Sicilian Culture: News: Zinni Has Strong Ties in Mideast

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Zinni Has Strong Ties in Mideast
By Matt kelly

WASHINGTON (AP) - With his burly frame and no-nonsense demeanor, Anthony Zinni looks every bit the Marine Corps four-star general he once was. But during negotiations between bitter rivals, Zinni is less inclined to knock heads than to craft thoughtful, realistic compromises, say those who know him.
``His physical appearance probably conveys a message that he uses to his advantage. He's a very forceful speaker,'' said Jay Farrar, a former Pentagon and National Security Council official now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. ``He's also very pragmatic and down to earth. At the end of the day, that's what helps him in the diplomatic process.''
Secretary of State Colin Powell on Monday named Zinni as his special adviser in the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. Zinni has strong ties to the region, having served there for nearly a decade, including four years as the top U.S. military commander in the area.
To prepare for that job as head of the U.S. Central Command, Zinni studied Arabic as well as Middle East history and politics, and traveled extensively through the region meeting military and political leaders. Many of the lower-level people Zinni befriended in the 1990s have more senior posts now.
Zinni also helped Ethiopia and Eritrea try to resolve a border dispute that led to a war and oversaw the U.S. military's 1995 withdrawal from Somalia - where fighters allegedly linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network shot down two U.S. helicopters and killed 18 American soldiers in 1993.
He also commanded the operation that fired Tomahawk cruise missiles on al-Qaida training camps and a factory in Sudan after the 1998 embassy bombings in east Africa. Critics say the Sudanese facility may not have been a chemical weapons factory, as the United States claimed, and the missiles did little more than harden bin Laden's anti-American views.
People trust Zinni because he's a straight shooter who keeps his word and expects everyone else to do so, Farrar said.
``He's also not naive. He understands that the American point of view is not the only point of view, that other perspectives have to be taken into account,'' Farrar said.
Zinni grew up in a working-class suburb of Philadelphia, the son of an Italian immigrant who got U.S. citizenship by serving in the military. He enlisted in the Marines while in college at Villanova, and was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1965.
In 1967, he served a tour in Vietnam as a liaison with the South Vietnamese Marines. He returned to Vietnam as a company commander in 1970, earned two Bronze Star medals and was wounded in a firefight.
Zinni has said his experience in Vietnam taught him that communicating goals clearly is vital. His commanders could never give a good answer when he asked what America's objective in Vietnam was, Zinni said in a 1998 interview.
``I promised myself after that I would always explain to the troops why we were doing what we were doing and I would never accept a mission or a tasking that I didn't feel was right or that I couldn't understand,'' Zinni said.
Zinni aides did not respond to a request for an interview Monday.
While in the military, Zinni also earned master's degrees in management and international relations, and taught tactics and other courses to junior officers.
Zinni oversaw several operations against Iraq in the wake of the Gulf War, further expanding his expertise in messy, unconventional modern warfare.
He also embraced his dual role as diplomat and military commander at Central Command in an era that saw the U.S. regional commanders gain nearly unprecedented power as representatives of U.S. foreign policy.
``If you constrain yourself to military thinking and military learning, you're going to be fairly narrow,'' Zinni said in 1998. ``More and more, senior officers have to be a blend of diplomat, statesman, humanitarian.''

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