Asheville citizens question Gulf War hawk on Iraq

By Eamon Martin

Asheville, North Carolina, Sept. 18 (AGR)— A standing-room-only crowd of nearly 300 people packed University of North Carolina’s Owen Conference Center on Monday night to hear retired Air Force Brigadier General C. Jerome Jones put forth his informed views about the “War Against Iraq – Who Will Decide? Who Will Fight? Who Will Win?”

Jones is distinct in that he’s not only Buncombe County assistant manager and tax department director, but also the former deputy director for strategy and policy to the US Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Defense Department during the Persian Gulf War. During his presentation, the retired general clearly enjoyed taking credit for helping design what he called “the first post-Cold war military strategy,” serving under then-Joint Chiefs chairman, Colin Powell.

The tenor of the crowd’s overwhelming concerns and suspicions about the launching of the US invasion of Iraq was made perfectly clear when Jones broke into his presentation with an upbeat pop poll.

“If the president has to go to war without the United Nations or without the majority of our allies, and without a resolution of Congress, how many of you would support that? Should we do that?” Jones asked.

The entire audience — of whom, over 80 percent were senior citizens — immediately responded with a resounding: “No.” When asked again if they’d support the invasion in the event those conditions were turned around, the house majority repeated their refusal.

“Well, these are decisions that, fortunately, most of us won’t have to make,” consoled the old hawk. Indeed, much of Jones’ talk seemed like a motivational attempt to allay public fears with confidence-building reassurances that, ultimately, the American people are in good hands, and in fact, are merely a tactical consideration in the affairs of state and “Republic.”

“The NSA is a very powerful organization,” he announced. “The good news is, for the most part — and I’m serious about this – staffers are very smart people.”

At times, the former top brass official seemed to display a certain, almost studied, public relations panache as he bobbed and weaved the audience members’ often challenging questions.

“You referred to the folks on the National Security Council as intelligent people,” pointed out audience member Dave MacDonovich. “At least the first three people [in the chain of command] have extreme interests in oil production and get paid for it. [National Security Adviser] Condoleeza Rice with Chevron, [Vice President Dick] Cheney with Halliburton, the whole Bush family – how can they make unbiased decisions?”

“I hope I did not say that they were not biased,” answered Jones. But, he assured the audience, “the military folks” on the National Security Council staff “are about as apolitical as you can be.”

“We have tens of thousands of our sons and daughters all over the world tonight, who are putting themselves in harms way, and they’re doing that so you and I can have this forum tonight,” Jones said with pride.

This statement provoked one audience member to retort: “They’re doing that so we can drive our cars.”

Jones suggested that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 were as much economically motivated as they were “psycho-socially.”

“The economy has lost over a trillion dollars since Sept. 11,” Jones said. “A lot of folks say that would have happened anyway – that didn’t cause it. But nevertheless, a lot of 401Ks aren’t as lucrative as they were. And a lot of folks are working a little, extra longer because they can’t retire now.”

Jones also suggested that Saddam Hussein would hold the US public hostage by withholding oil and by using “the instruments” of diplomacy “against us,” in order to defend his country.

“We don’t want to use those instruments,” the ex-general enthused. “We want to use the military instrument because it is hard and we can win with it.”

Other times Jones appeared to be caught off guard and made some remarkably frank admissions.

One UNCA student asked, “If Iraq wasn’t in such a position to siphon off the United States’ supply of oil, would we really care what kind of government they have and would we care how authoritarian or tyrannical that government might be?”

“I think it’s a great question,” he replied, and much to many people’s astonishment, Jones answered, “I think the answer is probably we wouldn’t care as much.”

Jones ended his presentation by pleasantly asserting that, from the military perspective, he thinks, “we’ll win,” and by urging the audience to “remember that it might be the right thing to do.”

World Affairs Council organizer Linda Cornet explained that this program was “really spontaneously arrived at” on the part of her group, the United Nations Association, and the International Studies department on the campus when they collectively discovered that “things are happening very fast. And we need to have a program where we can bring some expertise to this issue.”