Hi all; Experts agree, War in Iraq sucks:
Experts Question Depth of Victory
Washington Post, June 27, 2003
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"I thought we were holding our own until this week, and now I'm not sure," said retired Air Force Col. Richard M. Atchison, a former intelligence officer for the Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East. "If we don't get this operation moving soon, the opposition will continue to grow, and we will have a much larger problem."
Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency expert on Arab military issues, said, "There are a lot of worrisome aspects about the current situation. Resistance is spreading geographically, resistance groups seem to be proliferating in Sunni areas, resistance elements appear to be tactically adaptive, resistance elements appear to be drawn from multiple elements of Sunni society, our operations inevitably create animosity by inflicting civilian casualties, disrupting lives, humiliating people and damaging property."
Because the war was so narrowly focused on Hussein's government in Baghdad, a large part of the Iraqi population does not feel as if it was defeated, said retired Army Col. Scott R. Feil. "As I heard one Iraqi say, the Americans defeated Saddam, but not the Iraqi people, so the psychology of the loser is not present," he said.
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In addition, some analysts said, the relatively small size of the U.S. invasion force may be a source of some of the postwar chaos, because it has proven inadequate to the task of occupying the country. "We're winning, I think, but it has taken longer than it might have because the occupation force really wasn't large enough," said Thomas Donnelly, a defense expert at the American Enterprise Institute who is now in Baghdad. "I don't think the outcome will be much different, but still it's taken longer and introduces an element of doubt."
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"Over the next months, I expect a vicious cycle in which force-protection measures will alienate the population and create more opposition to the occupation, with rising casualties," said Laurence Pope, a retired State Department expert on the Arab world who served as a political adviser at the Central Command.
Retired Marine Gen. Carlton Fulford was even gloomier, predicting "a long, tough haul in Iraq."
"The longer this goes on, the more violent these events will become," said Fulford, a former deputy commander of U.S. forces in Europe. "We learned this in Lebanon and Somalia -- and Iraq is much more challenging than either of these."
washingtonpost.com
-- Carl
P.S. Compare, losers:
Bilow, March 5, 2003
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We have enough to conquer Baghdad, but as far as keeping Iraq under military control in the face of a hostile civilian population, we are woefully undermanned. Here's proof, from the military itself:
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Iraq has a population of 24 million. Using the 20 per 1000 ratio that Britain used in bringing Northern Ireland under control, the US will need an occupation force of 480,000. Oh, and those are Army forces, you don't get to count the Air Force or Navy, and in the event of ongoing terrorism (i.e. the Israeli experience) they could get stuck there for years. And only then, after tens of thousands of body bags, we retreat with our tails between our legs, having relearned the lesson that our fathers learned in Korea and Vietnam -- don't get involved in land wars in Asia unless you can get some other party to supply the cannon fodder. #reply-18657926
Bilow, March 5, 2003
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The Japanese situation is not similar to the Iraq one because by the end of WW2 the Japanese had been so severely defeated, with so many military and civilian deaths, that they were not in the mood to continue fighting. The same was true of the Germans at the end of that war. Iraq is a different kettle of fish. A war with Iraq would be very short and very few Iraqis would be killed. That situation tends to leave the defeated population uncowed, and willing to continue the fight. This fact is a universal tendency of humankind, but if you believe that the Arabs are "special", you can look to the history that Israel has had with them to verify the fact that defeating them militarily will not subdue them. History shows that the resistance to Israeli forces has increased with time, rather than decline as the Japanese example would suggest.
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