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

To: BigBull who wrote (35690)	8/1/2002 10:54:29 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

Why little opposition in Congress..?? <<...In general there seems little opposition in Congress to the notion of another war with Hussein, although that could change as preparations for physical battle become more apparent. Most lawmakers are convinced that the Bush administration is very serious about removing Hussein, since some administration officials have talked about doing so almost from their first days in office. Most may also believe that the administration will succeed, or at least produce something that could be defined as a victory. Given that context, few want to raise questions, after last year's terrorist attacks, that might leave them vulnerable to criticism about their patriotism. "There is not detectable congressional opposition to this whole idea ... Nobody wants to be on the wrong side of history," says John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense policy think tank. Combined with the administration's frequent warnings that Saddam's days are numbered, the current congressional discussions might seem to be counterproductive, at least in a military sense. They have robbed the Pentagon of what planners might call "strategic surprise." The Iraqi leader has had months to prepare for a final confrontation that might well be fatal for him. But such chatter is simply unavoidable in a democracy, say experts. While the downside might be that the nation telegraphs its actions, the upside is that it is more united when it does move. "I tend to think the US debate over something like this isn't controllable," says Baker Spring, a military analyst at the Heritage Institute in Washington. Not that the Pentagon wouldn't want it to be a little more controlled. Continued leaks about possible war plans – including one that called for upwards of a quarter million troops – have led Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to call publicly for identification and prosecution of the leakers...>> christiansciencemonitor.com