Rumsfeld Quietly Sidesteps General Franks With Proven Airborne Ranger Warfighter.

WashTimes "Inside Ring" | Gertz/Scarborough

[MindBender26]

Pentagon chatter says Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld finally has his own man at U.S. Central Command to supervise a war against Iraq: Army Lt. Gen. John P. Abizaid.

Officials said the hard-charging Mr. Rumsfeld was not always happy with the way Gen. Tommy Franks ran the war in Afghanistan. He has worried that Gen. Franks, chief of U.S. Central Command, will not be innovative enough in waging war against Iraq.

Now, however, Mr. Rumsfeld has plucked a general from the Joint Staff at the Pentagon and sent him to Central Command as Mr. Franks' deputy. In fact, Gen. Abizaid is already at CentCom's warfighting command center in Qatar getting ready to direct a war.

It was an odd move, given that CentCom already had a deputy commander, who is staying at its Tampa headquarters. But it does give Mr. Rumsfeld a deputy in the Gulf region whom he fully trusts.

A favorite of the defense secretary, Gen. Abizaid is a West Point graduate and career infantryman who speaks fluent Arabic, a skill that should help with Persian Gulf allies.

He also speaks German and Italian, a skill that helped when he commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Germany in 1999-2000.

[Norman Arbuthnot]

This is great. General Abizaid is an Arab-American (of Lebanese descent). He was described as "the Mad Arab" in his yearbook from West Point. Smart guy, he has a masters from Harvard. It should be interesting to see how Al-Jazeera reports this story.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

OFFICIAL BUMP(TOPIC)LIST

[MindBender26]

Good question. Not so much timing as committment to win, and win "hard."

[xzins]

Where's the bio posted at? Do you have a link?

[Mr. Mojo]

Good.

Franks' weak bearing and questionable intelligence isn't exactly confidence inspiring.

[MindBender26]

I got it off Google search. Got a few of them.

[Enterprise]

Well, Eisenhower was German.

[MindBender26]

Sorry 'bout that. Thought you meant the Abizaid bio.

[cynicom]

I found it on google some time ago after he was on tv with Rummy

[Mr. Mojo]

Well, Eisenhower was German.

Wrong. Ike was 100% American.

[MediaMole]

Abizaid's Bio...

http://www.dtic.mil/jcs/core/director_js.html

[Lauratealeaf]

My husband knows General Abizaid and says he is a great choice.

[xzins]

I don't think Franks is weak.

I mean, for pete's sake, the war plan in place during the invasion of Afghanistan was hailed as brilliant and the advent of a new age in warfare.

We totally overthrew that gov't in mere days. We were warned we'd bog down....British, Russians, yada, yada....but that NEW government was installed in little more than a MONTH!!

Now we're just doing clean-up operations against bandits hiding in mountains.

Franks is no one's dummy, folks. That's not to say he's the greatest warrior on the block, and doesn't need a strong deputy, but come on. He's pretty darn good.

[BooBoo1000]

" I don't care how he looks at a review, I want Generals that can win battles." A. Lincoln 1862

President Lincoln then went on to Promote U. S. Grant to Lt. General, Commander of All Union Forces.

[xzins]

Nope. He was Kansan.

And he forgot his passport.

[cynicom]

Rummy has to have confidence in his man, for whatever reason. I will stick with Rummy on this one. If he messes up, I expect Rummy to sack him, generals are a dime a dozen, fighters are scarce.

[Alaska007]

Don't know much of General Franks bio, but I trust Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. I'd like him to find a replacement for the four-star general in the Air Force that doesn't appear reassuring of his abilities either. Everytime I see him on television along with Mr. Rumfeld, I come away with knowing that we can do better. His name escapes me, but his face does not.

[xzins]

I thought Grant took over far later than 62. Wasn't he late 63; early 64?

[cynicom]

Myers????

[xzins]

I'm retired Army.

I personally never met a general who wasn't a very capable, brilliant person in some area of expertise.

I've mentioned many times on these threads that my favorite is Doug Brown of US Spec Ops Command, recent Cdr of USArmy Spec Ops.

All of them were good.