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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (34117)	7/10/2002 9:57:26 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

We would have knocked off Saddam this summer with a "shoot from the hip" approach, or have been in a bind if that method failed. The bind would have been a very serious and extremely embarrassing one, especially if we didn't have heavy forces standing by to intervene if the light version got into trouble. Even if the probability of that outcome was low, I don't blame anybody for thinking it unacceptable. We will go in the spring with 200,000 men, and Iraq will collapse, IMO. That seems the most likely eventuality. I doubt that even the Saddam hardliners will put up much resistance to a massive attack (they might be tempted to resist aggressively if the attack was lighter and contained a significant element of local opposition forces). I also suspect that the Iraqi WMD capability is much less developed than we have been led to believe. I think you'd see a lot of Republican Guards desperately trying to surrender to Americans: I don't think they'll have much to look forward to under the next Iraqi government. The real problem for us, of course, will begin after the military victory. We know we can defeat the Iraqi armed forces. Installing a stable government that is acceptable to both us and the Iraqis is a much less certain affair. I do not share the confidence of some hardliners in the assumption that because we hate Saddam and many Iraqis hate Saddam, those same Iraqis will therefore view us with affection. Possibly I am too much a cynic, but I remember a few cases in the past where the enemies of our enemies did not turn out to be our friends. I am personally unconvinced that the war is necessary, but they seem determined to pursue it. I do hope hope that the really important end of the War on Terror - the effort to dismantle the Al Qaeda apparatus outside the Middle East - is getting as much attention as the military end of the war. We shall see....