U.S General: U.S. Forces Will Be In Iraq for 10 - 15 Years

America Has Enough on its Hands Right Now"

General James Jones is the top NATO commander in Europe and leader of all United States forces in Europe. SPIEGEL spoke with Jones about violence in Iraq, similarities with Vietnam, and whether the US military is prepared for a potential escalation of the Iran conflict.

SPIEGEL: General, you are just coming back from Iraq. Will Operation Iraqi Freedom succeed?

Jones: I believe that the seeds are there for success. There are indications of a turn in a favorable direction. There are many more things going on in Iraq than so called IEDs (editor's note: improvised explosive devices) and it would be very helpful for our publics to understand this.

SPIEGEL: It seems that the insurgents have changed their tactics. The incidents are becoming more lethal. More people than ever are dying, most of them civilians.

Jones: The population is starting to turn against this indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians. And I think the insurgents made a major mistake in adopting this tactic. It's the al-Qaida network or the al-Qaida affiliates, a lot of foreign fighters. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is the guy that everybody points to as being the leader of however you want to define this group. I think they are cowards, criminals and murderers. And this is working to change the population's mentality towards this insurgency.

SPIEGEL: As of today, almost 2,200 American soldiers have died and some 16,000 soldiers have been wounded in Iraq. How long will the American people tolerate such losses?

Jones: The numbers of casualties are always to be regretted but the outcome of success, I think, is strategically very, very important for all of us. I think that it's extremely important that we do as good a job as we can in explaining the strategic significance of what is going on in Iraq -- on both sides of the Atlantic. Virtually every country has a stake --whether they are there or not -- they have a stake, in my opinion, in how this comes out. This could change the future stability in the Gulf and it could affect it both ways, for good and for bad. If we fail, it will embolden the combatants, the Zarqawis of the world. And if we win, stability, hopefully, will spill over into different parts of the Middle East. And the stakes are extraordinarily high.

SPIEGEL: NATO wants to dramatically expand its engagement in Iraq, including the training of 1,500 officers a year both within and outside of Iraq. NATO would thus operate the primary training center for senior officers of the new Iraq armed forces.

Jones: We develop the senior level superstructure of the Iraqi defense ministry to help them work their way through rebuilding their institutions. We have high-quality people that are working hard to teach senior Iraqi officers to understand how you function in a democratic regime. And I think we are on the right path and obviously all nations do what is within their power.

SPIEGEL: How long will the US be occupied by the operation in Iraq?

Jones: On the scope of things that we're doing, it would be reasonable to expect that it would take a long time, maybe a generation of officers ...

SPIEGEL: ... which means some 10 to 15 years ...

Jones: ... yes, but does that mean you have to have 100,000 or 150,000 troops there all the time? Absolutely not. But nor does it mean that there's a day when you can just close the door and say, 'Thank you very much. That's it' like in Vietnam when we flew out on the last day. I think we'll eventually cut back to a mentoring process and there will be a tipping point when the Iraqi security forces will be sufficiently trained and will be adequate in numbers and less reliant on us.

SPIEGEL: You participated in the Vietnam War. Does Iraq remind you at all of Vietnam?

Jones: I think there are some similarities, obviously. Here we have an intervention, we have a new government that we're trying to support so that we can have a basis for a democratic way of life. We're trying to train an army, which we did in South Vietnam. We don't have a uniformed enemy; in Vietnam we had the Viet Cong and they were not uniformed. But we also had the North Vietnamese army which was uniformed. We have popular opinion that started out quite high in support -- I'm talking about the US now, we know what it is in Europe. And then you have the traditional impatience of the public when things don't get resolved as quickly as they think they should and where people believe that mistakes were made. But regardless of how we got to where we are -- that can be debated by historians now and by people who have time to do that -- people are dying here, troops are dying. We need to make sure that we bring this to a successful conclusion so we can, in fact, stop the bloodshed. It seems to me that one of the best ways to do that is by presenting a united front. Not only at home, domestically in the US, but to the extent that we can internationally because I believe that we all have a stake in this.

SPIEGEL: How will American history remember the Iraq war?

Jones: Strategically it's extraordinarily important and I think the relationship towards this war will not be a black-white, on-off relationship. We have invested an awful lot of money there. And a lot of nations have. And if you spill the blood of your children, of your nation's youth, you want to make sure that it comes out the right way. I think our collective commitment should be strong and should continue to be very strong. You can't go through something like this and say 'Okay, on Tuesday of next week we're gone.'

SPIEGEL: Your son fought with the US Marines in Fallujah and was there during some of the heaviest fighting. What was it like for you personally?

Jones: My son has done two tours in Iraq and as a father it was very difficult when he was there. If I could have switched places with him I would have gladly done so. Before I came to NATO I was the commander of the Marine Corps and they are all my friends and my colleagues. I was also a member of the Joint Chiefs at the critical time leading up to the war. I obviously have a soft spot in my heart for Marines. This has been very difficult emotionally.

SPIEGEL: In addition to the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal, the American government has been accused of sending terror suspects to Third World dictatorships where they are allegedly tortured. Human rights violations are also suspected at Guantanamo. As a high representative of the US military do you find it difficult to present American standards on human rights as a role model for the people of Iraq or Afghanistan?

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