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Four days into the Iraq conflict, General Tommy Franks, head of U.S. Central Command, asked Lieutenant General John Abizaid to handle the day's televised war briefing. After all, he was second in command. But Abizaid didn't want to do it, preferring to be more workhorse than show horse. Franks had to order him in front of the cameras.
The spotlight is about to get a lot brighter. Abizaid is expected to be named one of the top military officials in postwar Iraq. He would still report to Franks, but he's likely to be the Pentagon's point man in Baghdad. After that, insiders predict Abizaid, 52, will become U.S. Army chief of staff.
By all accounts, Abizaid, a West Point grad, has the right stuff. He led an elite Army Ranger unit in 1983 in Grenada, and went on to dazzle the top brass with his ability to tame warring factions in Lebanon, secure northern Iraq after the first Gulf War, and oversee peacekeeping operations in Kosovo. "He not only has a muddy-boots pedigree but also has experience with high-level staff and political types," says retired Lieutenant General Ted Stroup, who has known Abizaid for 20 years. "He's got the skill and the capability to step into post-conflict reconstruction."
WARY WELCOME? While Abizaid hasn't revealed his post-war plans publicly, he has told colleagues that his first job is to stabilize Iraq -- and his second is to make a quick exit. He is likely to draw heavily on his peacekeeping experience after Gulf War I. With a bare-bones staff, he had to set up checkpoints, run war-gaming responses to potential confrontations, locate and clear away mines, and gather local intelligence.
A native of Coleville, Calif. (his grandparents emigrated from Lebanon in the 1880s), Abizaid is one of a few military officials who speaks fluent Arabic. He has extensive experience in the region. Besides helping establish a Kurdish autonomous zone in northern Iraq, Abizaid also instructed Jordanian special forces in the 1970s and spent time as an operations officer with a U.N. observer group in Lebanon in the 1980s. He also understands the region's history, earning a master's degree in Middle Eastern studies while at Harvard University and attending Amman's University of Jordan on a prestigious military scholarship.
His new Iraq assignment could be immeasurably harder. The military will be expected to protect aid workers, secure borders, find and destroy chemical and biological weapons, and convert Iraq's army to a civilian police force -- all the while, keep the country from descending into lawlessness.
OLD COMRADES. Arab experts warn that Iraqis will be suspicious of military leaders who stay behind. "It doesn't matter that he's of Arab descent," says Riad Kahwaji, chief executive of the Institute for Near East & Gulf Military Analysis, a Dubai think tank. "He's wearing a U.S. military uniform and is serving Bush." And even though he has commanded light infantry, heavy armored units, and paratroopers, Abizaid has never had to secure an entire country.
He'll have help from an old friend, however: Lieutenant General Jay Garner, who is about to become Iraq's civilian administrator. Abizaid served under Garner in 1991 in northern Iraq. Now, Garner is in charge of humanitarian aid, reconstruction projects, and the formation of a new government for Iraq, only this time he will be answering to Abizaid.
Before he arrived at Central Command in January, Abizaid was director of the Joint Staff, the powerful Pentagon office that coordinates the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Abizaid, in fact, was the subject of a tussle between Franks and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, each wanting Abizaid on his staff.
The whole world will be watching to see how Abizaid manages the delicate balance between keeping the peace and reassuring Iraqis that the U.S. military isn't an occupying force. While he has been known to tell reporters, "Keep me out of the headlines," he won't be able to avoid the spotlight any longer.
By Laura Cohn in Doha, Qatar
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