“What will win the global war on terrorism will be people that can cross the cultural divide, reach out to those who want our help, and figure out how to make it happen so [those people] can help themselves. That is how we will win this thing,” continued Gen. Abizaid



“What will win the global war on terrorism will be people that can cross the cultural divide, reach out to those who want our help, and figure out how to make it happen so [those people] can help themselves. That is how we will win this thing,” continued Gen. Abizaid

USCENTCOM Commander calls DLI, NPS “national treasures”

Commander of global war on terrorism testifies before Congressional committee

(Mar. 5, 2004 Washington, D.C.) - In testimony before the House Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee on Wednesday, Gen. John P. Abizaid, the commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), pronounced the Defense Language Institute, the Naval Postgraduate School and other military educational institutions “national treasures.”

“I learned how to speak Arabic [at DLI] and I would not be able to do my job as well as I do today without having had that opportunity. It not only made me understand the culture better, but it has given me an opportunity to talk to people that might otherwise be inaccessible to me,” said Gen. Abizaid during the hearing.

When Congressman Sam Farr (CA-17) advised Gen. Abizaid that the now King Abdullah of Jordan attended NPS’s Defense Resources Management Institute, Gen Abizaid responded, “This ability to cross the cultural divide is not an Army issue. It is a national issue. We have to be able to deal with the people in the rest of the world as the globe shrinks in terms of communication and problem solving and sharing. So this notion of…training and educating people here in the US, of having the institutions that do it…is just so essential.”

“What will win the global war on terrorism will be people that can cross the cultural divide, reach out to those who want our help, and figure out how to make it happen so [those people] can help themselves. That is how we will win this thing,” continued Gen. Abizaid. “So we ignore the DLIs and other institutions of military education at our own peril. I very much ask [this] committee to continue to keep those places functioning, because they are national treasures.”

Gen. Abizaid spoke in agreement with a statement by Rep. Farr about the importance of academic military institutions like DLI and NPS. “As [Gen. Abizaid’s] testimony pointed out today,…though some of these training institutions, which are academic, do not get that high visibility when it comes to mission readiness, linguistic mission readiness, technology mission readiness, international training mission readiness and education mission readiness, but are just as crucially important to the finality of your mission, so you can leave an area better than you found it,” said Farr.

CENTCOM is one of nine Unified Combatant Commands that direct U.S. combat forces. As the commander of CENTCOM, Gen. Abizaid, reports directly to the Secretary of Defense and his area of responsibility stretches from the Horn of Africa to Central Asia, including the Middle East. In 2001 there were 20,000 people in CENTCOM , now there are 220,000.