American Valor Quarterly Issue 6 - Spring/Summer 2009 | Page 31

the target and it disappears, it has a huge psychological impact on
both sides. It was a very powerful way to put our forces together.
When Kabul fell and the Taliban and al Qaida were on the run, we
probably had less than a few thousand troops in the entire country.
Roberts: How about Operation Anaconda, where we tried to get
bin Laden and he escaped?
General Myers: That was actually at Tora Bora. You know many
“Monday morning quarterbacks” have criticized us and said, “well,
you messed that one up.” I think General Franks’s view was that
there were a lot of al Qaida forces in the Tora Bora area at the
time, but we did not have many of our forces in country yet. If
we waited to bring these forces in, which would take weeks, the al
Qaida fighters would have time to dissipate. The feeling was the
time window was limited, and we had to move now. We had to
rely on indigenous forces to some extent, because we had small
General Myers at the American Veterans Center’s annual awards bannumbers. We probably made a big impact in killing and capturing
quet during his tenure as Chairman. He is pictured alongside Hunter
a lot of al Qaida fighters, though the one that we were really after Scott, who served as the World War II Veterans Committee’s Youth
– if he was really there, because you never know for sure – escaped Representative prior to entering into the U.S. Navy. As a boy, what beover into Pakistan, where most people guess he still is today.
gan as Hunter’s history project on the USS Indianapolis and its sinking

American Veterans Center photo

Roberts: Some observe that our victory in Afghanistan was so
quick and decisive that Secretary Rumsfeld’s standing was sky high,
and had he retired at that point, he would have gone down as one
of the great Secretaries of Defense in history, but that instead
because of all the problems that ensued in Iraq, his reputation fell
into disrepute in some centers. What is your view on that?
General Myers: Well, a couple of things. Going into Afghanistan
was a fairly popular move, while Iraq was not as popular, although
Congress did authorize the United States to go into Iraq. I think
Secretary Rumsfeld became the point person for the administration
on the whole war, particularly on Iraq, but he didn’t have the
authority over the rest of the government to bring all instruments
of national power to bear on the situation in Iraq, so it became
mainly a military effort. And clearly things didn’t go exactly as some
had thought. I don’t think the military had ever totally bought into
the idea that the Iraqis were going to welcome us in and it would
be nothing but flowers and kisses. I think the flexibility of the
military to work through this period was very important – it was a
very difficult period in Iraq, and still is to an extent. By the time I
had left office, the Iraqis had voted for a constitution at their own
risk. Everybody remembers the blue fingers. They had a ballot,
and elected their own parliament and then their government. They
elected a parliament right after I left office, and the government
was installed early in the spring of 2006. The insurgency was still
going on then, and then of course there was the bombing of the
mosque in Samarra that set off the sectarian violence that got way
out of hand, before the surge of 2007. So we know the story, but
I think being the point person for the administration put him in
a position so that when things weren’t going well, he would draw
criticism. That is unfortunate because he was very collaborative
in working with his military and its leadership, the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, and the field commanders. Some of the conventional

at the end of World War II led to an investigation which cleared the
name of its captain, who had been court-martialed for the loss of the

wisdom is that if he would have just listened to his generals, we
would have been better off. Well, he listened to us all the time, and
every decision he made or the President made was based on the
advice we gave him. Our advice was not much different than the
course that they chose. It was a most difficult path, I think, that
this country has ever taken, to go into a country like Iraq with its
various factions, then with al Qaida coming into the picture after
major combat ended. It is just a very, very hard thing to do. The
fact that here we are almost six years later with a constitution and
a prime minister that looks like he is doing a fairly decent job and
has pretty strong backbone, Prime Minister Malaki. You have got
to say it has been relatively – I say relatively – successful. I think
all the leadership in Iraq says that it could revert, so we need to be
careful. But I think we are on a pretty good path there.
Roberts: If I am summarizing correctly, you were happy with the
invasion plan for Iraq that worked very well, but you were uneasy
about the occupation.
General Myers: I was very uneasy because Central Command
was focused on major combat, which is pretty reasonable. That is
what we do best, but they did not focus on what we call “Phase
Four,” this ability to oversee reconstruction. The initial plan was
for the military to be the provisional authority for some time in
the future, when eventually we would hand it over to the Iraqis or
a civilian provisional authority. But the decision was made in May
2003, after major combat ended, that because the country