He is right, probably. Saddam Hussein's forces have put up a braver fight than anyone expected but there is no way an impoverished state without nuclear weapons can meet a full-scale invasion by the United States. That's why Iraq was chosen.
That statement makes it seems like Bush felt he needed to go to war with some country for political reasons and Iraq was week enough to be a good target. I think that idea is nonsense.
Iraq was "chosen" because it is run by an aggressive dangerous despot who has violated the cease fire agreement and UN resolutions for over a decade. It wasn't a case of having to find a country and choose it. The situation with Iraq and Saddam is the reason for the war. No other country could be "chosen" that would take care of that situation.
Also Iraq is not particularly week as far as countries go. Sure it is a lot weaker then the US but there are many countries militarily weaker then Iraq was at the beginning of this war. A lot more are weaker then stronger then pre war Iraq.
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I suppose the list of those that are stronger (in no particular order) might be US, USSR, China, UK, France, Germany, Italy, North Korea, South Korea, Iran, India, Pakistan, Israel.
Japan has more military potential and more powerful sea and air forces but I don't think it has a lot of heavy armor. It spends a lot more on its military and in many ways has more power but it could not have easily taken down Iraq without first building up its army even without political and legal restrictions getting in the way.
Taiwan might be consider more powerful but it also had less tanks, with more focus on air and naval forces.
Egypt and Syria would have to be considered at least in the neighborhood of Iraq's pre war military strength. Turkey, South Africa, Vietnam have decent military strength. Brazil, Argentina, and Poland all have at least potential strength.
Other then those I can't think of any country that is even close to what Iraq had. If we were looking to just take on a week country we could find plenty of other options. If we wanted to just grab oil, we could have grabbed Kuwait's during a long lunch break.
A US network fires a veteran reporter in Baghdad, New Zealander Peter Arnett, for stating the obvious on Iraqi television. Our Prime Minister is rebuked by the US Embassy for expressing, as she put it, the "bleedingly obvious".
The fact that everything has not gone 100% perfect is obvious but that is true of every war. Beyond that it wasn't so "bleedingly obvious" but if Arnett had said what he said on an American or British news channel then it would not have been such a big deal. By going on Iraqi TV and saying what he said he, intentionally or inadvertently made himself an arm of Iraqi propaganda effort.
Tim |
