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Abizaid's uneasy exit

The general who led U.S. efforts in Iraq will leave behind an uncertain legacy today.

By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE
Published March 16, 2007

TAMPA - Gen. John Abizaid became chief of U.S. Central Command in 2003 with lofty expectations born of his sterling pedigree.

As he steps down today at MacDill Air Force Base, handing the reins to Adm. William Fallon, Iraq's future is as uncertain as ever with continuing sectarian violence, mounting casualties and U.S. leaders struggling with an exit strategy.

An unspoken question will color the change of command, a ritual dating to ancient Rome: Just how much responsibility should fall to Abizaid's feet?

Among dueling pundits, Abizaid's legacy appears to be an open question that is hotly debated, perhaps proof that a golden resume is no guarantee of success.

"If John Abizaid was God, he couldn't have ... helped the Sunni and Shiites not getting along," said Michael DeLong, a retired general who served as a CentCom deputy commander until 2003.

Others contend that the expectations Abizaid brought as CentCom commander have been far from realized.

"He's a rather sad and tragic figure in my view," said Doug Macgregor, a retired Army colonel who is a defense and foreign policy consultant.

"Our purpose in Iraq wasn't to kill 100,000 Arabians. Abizaid seems to understand that. But he doesn't seem to have the character to act on it."

Widely respected in military circles, Abizaid came to Tampa four years ago as a stark contrast to his earthy predecessor, Tommy Franks, a college dropout whom critics accused of bungling postwar planning in Iraq.

A former classmate once described Abizaid as coming right out of Army central casting:

A Lebanese-American who spoke Arabic. A master's degree in Middle Eastern studies from Harvard. A better than 3.67 grade point average at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Later, West Point commandant. A combat leader whose exploits are dramatized in a Clint Eastwood movie.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., a friend who served with Abizaid 30 years ago in the 82nd Airborne Division, told the Washington Post in December that Abizaid was "probably the most-capable person we could have had because of his experience and his talent and his commitment to the troops he leads."

Reed is among supporters who believe Abizaid's hands were often tied by decisions made at the top of the government.

Abizaid, 55, who isn't giving interviews as he departs, has said his retirement had long been planned and has nothing to do with unhappiness with the job he's done - either from him or his superiors.

"No decision that anybody makes in a position like this is ever totally their decision, but I think the time is right, and it has nothing to do with dissatisfaction," he told reporters in Baghdad last year.

Tom Donnelly, a defense analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, noted his departure signals more than Abizaid acknowledges.

"Look, if everything had been going swimmingly, we wouldn't be changing commanders," he said.

Abizaid's rise from humble roots as the son of a mechanic to four-star general has been well and glowingly chronicled by the media.

His career has been a whirlwind of important posts: service in elite Ranger and airborne units; winner of a prestigious scholarship to study abroad; battalion commander; the Army Chief of Staff research group; and Franks' deputy commander at CentCom.

In the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada, Abizaid hot-wired a bulldozer to improvise an attack on a Cuban bunker. The episode was depicted in Heartbreak Ridge, a 1986 movie with Eastwood playing Abizaid.

"When people talk among themselves, they'll say, 'Abizaid has a 40-pound brain,' " Michael Pasquarett, a retired colonel who teaches at the Army War College, told the Atlantic Monthly in a 2003 story.

As he took the top job at MacDill-based CentCom, the nerve center of the military's efforts in the Middle East, Abizaid immediately set himself apart by declaring American forces were engaged in a "classical guerrilla-type campaign."

That was hardly Pentagon dogma at the time.

But Donnelly blamed Abizaid for failing to demand more troops to fight just such an insurgency and thinking the United States could get by with a "small footprint."

When President Bush last year announced adding over 20,000 more troops to Iraq, Abizaid was seen as opposing the plan because it made Iraqis more dependent on Americans.

"Abizaid is going to be forever linked, fairly or unfairly, with the approach taken in Iraq since the invasion," Donnelly said.

But, to Abizaid's defense, he said the general has been more successful in other area's of CentCom responsibility, including Somalia and Afghanistan.

Others see Abizaid as the heir of a failed policy.

"He played the hand that he was dealt," said Larry Korb, an assistant defense secretary in the Reagan administration. "Franks messed Iraq up bad. He dumped it all on Abizaid, who had to pick up the pieces the best he could. I think he's done a hell of a job."

Abizaid can't be blamed for a poorly motivated Iraqi army or militant Iraqis fighting U.S. occupation, Korb said.

But Macgregor, the independent consultant, said Abizaid didn't want to rock the boat and wasn't quick enough to question his superiors, including former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

"He's demonstrated that, if nothing else, he's an exceptionally fine sycophant," Macgregor said. "The lesson for officers who want to be generals is never, ever change anything you find when you arrive ... and reassure your superiors of their brilliance."

Abizaid should have more quickly restored the Iraqi army under its former officers and should have better articulated to Iraqis the conditions under which U.S. forces would have been withdrawn, he said.

"He should have made it clear we were leaving," Macgregor said. "He needed to stop reinforcing the picture of the United States as an occupying power."

Historians in 100 years will sort it out, said James Carafano, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and adviser to the Iraq Study Group. But he nonetheless offered a tentative assessment.

"This may not be a ringing endorsement," said Carafano. "But the Middle East could look a hell of a lot worse right now."

William R. Levesque can be reached at levesque@sptimes.com or 813226-3436.

[Last modified March 15, 2007, 23:26:07]