinforced his antiwar message.
In August, General Hoar flew to Vermont and spent an afternoon talking with Dr. Dean. He flew with the candidate to New Hampshire and heard him speak. General Hoar told Dr. Dean that day that he was willing to advise him on security issues and would assist him in anyway he could. Dr. Dean concluded that one big way the retired general could help was by publicly endorsing his candidacy.
"He asked me if I was willing to go public, and I said I would," General Hoar said.
The practice of having retired military officers endorse political candidates has come under question from critics who say it will encourage the politicization of the armed forces. General Hoar said he told Mr. Dean he had no interest in serving in government again. And he said his decision to involve himself in politics did not come easy. Not all of his former colleagues applaud his decision.
"I thought very long and hard about it, and I think you need to be very careful about speaking up," he said. But he said his years of experience at Central Command and his worry about Bush administration's policies impelled him to speak out.
Earlier this month, General Hoar campaigned for Dr. Dean in Iowa, speaking to veterans' groups and American Legion posts about military and veterans' issues. General Hoar said his business schedule did not allow him to campaign for Dr. Dean in New Hampshire.
The talk of a new surge by John F. Kerry or John Edwards, however, has not dampened the general's enthusiasm for Dr. Dean. General Hoar said he was planning to go to South Carolina, an important primary state, and one where military credentials are important.
Dean is not as liberal as he is made out to be nor as "angry." While we Freepers are mostly political junkies and are familiar with the undesirable natures of Clark and Dean, Joe Blow American is not.
All he will see in the debates are an articulate Doctor who was pro gun rights and governed as a fiscal conservative and or (depending if they are a ticket) an articulate former 4 star general/Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and decorated 'Nam vet against a popular and good at heart but former near-do-well president and a heart ailing VP who was "too busy" to serve in Vietnam.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. The thought of a Clark presidency-stained as he is with his association with the Clintonian blood soaked foreign policy nightmare is in fact sickening.
Dean, while wrong headed is at least an honorable man (don't freak out-you can be both honorable and wrong-General Lee comes to mind though I am not comparing the two different men) who I would give the benefit of the doubt to if heaven forbid he won the election.
Saudi/OPEC/Pro-sanctions lobby?
Saudi money? Yes...indirectly--only an assumption on my end. Who is there to investigate? No one left of right since both left and right journalists are bought off by the Saudis on a regular basis--again my assumption.
Experts fear a war with Iraq will not be short
LINDA MOTTRAM: Despite stated Bush administration optimism about a short war in Iraq, should it happen, there are those with immense experience in such matters inside the Pentagon who fear that it'll bog down in a siege of Baghdad, in part because, for all its assembled military muscle, the US battle plan has too few troops.
Retired General Joseph Hoar was the Chief of the US Central Command, the rank held by General Norman Schwarzkopf, the 1991 Gulf War Commander. The current incumbent of that position, General Tommy Franks, will be leading any military strike on Iraq this time.
General Hoar says that the determination of Iraq's Republican Guard and the unprecedented control of intimate battle plan detail by the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, will ensure that the battle will not be swift.
Rafael Epstein reports.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Ten years ago US forces in Somalia learnt a drastic lesson in urban warfare. It robs them of their technological superiority, including surveillance, and severely degrades the rapid command and transportation advantages provided by the US Army's backbone of helicopters.
General Joseph Hoar would have commanded an assault on Baghdad if it were ordered six years ago. He says that now a siege and street to street fighting are highly likely.
JOSEPH HOAR: I think the chances are very high. Most of the Republican Guard divisions right now are in a circle around Baghdad. That's where their defensive positions are right now.
The plan would be for those divisions to fall back on Baghdad and it is going to be very difficult to prevent all of them from getting back and getting into defensive positions in the city.
It is, I'm sure you know, Baghdad is a city of 4.5 million people. There is only one city in the United States larger than Baghdad and that's New York. I mean it's a million more people than Los Angeles.
So it's a formidable obstacle and I would suggest to you that if only two or three of those divisions stand and fight it is going to delay a rapid, clean, quick victory.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: But the US is doing everything they can to avoid that possibility. Do you think they will be successful?
JOSEPH HOAR: I don't think so. I mean, you can't… there's only a limited amount you can do to force the bad guys to do what you want them to do.
The General better watch his "internationalist" leanings lest "Hoar" become a derogatory epithet like "Clymer". No wait...it already is.....nevermind.
Semper Phooey...
During his tenure of SACEUR he was responsible for the readiness and training of all units under his command, how come his apaches couldn't carry out their assigned missions?
Why didn't he listen to his people complain about not having enough training time and spare parts?
Why did he want to go to war with Russian?
it's worse than that. They can't even contemplate that an "anti-war" position was dictated by money interests. And the admin seems to have little interest in exposing the Oil-for-Food scandal...which done, would effectively ruin/expose the UN in the eyes of most Americans, and undercut the pro-UN statements.
BTW, Dean can't be submissive, and stupid enough to go to the people and tell them he's going to supplicate himself to the UN.
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