Franks: As long as it takes

The commander in Iraq says how long allied forces are there will depend on the Iraqis.

TAMPA - Coalition forces will remain in Iraq for as long as it takes - "months, or a year or two" - to make sure the country is safe enough to let Iraqis choose a government, Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks said Thursday.

"The fact is we don't know how long it'll take . . . because we do not yet know exactly how devoted the Iraqis themselves will be in getting over their own tribal and ethnic and religious difficulties," Franks said in a wide-ranging telephone interview with the St. Petersburg Times from his office in Qatar.

"What we do know," Franks said, "is that we're going to stay with them while they do it. We're going to stay with the Iraqis as long as it takes them to get a government on its feet."

During the 25-minute interview, the commander of the Tampa-based U.S. Central Command sounded relaxed. In fact, Franks began the discussion with a joke about a duck who walks into a bar. "I thought I'd share that one with you because it's kind of the way I bring light to my daily life," he said, laughing.

On a more serious note, Franks touched on a variety of issues:

- The search for weapons of mass destruction involve "several thousand sites," and he is convinced that coalition forces will find them.

- He does not know whether Saddam Hussein is alive or dead.

- The biggest threats to coalition forces in Iraq are death squads and accidents.

- In Afghanistan and in Iraq, the world saw America's ability to build coalitions and "apply incredibly powerful military force."

With the regime out, Franks said it was difficult to say how quickly Iraqis could adjust to their new way of life, "whether you call it democratic or whether you call it a representative form of government."

Aside from the various competing and oftentimes deadly interests, Franks said the society only now was learning how not to live in fear. In fact, he said, to him that was the biggest surprise of the war, "that the regime of Saddam Hussein had so overwhelmingly terrorized the people in this country."

"Even early in this war, when we would find people in the cities and the people in the villages, they were reluctant to be happy until they were absolutely convinced that there was no way this regime was ever going to come back to harm them," Franks said. "I remember so many occasions where I thought, "Golly, these people should really be celebrating,' and the celebration would be 72 hours delayed."

Forming a new government in Iraq will be a learning process, Franks said. "There's not a model for it." He reiterated, however, that coalition forces will remain to hold the country's hand.

Asked whether the war was easier than keeping the peace, Franks said, "I think it's very hard to talk about a war as having been either easy or hard."

People died, he said.

On Wednesday, the Washington Post quoted Bush administration officials as saying they underestimated the organizational strength of the majority Shiite Muslims in Iraq and were unprepared to prevent the rise of an anti-American, Islamic fundamentalist government in the country.

Franks said he had no doubt somebody in Washington said it. "What I debate is the definition of informed official and all that sort of stuff. I will tell you," he said, "that people who have spent very much time studying Iraq are not surprised at all by anything that is being seen."

Would the creation of an Islamic state in Iraq help or hurt U.S. interests? "I don't have a comment, 'cause I don't know," he said.

Franks said it was not up to him to decide whether to take military action against countries meddling in the affairs of Iraq, including Syria and Iran, which reportedly has inserted into the country government-backed agents to try to influence the political landscape of Iraq.

"When you have a government in a country and all of a sudden the government's gone, then let your mind wander for just a second," Franks said.

"If you were any one of the surrounding countries in the region, would you have an interest in what's going on in the forming of a new government in this country? Of course you would.

"And so we see that. Now," Franks added, "in terms of whether it steps over some line or not, that's not my call to make."

As for how the Arab world sees the United States, as liberator or occupier, Franks said the liberation of Iraq and the promise of a new government "meets the expectations in the region."

The general also assessed the performance of U.S. forces in Iraq. What Operation Iraqi Freedom demonstrated, he said, is America's ability to form a coalition and have the various military services fight like a machine, with every part functioning flawlessly.

"I do believe that the nations of the world recognize that the leadership of our country has great resolve, does nothing on an instantaneous basis but rather is very thoughtful, has the ability to build coalitions and has the ability to apply incredibly powerful military force," Franks said.

"That is what I suspect the people around the world think of us right now."

Asked about Hussein's fate, Franks said he did not know. "I really won't say whether he's alive or dead," he said. "I'll say this: since we have been controlling Baghdad, I haven't seen him."

The search for weapons of mass destruction, meanwhile, involves thousands of sites, Franks said, confirming previous reports on the numbers. "We are actually talking to people and have been for some time, who are Iraqis, who say, "Well, yes, of course, the administration, the regime had weapons of mass destruction.' Now the thing we're not ready to talk about right now is, "Well, what did they do with them, and where are they?' "

Franks also touched on a subject that rattled the bay area several months ago when published reports surfaced that he had been after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to move CentCom headquarters overseas. He said Rumsfeld had been misquoted.

Franks said he never asked that CentCom be moved abroad permanently, but rather that the Pentagon allow him to establish a headquarters within his area of responsibility, which stretches from south Asia to the Middle East, like the one he has in Qatar now to run the war.

"You need to report this faithfully," he said.

"Don Rumsfeld was talking about . . . what we call a TOC, a tactical operations capability, and that's what we have overseas right now, and that's what I was after him to do," Franks said. "All that's true, and it didn't have a single thing to do with permanence."

As for the duck, here's the joke:

Duck walks into a bar and hops up on the bar and looks at the bartender and says, You got any duck food? The bartender says, No, we have absolutely no duck food, this is a bar, and if you ask that stupid question again, I'll nail your feet to the floor.

Duck leaves. Next day, duck comes back in, hops up on the bar, looks at the bartender and says, You got any nails? Bartender says, No. Duck says, You got any duck food?

Here are excerpts from the telephone interview Thursday with Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, commander of the Tampa-based U.S. Central Command, from his office in Qatar:

Franks: I think it's very hard to talk about a war as having been either easy or hard. What we know is that the decisive combat piece of this cost us casualties. We believe that there is still a long way to go in order to do what we said we would do, which is permit the Iraqis to choose their own form of government.

Franks: There's not a model for it.

Franks: I think that there are not enough people on the planet who really understand all of the various equities that are represented in Iraq to form a generalized kind of comment about exactly what is to be expected and how long it will take for expectations to be adjusted. I will tell you that people who have spent very much time studying Iraq are not surprised at all by anything that is being seen.

Franks: Not a decision that I would have any influence on one way or the other about taking military action. I can tell you that it's obvious that a great many nations have people inside Iraq who will work to advance their interests.

Franks: Well, we have these regime death squads. We have these paramilitary forces. There was recruiting of mercenaries to come in and take large sums of money and fight for the regime. These people carry a variety of passports. So these are dead-enders. They can't get out of the country because we have pretty well sealed the borders. They can't stay inside the country because the Iraqi people don't like them. And so they represent a danger through the course of the stability operations. I'll tell you another thing we have to be very careful of and it will surprise you. We have to be very careful of accidents.

Franks: My sense is that what we have said we want to do and that is having liberated the people, we want to provide them an envelop of security within which they can govern, begin to govern themselves, and my sense is that that meets the expectations in the region.

Franks: The obvious implication of your question is, is there great fear, does someone believe we are going to jump off and attack them next. No, I don't think so.

Franks: How long it'll take, I don't know. I believe that we have seen the phases of this operation, the ones that are going to be done very quickly, we have seen them accomplished, the removal of the regime, the decisive defeat of the military forces of Iraq - decisive, and I'll say very rapidly, very quickly. I believe that the work that remains to be done is certainly going to take longer than the work that we have done until this point.

Franks: Still don't know.

Franks: You'll be knowing just as soon as we satisfy ourselves that we have been in every one of what will turn out to be several thousand sites.

Franks: There is no question. We are actually talking to people and have been for some time, who are Iraqis, who say, "Well, yes, of course, the administration, the regime had weapons of mass destruction."

Franks: No doubt about winning ever, at the beginning, or in the middle, or at the end. My darkest moment? My darkest moment probably occurs or has occurred on every occasion when the notification comes in that some young American, some young Brit, has lost his or her life because life is a very pleasant thing. I have had no dark moments with respect to all of the pundits' speculation of, "Well, we're all in a pause,' and all of that because we never have been. We simply have responded the way America would expect us to respond.

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