General Tommy Franks

Nearly three years on from September 11th the threat from al-Qaeda remains potent.

General Tommy Franks has been at the heart of the war against terror as the Commander in Chief of US forces in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. He describes Osama Bin Laden in his new book as a "worthy, bold commander" but uses four letter words about officials on his own side in the Pentagon.

We interviewed him, but first our Diplomatic Editor Mark Urban reported on this outspoken soldier - his report contained some of that strong language.

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS:
Tommy Franks is no Norman Schwarzkopf.

MARK URBAN:
Tommy Franks is unusual for having wielded supreme command in two wars: Afghanistan and Iraq. During his career he gained a reputation for prickliness with press and political masters alike. Now though, he has published memoirs revealing his private views about President Bush's wars. Planning for a campaign in Afghanistan, began just days after the 9/11 attacks in America. Within weeks there were special forces on the ground and the foundations were being laid for something quite unlike any of America's previous wars.

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS:
We are prepared to conduct any sort of operation that our national command authority and the President of the United States may direct.

MARK URBAN:
But the General soon bridled under Donald Rumsfeld's micromanagement. According to one account, Franks told his political master: ...This ain't going to work. You can fire me. I'm either the commander or I'm not and you've got to trust me or you don't. And if you don't, I need to go somewhere else.... Rumsfeld backed off. The success in Afghanistan overall, though, empowered Donald Rumsfeld to move on to planning a campaign against Iraq. People talked about a Rumsfeld doctrine, small numbers of troops, high-tech surveillance systems, few tanks and little build-up of ammunition stocks. All very different to the 1991 Gulf War. General Franks writes of Donald Rumsfeld that he: ...thinks so far outside the box that he doesn't even know the box is there.... If the Iraq war plan was refined there was pressure from civilian leader in the Pentagon to do it with fewer troops. The army chief of staff, General John Shinseki was fired for saying it could take hundreds of thousands of soldiers to police Iraq. General Franks clearly bears a grudge and minces no words. In his book he calls the civilian leaders of the Pentagon: ...Self serving assholes.... And he regards Douglas Fife, one of Rumsfeld's key aides as: ...The dumbest f****ing guy on the planet.... When the President's war with Iraq was finally launched the atmosphere in Washington and among the press pack led General Franks to say nothing for the first 48 hours. Then he announced his intention.

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS:
A campaign characterised by shock, by surprise, by flexibility, by the employment of precise munitions on a scale never before seen. And by the application of overwhelming force.

MARK URBAN:
The general makes clear that he believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and would use them, also he didn't expect thousands of guerrilla fighters in southern Iraq. He reflects: ...Our lack of reliable human intelligence had given us a nasty surprise ... we'd had no warning that Saddam had dispatched these paramilitary forces from Baghdad.... As for post-war arrangements, Franks regrets that people thought it would all be so easy. He describes his own planning, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: ...In September 2001, when I took the operational concept for Afghanistan to the White House, for the President's approval, I anticipated that Phase IV could last as long as five years. That was three years ago. From my perspective, we are still on that timeline in Afghanistan ... and we can expect about the same in Iraq.... He concludes: ...Wars often end in chaos... After Iraq, Franks refused the top army job, preferring to leave the service with a reputation as a man of action, rather than a Pentagon management-type.

Martha Kearney spoke to General Tommy Franks in his British broadcast interview and began by asking when he thought the war in Iraq would be inevitable.

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS:
Each time I spoke with the President, he would say something like, ...I hope we never have to do this... So, I was never convinced we would go to war in Iraq until probably December, 2002 or January 2003.

MARTHA KEARNEY:
When it comes to the threat that was posed at that time from Saddam Hussein, you yourself were convinced that he had weapons of mass destruction, you said that leaders in Jordan and Egypt told you he had WMD. They have recently denied that they told you that. Who are we to believe?

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS:
(LAUGHS) No surprise on my part. Welcome to politics in the Middle East. I said exactly what I intended to say, and in fact, there were a number of links in the Middle East who were communicating the same ideas at this time. I believe we were all convinced that Saddam Hussein had weaponised WMD.

MARTHA KEARNEY:
So, are you now saying that the King of Jordan and the Egyptian President are not telling the truth when they deny speaking to you about WMD in this way?

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS:
What I said was that I said in my book exactly what I intended to say, no surprise that the offices of leaders in the Middle East would make such a comment, and as I said, welcome to politics in the Middle East.

MARTHA KEARNEY:
Just before the war, Donald Rumsfeld seemed to imply that Britain was wobbling about the war. He made a statement in which he talked about there being work-arounds raising the possibility that Britain might not join in the coalition. Did you yourself have to work on a contingency basis that you wouldn't be able to rely on British forces?

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS:
I never had a doubt, not a single day in my mind, that if we were called upon to go to war that the forces of the United Kingdom would be with us. Never had a doubt.

MARTHA KEARNEY:
Why did you not have a doubt?

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS:
Oh, I've worked with Brits on and off all my life. During this particular point in time I was working with, as you know your forces, the UK forces, in Afghanistan. I know a great deal about the SAS and the force composition of the United Kingdom. And I just absolutely never had a doubt. I have told a lot of people in this country, and I have always told some people in the United Kingdom, that I had extreme confidence in Tony Blair. Geoff Hoon is a good friend of mine. I also had great confidence in minister Hoon. I believed that the moral courage and the commitment to the value of this mission, in the face of terrorism, would remain, and I was convinced that the United Kingdom would be with us.

MARTHA KEARNEY:
During the course of the war, you certainly made clear your dislike of a number of Pentagon officials. You don't pull your punches. You talk about how you were not be treed by Chihuahuas, one of Donald Rumsfeld's aides you referred to as the dumbest effing guy on the planet. It seemed to be the people running the war seemed to be at war with themselves almost?

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS:
It is an interesting thing in that the Washington bureaucracy. I am sure that in London it is not at all like this. But from time to time, the Washington bureaucracy reminds me of cats fighting in a sack. I think we have seen that at all points of American history and perhaps elsewhere as well.

MARTHA KEARNEY:
There seem to be rows about the aftermath of the war. You said it was a question of spending dollars today, to avoid spending spilling blood tomorrow. Who do you blame for that?

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS:
The international community. I believe that the United States of America has been the lead effort for this coalition of 60 plus nations and I know you know that. There are 60 plus nations involved in the coalition. I think when it became necessary to rehire, if I can use the civilian term, to rehire this 250 to 300,000 man Iraqi army which had left their posts and melted away and had gone home, in the aftermath of major combat and I mean in the early days of May, the very best approach would have been to hire these people back and put them to work forming a new Iraq, and associating themselves with a post-Saddam regime.

MARTHA KEARNEY:
The biggest scandal in the aftermath of the war has to be the photographs in the Abu Ghraib prison. What was your own reaction when you saw those?

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS:
My reaction to the photographs coming out of Abu Ghraib I think was probably about the same as the reaction by everyone, whether it is in London, or Liverpool or in New York or in Dallas, Texas. That is tremendous disappointment, dissatisfaction, with the fact that these events had taken place. What I have told an awful lot of people in my own country and what I would share with you, Martha, is that I think this coalition, and the United States of America, are large enough, are big enough, to be able to say that ...these activities at Abu Ghraib do not comport with our sense of values, they don't align with our sense of what is important, or the way combatants are treated. At the same time, to say that we need to guard carefully, to be sure that the actions of a few do not taint the actions of so many tens of thousands of American troopers and British troopers and those of some 23 other countries, as they try to give Iraq a chance. It is 25, 26 million people in that country. Ultimately we want a democracy in Iraq.

MARTHA KEARNEY:
How long are we likely to see American troops in Iraq, when's a realistic exit date?

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS:
I think three to five years is what this process requires. I made the same comment concerning Afghanistan. In Afghanistan we're looking at maybe 2000 years of difficulty and it's going to take time to sort out. I think in Iraq, the total process until the Iraqis are firmly and fully in charge of their country, as they want to be, will be a three to five year process. That does not mean that we'll see a level of 10,000 Brits and 140,000 or so Americans for the next two to four years. That is not what it means. What it means is that each day the Iraqis will become better and better and more capable at controlling their own country. As that happens, I believe, we'll see fewer and fewer Americans and Brits and other members of the coalition. But in some form we're going to need to remain helpful to the Iraqis for the next two to four years.

MARTHA KEARNEY:
When it comes to the war against terror, Osama Bin Laden is still free, Mullah Omar is still free, high levels of terror alert in the United States and in Britain. Some people would say that the war in Iraq has actually made Britain and America more of a target. Do you think you made things worse?

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS:
The fact that we are targets is not, I think, a new phenomenon. The thing that's most important is that during the late 1990s and early into 2000 and 2001 there were sanctuaries for terrorists to operate in, in both Iraq and Afghanistan. That's a statement of fact. Now those sanctuaries don't exist. It's a healthy thing that we're able to do what I saw the Brits do today in getting inside an apparent Al-Qaeda plot in the United Kingdom. I've recently learned that also today we've seen something similar in Albany, New York. It's a good thing, not a bad thing.

MARTHA KEARNEY:
You said, I believe, you're leaning towards George Bush, are you going to let your cat out of the sack before the election?

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS:
For sure. I think I will for sure. I did say I'm leaning in the direction of George Bush. A lot of people have told me that my book, American Soldier, is very positive with respect to Bush. And what I've said is I have made positive comments in my book about his leadership. This has been a tough three years on the United States of America. And I think we've seen pretty good leadership through it.

MARTHA KEARNEY:
Sounds like a bit of an endorsement to me. General Tommy Franks thank you very much.

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS:
You're kind, thanks a lot.

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This transcript was produced from the teletext subtitles that are generated live for Newsnight. It has been checked against the programme as broadcast, however Newsnight can accept no responsibility for any factual inaccuracies. We will be happy to correct serious errors.