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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: Sam who wrote (116051)10/1/2003 10:08:40 PM
From: Bilow  Read Replies (1) of 281500
 
Hi Sam; Re: article "Musharraf cannot guarantee loyalty of Pak troops if deployed in Iraq"

The sad fact is that no one can guarantee the loyalty of Iraqi troops if deployed in Iraq, at least if "loyalty" is defined as loyalty to the wishes of the United States.

The administration has painted itself into a corner. They rejected the concept of letting the UN run Iraq and thereby eliminated the chance that anyone else would send significant numbers of troops. But the occupation needs about 500,000 and the US doesn't have enough.

So in the usual technique of the "hope mode" presidency, Bush is going for the same plan that failed in Vietnam: to turn over responsibility for operations to the locals. The problem is, in fact, considerably worse than Vietnam because the locals in Vietnam actually had a fair amount of fondness for us. The Iraqis, in a recent Gallup poll, preferred Chirac to Bush by a wide margin.

It won't be completely obvious that Iraqization is failing until significant numbers of Iraqi troops are trained, and that won't be for 6 months or more. At that point, maybe the administration will start talking about drafting our children and sending them over. Or maybe they'll just try and keep our targets in Iraq from getting picked off too quickly.

I read today that they killed a soldier only 300 yards from one of our major bases. That gives an indication of how little safety our troops have.

-- Carl
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