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Tavis: General Anthony Zinni is the former Commander in Chief of U.S. Central Command, which made him responsible for all U.S. forces in a 25-country region, including the Middle East. Earlier in his career he served as a platoon commander who was wounded during his time in Southeast Asia. His new book is "The Battle for Peace, A Front-Line Vision of America's Power and Purpose.' General Zinni, an honor to have you on the program, sir.

Gen. Anthony Zinni: Thank you, Tavis.

Tavis: Let me start with this question, before I jump to the text here. There are those, I suspect, watching right now who, when reading the papers and watching news programs everywhere, you are ubiquitous right about now, certainly for your call for Secretary Rumsfeld's resignation. That said, let me start by asking you how do you respond to the critics, President Bush included, who have said during the Clinton years, more could have been done to handle this crisis. Specifically Mr. Bin Ladin himself. That if you guys had handled this and him then, we might not be in this mess now.

Zinni: Well, first of all, I'm not here, certainly, to defend the Clinton administration or any administration. It's not a political issue. The period during the Clinton administration was the enforcement of the U.N. resolution, which actually goes back to President Bush 41. President Bush 41 agreed to the U.N. resolution authorizing sanctions on Iraq and the enforcement of those sanctions.

So during the Clinton administration, they were enforcing the sanctions under United Nations resolution from the previous administration. As far as Bin Ladin goes, obviously Bin Ladin attacked the embassies in Nairobi and Dar Al-Salaam, the Clinton administration ordered several missile attacks that weren't effective.

The intelligence wasn't what it purported to be in either case, in either Afghanistan or Khartoum. I do believe more could have been done. I believe that we could have taken this fight to Osama Bin Ladin's back door. In central Asia and other places, where they were fighting the extremists coming out of Afghanistan, like in places like Uzbekistan, we could have done more to support them and perhaps the northern alliance.

Tavis: When you say take it to his back door, should I infer from that that we didn't have the option to take it to his front door, that is to say, to get the intelligence about where he was, and go take him out?

Zinni: That's true. The intelligence was always very sketchy. In the attacks on the camps after the bombing of our embassies, the best we could get was that there was a possibility he might be in those camps. We knew when we fired those missiles, if he wasn't there, it was gonna look like we just shot missiles into tents and other things. But you can't take the chance. If there was a 50/50 chance he might have been there, the decision to shoot those, I think, was the right one to do.

Tavis: Let me ask you one or two other questions right quick about Mr. Rumsfeld and about this administration before I get to the text. Because I will honestly tell you that you do have some ideas in here about how we battle for peace. I wanna get to the book, and not just, as everybody else has been talking about, what you've said about Rumsfeld.

But it's news, obviously. What is your primary disagreement based upon? Is it more tactical? That is, how we are going about it or not going about winning the so-called war on terror. Is it tactical or is it political?

Zinni: Well, certainly it's not political. I have no political aspirations. I happen to be a Republican. I'm honest and up front about my political stance. I felt that there was 10 years worth of planning. Ever since the end of the first Gulf War, we'd been looking at the eventuality and possibility of going into Iraq. The intelligence, the planning, the preparation, the immersion into the region and the culture, to understand what would happen if we went in, and what we would face.

And I felt that when the decision was made to go, which is the President's, it was done in a way that the planning was very poorly done, insufficient troops, determining that the exiles could be beamed in when we knew they weren't credible on the ground with the Iraqis. We put an ad hoc organization to run the aftermath reconstruction of a major nation, a traumatized nation.

A society that was gonna need a lot of effort. We did not secure the borders. We disbanded the army. We de-Baathified to the point where we alienated the Sunnis. We never built a program of economic development and other things to encourage the people. There was a whole series of these mistakes that should have been known.

Tavis: I'm looking at you from the front here, obviously, and I don't see wounds on the front. I really can't see your back. How's one holding up being a Republican, blasting the President and his Secretary Of Defense?

Zinni: Well, again, I told you my politics up front. I'm not a political person. I certainly have voted for people from either party in the years I was eligible to vote. I tend to look at the person, man or woman. Yeah, that tends to be my political leaning. But this is not a political issue with me. This administration was very good to me.

The President and Secretary Of State Colin Powell selected me to be the envoy to the Middle East. I felt that was a great honor. I can't say enough for the support I received from the President, the Vice President, and Secretary Of State during that mission. I felt disappointed I couldn't deliver what they wanted.

It was not for want of that support. I felt no bitterness towards this administration, just the opposite. So this particular thing that they undertook in Iraq, in my mind, was done in a way that I could see right from the beginning we were going to pay a price for that was going to damage our image, drain our treasure, and worst of all, harm and cause casualties to our young men and women.

Tavis: One last question before I get to the text. We've been reading so much about this. How does one, to the point you've just made now, as a general or any other officer, but certainly at your high rank, how does one have problems with what he or she is being told, what's being handed down to him or her, and not be able to say to the President or Defense Secretary, in a way you really want to say it, that this plan is pretty much stuck on stupid.

This ain't gonna work. I wouldn't do this if I were you. But then you have to go out and implement what they tell to you do anyway. Now, you're obviously retired now, you can say what you wanna say. But how does it feel when you're on the inside, and you can't say then what you're saying now?

Zinni: Well, you only have two choices on the inside. You either follow the orders or you resign or retire. And then, as you said, you're free to speak from the outside. But there are ways you can speak within the system. You saw General Shinseki answer the questions to Congress. We are confirmed by the Congress.

The Senate has to confirm our appointment to three and four-star general officer rank. And when you go to the Senate Armed Services Committee, they make you swear you will come and testify before them and answer the questions honestly, even if it is in opposition to administration policy. I worked for a Secretary Of Defense who disagreed with some of the points of view I had, but he wanted me and ensured that I gave those views honestly.

I'll give you just two short examples. He took me to Camp David once when I disagreed with an option that was voted on by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary Of Defense favored. I favored another option. It was on a strike in Iraq. The Secretary Of Defense could have easily said, 'I heard you. This is the decision.'

He said no, you have to go to Camp David where we're meeting with the President and the principals, the secretaries, and you need to give them your view. The second example is he took me on the Hill again on something we differed with, took me to see the Majority Leader of the Senate, the Minority Leader and the Speaker Of The House at the time to give a view.

Even though it was opposed to his view and the administration's view, because he felt it was important they heard all sides and heard the view of the combatant commander in this case.

Tavis: All right. Let me jump to the book now. You argue, really, two things that fascinate me in this book, and I suspect will fascinate readers, as well. And that is that there are really two ways to battle for peace, if I can just kind of cut to the chase here. The first is international cooperation, and the second is regional development. Let's take them one at a time. First of all, international cooperation. What are we doing wrong in this arena?

Zinni: Well, there's a whole series of things. We are not building the partnerships we need internationally. We have a United Nations that's in need of reform. Instead of throwing rocks at it, we should be working towards that reform. There are all sorts of international participants out there, political groups, nongovernmental organizations, aid organizations, that have the capability to reconstruct society, build rule of law, help develop their economic systems, political systems.

When you find these people out there, and we're committed. You find them on the battlefields. I found them in Somalia, Iraq, everywhere else. We don't work in partnership. We don't work together. We work sometimes at odds with each other.

Tavis: But when you're the world's superpower, you ain't gotta do that.

Zinni: Well, it would help, because somebody else can help foot the bill. It's burden-sharing. And somebody else, you may be playing to their strength. There are people out there, for example, that do mediation work. I've worked for some of the nongovernmental organizations. They have no political baggage. These are private groups that can do mediation.

They can come to the peace table. Neither side needs to fear that they have a vested interest in one side or another or a political agenda. Why not use them? It's much better than us trying to broker something that we can't.

Tavis: I, of course, General, was being facetious when I said when you're a superpower, you ain't gotta do that. On a serious note, beyond being facetious or funny, attempt at being funny, beyond that, your suggestion, although well intentioned and certainly well taken by me, suggests you have to have folk in power who care about what other people think.

Is it your sense we aren't doing it, not just because we are the most powerful, the biggest and the baddest, this imperial empire. Or along with that, we just don't care what they think, and so we don't feel the need to have to work with you?

Zinni: I don't feel that way. I really feel the system is broken. As I say in the book, we have bloated bureaucracies. We have this patronage system. We saw the effects of Katrina and FEMA, where we put people in position without the experience and knowledge. A system of pork and earmarks where our Treasury goes off to build bridges to nowhere.

Anybody that comes in that wants to learn about the world, wants to understand it, wants to do something to change the areas that cause those problems is trapped in a bad system. I think in the last three administrations, since the end of the Cold War, we've had good people trapped in a bad system.

Tavis: Second issue, regional development. Talk to me.

Zinni: Well, let's take Darfur, for example. You see the African Union there. African Union trying to resolve the issues in Darfur, in over their heads. Help build the capacity. Let them put the boots on the ground. They may need the logistics, the support, the transportation, the training. But what we find ourselves is we don't support regional organizations. We wait until the crisis is so massive, has global impact. Then we throw ourselves into it, usually our military.

Tavis: Let me ask you, to that point, the last part about the military. Looking a little farther out, tell me what you see for how we are going to be challenged or quite frankly not just challenged, but forced to reformulate how it is that our military does business as a military power around the world? What are we going to have to change about the way we do business militarily?

Zinni: We have to come to a basic decision. What do we want our military to do? Is it just to fight our nation's battles in sort of the conventional, traditional sense? Do we want our military to be involved in nation building, humanitarian peacekeeping operations, protecting the environment, countering drugs, protecting our borders?

That's a big decision. The military's a very expensive taxpayer burden that we have. It's necessary for our defense. Do we want it to do more? Because if we do, then it needs to do the training, organizing, and equipping for those missions, as well. They can't do it today as an additional duty or secondary duty.

Tavis: As a representative of the United States military, in all of these places you have gone over the years, have you felt respect for you and your comrades as part of the military, going down over the years?

Zinni: No, I wouldn't say that. Actually, the military to military relationships always remained strong. Sometimes they're the only connection. Like with Pakistan, for example, in my time. General Musharraf and I had the only connection U.S. to Pakistan. And we had to play that card several times where he helped us take down some terrorist groups and have access to them.

Military to military, the respect is there. Especially if we'd been educated together; we trained together; we'd been on battlefields together. Take the French, for example. I've been in two conflicts with French legionnaires and soldiers and marines. Greatest respect for each other. Now, our politicians have issue with each other, maybe our people. But not on a military-to-military basis.

Tavis: Let me ask you in just a few seconds here, and you've written the whole book about it. What is the first step we need to take as a nation if we are going to get on the battle for peace and not the battle for power?

Zinni: Take a deep breath, take a look at this world for what it is, and try to understand it. That's the first step.

Tavis: General Tony Zinni. The new book, "The Battle for Peace." You've been seeing him, of course, and hearing him, and reading about him all across the country with regard to his suggestion that Secretary Rumsfeld should resign. You've seen the President's response to that, and for that matter, the Secretary's.

What you have not been hearing about is what is actually in this book, about how we, in fact, do battle for peace. How we find our vision, our power, and our purpose. I highly recommend it. General Zinni, nice to have you on the program.

Zinni: Thank you, Tavis, appreciate it.

Tavis: Glad to have you here. Up next on this program, a unique look at Afghanistan, speaking of which. Stay with us.