denbeste says war starts Sunday(maybe)
denbeste.nu
Regarding the emergency three-way summit in the Azores, some of the early reports in the news said that it was going to be Blair's attempt to talk sense to Bush and to try to extend talks with the UN even further, but it's clear now that was wishful thinking. They're going to pull the trigger; the diplogame is over and war will start very soon.
I've seen two news reports which strongly suggest to me that the decision has been taken. The first is one regarding Turkey from this morning which says that Erdogan is delaying a decision about American troops for another week, and which includes the following:
A senior U.S. official said Washington has now retracted its offer to give Turkey $15 billion in economic aid if it allowed the U.S. deployment. "The package was time-bound and we have moved on time-wise," the official said on condition of anonymity.
If they were willing to delay another couple of weeks, they might have been willing to keep jacking around with the Turkish government. But it's clear that they're not, and that they've given up on trying to get any cooperation from there.
Another indication of that is a report that a lot of our ships have moved from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. They're part of the screen from the USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Harry S. Truman battle groups. This is not something they do lightly, and it's not something they are willing to do for long periods. Reportedly ten of them were going to make the move, and that would mostly strip the carriers of their primary anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense.
The ships in question (subs and destroyers) are all armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles and would be expected to be among those launching the initial mass barrage which will signal the beginning of the primary phase of combat. It had been hoped that their missiles could fly a path over Turkish air space, but now it's clear that we don't expect to be permitted to use it, so the reason they've moved to the Red Sea is so that they can shoot across Saudi Arabia. As soon as they've done so, they'll move back to the Med to rejoin their carriers. (The news article speculates that instead the carriers would join them, but I don't believe they'd move separately if the entire battle group was redeploying.)
What both of these strongly suggest is that we've given up on any hope of Turkish cooperation, either for ground troops or for use of airspace, and aren't going to wait any longer.
The Brits are trying to lay the groundwork at home for this, with increasing warnings that the chance of avoiding war is declining. I think they're trying to minimize the anger and disruption once it's announced, and they're also trying to lay blame on the French.
And reports from elsewhere are strongly suggestive. Germany has told its citizens to leave Iraq, as has Spain. The admiral in charge of the USS Abraham Lincoln battle group just held a major meeting with the crew of the carrier and reporters on the ship were pointedly told they were not welcome at it. Two of them who tried to crash the meeting were escorted away. It's hard to avoid the suspicion that he was telling the crew that war was coming, and didn't want the press to know. (Ordinarily a carrier deploys for six months. USS Lincoln has been at sea for 8 months; its deployment was extended in case it was needed for war. USS Nimitz has been ordered to the region and probably will replace USS Lincoln when it arrives, but that won't happen for a while yet. When the men are tired, and when they don't know when they'll go home, morale can suffer and I think the admiral was giving them a pep talk and telling them what was about to happen.)
What I'm expecting is that tomorrow Aznar, Blair and Bush will meet, talk, and then collectively announced that they're withdrawing the UNSC resolution. Then Bush and Blair will both announce the beginning of hostilities, possibly to coincide with the beginning of the bombing.
I've always expected that Bush and Blair would both announce the beginning of the war together. I actually had thought it was going to happen when Blair visited Bush in Washington in late January, but several British readers pointed out that having Blair announce war from Washington would be a major political gaffe.
So if they need to stand next to each other when making the announcement, then having both of them travel to a neutral location is the best choice, and it is noteworthy that this is the first such major meeting at a neutral location in Bush's presidency so far as I know. The Azores belong to Portugal, which will not be present at the meeting. And there's an American air base there, which can provide security; it's a very good choice on all accounts.
Will the bombing start tomorrow? I think it will. One possibility is that they might announce something like a 72-hour deadline for Saddam to go into exile, probably in the forlorn hope of goading forces in Iraq into a coup attempt. But if there were any chance of a coup, I think we'd already have seen it. And the chance of Saddam leaving is nil.
I don't believe they'll do so, because the risk is too high in other ways. It would give our opponents around the world one last chance to toss sand in the gears. Such a deadline would telegraph the blow to Saddam, and give him the chance to trigger any scorched-earth plans he's made while his communications are still intact, not to mention making any preemptive attacks against our troops while they're still concentrated. So I don't think they'll do it; what I think is that the announcement will come late in the day, when it's night in Iraq, and will coincide with the first wave of missile strikes (which will in part target Saddam's military communications and WMD delivery systems).
Which means that I think the decision for war has already been made. I think the decision was made about three days ago. The meeting tomorrow is pro forma to announce the decision in a way which is politically most advantageous, and they'll talk in private because it is expected that they do so. (Besides, there definitely is a lot to talk about.) Then they will emerge, with grave looks on their faces, and announce that there's no further hope of either peace or a security council resolution, and announce the beginning of the war.
And then all that the rest of us can do is to wait, and worry, and hope, and pray if you got 'em.
A lot of people are going to die in the next week. All we can hope is that the cost is low. |
