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| A new willingness 'to sacrifice lives' |
 MacKenzie |
Ex-general Lewis Mackenzie anticipates the U.S. would employ ground forces in an attack on terrorists
By JEREMY SANDLER
The Vancouver Sun, September 14, 2001
Striking back against terrorists worldwide will be much different after Tuesday's attacks in the United States, former Canadian general Lewis Mackenzie said Thursday.
Mackenzie said the U.S. and possibly
its allies, will perhaps be now willing to sacrifice the lives of soldiers to accomplish their goals instead of relying on air raids and bomb attacks that don't put as many lives at risk, but do reduce military efficiency.
"If your way of life is threatened, as it was in World War One and World War Two, then we're prepared to sacrifice our sons and daughters in uniform, and that situation exists now, at least it certainly exists for the American forces," he said in an interview. "[Now] you can postulate military intervention that in fact would generate casualties, unlike previous recent conflicts."
Mackenzie, who led United Nations troops in Bosnia in 1992, said counter attacks will likely come in phases.
"There are two agendas here," he said. "First, there is a requirement to respond to satisfy the domestic audience, and it's not just the American audience, but the western audience. And that means something relatively fast."
Mackenzie said in 1998, after U.S. embassies in eastern Africa were bombed, the U.S. reply of missile attacks on pharmaceutical manufacturers in Khartoum, Sudan was "knee-jerk" and embarrassing.
He said an experienced military man like U.S. State Secretary Colin Powell, also a general and the chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, will counsel against a too-quick reaction that would be unlikely to accomplish much.
He added that any sustained invasion would take a staff of 600 about three weeks to plan, involve billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of people, and require the U.S. to isolate a country diplomatically, financially, and militarily.
"There's lots of punishment before you launch the military," he said.
Finding a base from which to launch any prospective ground attack is also a key problem, whether the target is Afghanistan or, as Mackenzie would prefer, Iraq.
"Somewhere, if you're going to go in and take them out with a ground force, you have to be able to put that force inside and make sure that they don't have a chance to defend against your invasion by using air and sea resources or whatever," Mackenzie said. "If you were going to invade Afghanistan, for example, about your only option is Pakistan. No matter what the military leader in Pakistan says about supporting the American, he doesn't control the western part of Pakistan. That's Dodge City there and that's why bin Laden and his boys use that as a cross border location."
Mackenzie
said Canada has a limited ability to contribute, but a failure to do so would
remove it as any kind of player on the international stage.