Commander's background a strength

Commander's background a strength

US LIEUTENANT GENERAL
By Anne Barnard and Neil Swidey
Globe Staff, 3/27/2003

CAMP AS SAYLIYAH, Qatar -- Lieutenant General John P. Abizaid presents himself as a soldier's soldier.

He demurs when asked about diplomatic issues, saying, ''I'm a soldier, and I do my best.'' He mixes combat credentials with modesty, reportedly refusing to see ''Heartbreak Ridge,'' in which Clint Eastwood reenacts one of his battlefield exploits. And he soberly describes the US-led coalition attacking Iraq as the most powerful military force ''ever put together on the planet of the Earth.''

But the deputy commander of US forces in Iraq also has more unusual attributes: A master's degree in Middle Eastern studies from Harvard University. A command of Arabic. Experience in Jordan and northern Iraq. And an Arab-American background.

On Sunday, in his first public appearance during a war that is severely straining US-Arab relations, Abizaid went out of his way to signal his personal and professional ties to the region.

Asked if antiwar anger would strain US military alliances with Arab states, he gave reporters a personal answer. ''I would say, as a person who has studied the Arab world and loves the Arab world, that the majority of educated Arabs that I talk to know that Saddam Hussein has been a plague on the Arab world and on his own people,'' he said. ''They welcome his removal.''

Military officials say General Tommy R. Franks chose Abizaid as his deputy more for his reputation as a disciplined, thorough strategist and experienced commander from Grenada to Kosovo than for his ethnicity or fluency in Arabic. But his knowledge of the region and ability to communicate have led to speculation that he could play a leading role in an occupied Iraq.

''If he had been Polish, he would have been the right choice,'' a senior defense official said on condition of anonymity. ''That he was a scholar who trained in Jordan and is of Arabic descent just makes it that much better.''

Abizaid is not well known in the Arab media, and he has declined interviews since joining US Central Command's forward headquarters here in January as deputy commander.

And Abizaid's background -- his grandparents emigrated from Lebanon -- would not necessarily win him points with the Arab public. ''They don't care if the next American running Iraq is an American Arab,'' said Ahmed Samir, a correspondent for Abu Dhabi Television. ''Because finally, he is American.''

But for some Middle East scholars, Abizaid's appointment was a relief. Nadav Safran, 77, was the director of Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies when Abizaid was in a master's program there in the early 1980s. He never forgot him. When he heard about Abizaid's appointment, he fished out a copy of Abizaid's 100-page paper on defense policy for Saudi Arabia, the only paper he kept by a master's student.

''It was abolutely the best seminar paper I ever got in my 30-plus years at Harvard,'' said Safran, a professor emeritus. Despite his deep concerns about the war, Safran said that after rereading the paper, ''I slept better that night, knowing that he is where he is.''

Abizaid, 51, was raised in Coleville, Calif., mostly by his widowed father. He graduated from West Point in 1973 and went to study Arabic in Jordan, where he ended up training with special forces. In 1983, he jumped from a helicopter onto a landing strip in Grenada and ordered one of his rangers to drive a bulldozer like a tank toward Cuban troops as he advanced behind it -- a move highlighted in the 1986 Eastwood film. He served as an operations officer for the UN Observer Group in Lebanon, and after the 1991 Gulf War, worked to provide a haven for Kurds in northern Iraq. In 1997, he became commandant of cadets at West Point, where he reined in hazing rituals such as ''blood branching,'' in which senior cadets have the brass insignias of their future Army units pinned into their flesh. Moving up the military hierarchy, from European command to the Pentagon, Abizaid won a reputation for strong leadership.

Just before his move to Central Command, Abizaid was director of the Joint Staff, the Pentagon's top planning group.Abizaid handled the media briefing the day after the coalition's worst day in the war, following mishaps from friendly fire to ambushes. Observers said his confident performance was typical. He scolded Al-Jazeera for airing what he called ''disgusting'' pictures of dead and captured US soldiers. But he rebuffed another reporter who pushed him to declare the Qatar-based network an enemy: ''I don't regard any media as hostile media.''

And asked if the operation had turned out to be ''significantly more difficult than you might have hoped,'' he had a one-word answer: ''No.''

Barnard reported from Qatar; Swidey from Boston. Robert Schlesinger of the Globe staff contributed from Washington.