Pace: Will of American People is Enemy’s ‘Center of Gravity’

American Forces Press Service ^ | Jim Garamone

[SandRat]

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24, 2006 – The American people will make the right decisions in Iraq if they understand what’s at stake in the war on terror, the top U.S. military general said here today.

“Baghdad is the center of gravity in Iraq, and the American people are the center of gravity for our enemies,” Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a Pentagon news conference.

In military terms, an opponent's “center of gravity” is what prevents a force from accomplishing its objectives. For the United States, Baghdad is the most important city in Iraq and one that other sections in Iraq will follow. It is the center of gravity for the fight against terrorism in the country, he said.

The will of the American people to carry on the war on terror prevents the enemy from meeting its objective; it is the enemy’s center of gravity, Pace said.

He said Americans may be getting an overly pessimistic view of the war in Iraq. “If you go back to the beginning of this war, you remember we had 24-7 coverage of the war,” he said. “Any citizen who wanted to could avail themselves of as much information as they wanted to and come to their own decision about what we were doing right and what we were doing wrong.”

But as time went on, other stories crowded out this 24-7 coverage. News is a business, Pace said, and time, column inches and Internet space went to other stories. “So the time that's allocated ends up being allocated to the things that go ‘bang’ -- not the schools that are being built, not the girls that are going to go to school, not the highways that are being built, not the crops that are being grown, not the agreements that are being made politically, but the bombs that have been going off is what's being shown,” he said.

Pace said he believes that as a military leader, it is his responsibility to answer questions “so the American people can listen to my answers and answers from others and questions from others, from both sides of the problem, so they can make their own judgment.”

If leaders make that information available to the American people, they will find the right center of balance and make the right decision, he said.

Pace said he has confidence that America will choose wisely.

[SandRat]

[SandRat]

FR WAR NEWS!

WAR News You'll Hear Nowhere Else!

All the News the MSM refuses to use!

[jwalsh07]

The General has a tough road to hoe. Afghanistan, Iraq and North Korea and Iran are tough but biggest problem is the fifth column here in the good ole USA, that being the MSM.

[Axhandle]

This is encouraging. The General has identified the friendly and enemy centers of gravity and Bush recently began consulting with the Generals regarding how to go about winning in Iraq.

[Freee-dame]

biggest problem is the fifth column here in the good ole USA, that being the MSM.

...with the help of Senators who hate President Bush more than they love America. They are so stupid. They seem to think that if we cut and run like we did in VietNam, the enemy might stay there and kill Iraqis, but won't come after us. The world has changed. Did they forget nine eleven? Since the MSM won't show it, perhaps they have.

[pollyannaish]

Does Pace have any political ambitions?

[SandRat]

Not that I've heard about.

[pollyannaish]

Huh. I really like him. He'd be a heck of a candidate and he seems to be a very effective communicator.

[oceanview]

wasn't it the Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis who coined the phrase

"JUST WIN BABY"

that's all Pace needs to know about what a majority of the american people want. they don't want endless stalemate, they will accept a tough fight if they see progress towards victory.

Pace should rent Patton and listen to the opening segment every night:

"Americans love a winner, and will not tolerate a loser"

[El Gato]

related Article http://www.defenselink.mil/News/NewsArticle.aspx?id=1810

---

Pace Confident Americans Will Grasp Nature of Terrorist Threat
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service


WASHINGTON, Oct. 24, 2006 – The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff today expressed confidence that the American people will unite to defeat the terrorist threat once they see it for what it is.
At a Pentagon news conference, Marine Gen. Peter Pace said he is not “discouraged or disappointed” with the situation in Iraq and that the United States faces a long fight against an enemy that wants to destroy the American way of life.

The terrorist enemy has a 100-year plan, the chairman noted. “They've told us they want to go and establish a caliphate from Spain to Indonesia, and from there they want to attack the rest of the free world,” Pace said.

He said the terrorists have been at war with the United States since the late 1970s. Americans didn’t realize this until Sept. 11, 2001. “We're in this war primarily right now in Iraq and in Afghanistan, but when we are complete and successful in assisting the Iraqi government and in assisting the Afghan government, we are still … going to face decades of individuals and cells and groups that want to destroy our way of life,” he said.

The United States can handle this, the chairman said. “We as a nation have capacity to do whatever we need to do for the long haul to protect our children and our grandchildren. We've proved it against the Soviet Union,” he said.

Once Americans understood the nature of the Soviet threat, they worked together to provide the right resources and the determination to protect the country, Pace said, adding that it didn’t matter what party was in the White House.

He said the same will happen once Americans understand the nature of the enemy confronting the nation today. “I have great faith in the balance of the American people, and I take great comfort in knowing that as we are able to articulate what this threat is really about, that the American people will continue to stand side by side and behind us, and that we will be given the resources … to fight this war,” the chairman said.

“I am not looking forward to decades of having to be vigilant,” he said, “but I am looking forward to my grandkids living in the same United States that I grew up in.”



Pace Bio
http://www.defenselink.mil/Bios/BiographyDetail.aspx?BiographyID=85

[mrsmith]

They attacked our "center of gravity" during the 04 election campaign too. This time it seems to be having more effect.

US Casualties (combined wounded and killed) in Iraq compared for election and off-election years:

Aug-03 216 Sep-03 278 Oct-03 457 Nov-03 418

Aug-04 961 Sep-04 787 Oct-04 711 Nov-04 1566

Aug-05 626 Sep-05 594 Oct-05 701 Nov-05 483

Aug-06 647 Sep-06 847 Oct 08 ???

http://icasualties.org/oif/

[Axhandle]

Casualties, as opposed to KIAs, is misleading. A casualty can be just about anything - significant or insignificant. I know a lot of guys who have purple hearts for wounds that I am unaware of. And I know guys who have a purple heart for losing a couple of limbs. It's tough to made any judgments from figures on "casualties".

[zarf]

Bush had 3 years to get it done or risk losing support. I don't think that's an unreasonable request. So far the people have been pretty damned patient.

Politics sometimes dictates the strategic decisions made in wartime....not always for the worse. If politics requires a faster withdrawl than anticipated, perhaps the American people know something the generals don't.

The generals aren't necessarily always right.

[mrsmith]

I think casualties have the closest statistical association with the level of enemy attacks because there are enough of them to smooth over random events. Our KIA, thank God, are too few to do so.
Unfortunately, the site I used does not say if they include wounds from non-combat accidents.

[redlegplanner]

I am not sure that 3 years is a long time. To put it in context, this war will probably take somewhere between the length of the cold war (1946 - 1989, 43 years) and Indian Wars (1622 - 1890, 281 years) to win. Hold our nerve and we will be fine.
WRT the general's competence, the same can be said about brain surgeons, but if I am going under the knife, I'll bet on the educated, experienced fellow instead of vinnie bagohdonuts off the street. I know Vinnie may have seen a TV show, a movie, or even listened to katie couric expound on war, but I still somehow feel safer with the doc.

[Jim Noble]

The will of the American people is not adequate for long-term pacification adventures in the barbaric regions of the world.

Win and come home. That's our deal.

[Axhandle]

So far the people have been pretty damned patient.

For the majority of the people, I would characterize it as complacent, indifferent, and muted. The left has been working feverishly for 3 years to stir them up - or at least get them interested. The right has been reacting to the left. To me, patience assumes that the majority of people cared to begin with. I don't think that most people care about much more than what clothes they're going to buy/wear, what car they're going to buy/drive, what TV show they're going to watch, how little labor they can perform at work for how much money they can get, and, most importantly, the speed and volume of their gratifications.

Most people know that there is some fighting going on in Iraq, but few understand why or how it could affect them. And, to quote Don Imus, who I think is a charicature of the typical average buffoon, "if it doesn't affect me, then why should I care?"

[OkiMusashi]

Here's the entire transcript of Pace's briefing. Worth a look, imo.

http://www.defenselink.mil/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=3765