Hi Nadine Carroll; Re: "I heard almost nothing about troop movements into Afghanistan until the bombing began."
While your statement is literally true, it's misleading in that the fact is that the invasion of Afghanistan required no "troop movements into Afghanistan", except a few special forces.
But you're missing the point. It was obvious to all of us that a war was on its way as early as the morning of September 11th. Right now it is not so obvious with Iraq, which is why we're discussing this. So I suppose that what you're really saying is that you saw no obvious precursors to the US attack on the Taliban that began on October 7th, 2001. We've been discussing this in reference to my figures showing the reserves being demobilized. The historical record is that the reserves were called up on September 14th:
The Pentagon has announced that after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's request for authorization to activate up to 50,000 National Guard and Reserve troops, and President's Bush's approval, U.S. military planners have assigned allotments for 35,500 of them.
cnn.com
The President's speech on the subject:
whitehouse.gov
And the US response to Afghanistan is not a model for an attack on Iraq. The Afghanistan conflict required almost no ground forces, and the ground forces that were required were Special Forces type stuff that is always ready. Invading Iraq, because of the absence of a force on the ground that we can arm, will require far more ground presence than Afghanistan. That will require that far more reserves be called up. As I've shown, the number of reserves called up in the first gulf war is much, much, much larger than the maximum called up for Afghanistan. In short, an attack on Iraq will be more similar to the Kuwaiti liberation, and less similar to the Afghanistani liberation.
Re: "You never answered my question -- what's the lead time for mobilizing the reserves?"
The lead time for mobilizing the reserves is a few days. But that doesn't apply here, and you know it. Even after the reserves are mobilized a real shooting war (for the ground forces) is months away.
I'd like to note that I've got you on record as saying that the war with Iraq will begin by April. My expectation is that in April you will be saying that the war will start in October (2003).
-- Carl
P.S. I find it interesting that when Bush says that the regime in Iraq must change you conclude that he is telling the truth, and that he will invade Iraq, but when he says that he will consult with his allies, and that no decision has yet been made, you conclude that he is lying in order to deceive the enemy. This is an example of selective perception. |
