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

To: JohnM who wrote (71552)	2/5/2003 4:50:07 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

all those countries which just don't seem to know their place. Just one, John. Just one. The other ducklings are waddling and quacking along behind us nicely.

To: JohnM who wrote (71552)	2/5/2003 4:57:10 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

We have a new columnist in the NYT. Timing Is Everything By MICHAEL R. GORDON KUWAIT, I have heard it said in Washington that politics often drives the timing of government decisions. But as the allies debate when to take military action in Iraq the situation is just the opposite: the timing is driving the politics. When it comes to determining the timetable for going to war the weather has more influence than France or other members of the Security Council. One day to keep in mind is April 7. That is the day, American war planners say, when the temperature in Kuwait first climbed to 100 degrees last year. By summer the desert had become a blast furnace with temperatures soaring to more than 120 degrees. Despite appeals by France and Germany for prolonging the weapons inspections the weather in this region favors an early military campaign. The scale of the allied buildup is another factor. The American and allied forces that are assembling here will be prepared to strike by March and will lose their edge if they are kept on hold for too long. It is possible to design a force to contain Iraq for many months or even years while the inspectors go about their work. But the invasion force that is being assembled here to topple the Saddam Hussein regime is not it. The Bush administration has argued that there is no hope of persuading Iraq to peacefully disarm without a major display of force. But the flip side is that the buildup means there are weeks and not months left for diplomacy to work. That seems to be what President Bush means when he says his patience is running out. In the looming confrontation with Iraq timing, it seems, is everything. The timing of a Iraq campaign can be viewed on several levels. In strategic terms, the Bush administration has a window for action for the next several years. The administration can be confident of its ability to prevail because it knows that Iraq does not have nuclear weapons, believes the Saddam Hussein regime is brittle and has concluded that much of the Iraqi military is ill-motivated and weak. As the case of North Korea shows, the United States options narrow considerably once a potential adversary is suspected of being a nuclear power. From a strategic standpoint, it is important to confront Iraq before it acquires nuclear weapons. In a sense, Washington has decided to take on the Saddam Hussein now because it can. In terms of public opinion at home, the president also has a political window for action. The terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, have created a sense of vulnerability in the American psyche that the White House has not been reluctant to exploit. After the successful intervention in Afghanistan, Americans are the accustomed to government efforts to topple foreign governments ? what the administration likes to call "regime change." Timing is an critical factor at the tactical level as well. Matters of war and peace, of course, need not be decided by the weather. The United States military has conducted exercises at its training range in the California desert and in Kuwait. American troops also plan to fight at night. That not only enables them to take advantage of their superior night vision equipment but also means they can take the fight to the enemy during the cooler part of the day. It is also important to recall that the desert heat will hamper the Iraqi military, too. But no American military planner would prefer to fight in the heat of the Iraqi summer. The soaring heat makes it harder for the troops to endure the special suits and masks needed for protection against chemical or biological attack. If a new war is anything like the 1991 Persian Gulf conflict there will be numerous false alerts even if the Iraqis do not resort to poison gas or germ weapons. So allied troops will be jumping in and out of those suits. The scorching heat will strain logistics. Water consumption will go up. Electronic components will break down more often. Fuel consumption typically increases. Helicopters will have a harder time flying heavier loads. In short, a military campaign that depends mightily on speed and quick maneuvers will have a reduced tempo. "The optimal window is November until the end of March," said Robert H. Scales Jr., a retired Army major general and the former commandant of the Army War College. The Iraqis seem to be cognizant of these factors as well. They have done everything they could to drag out the inspection process and turn the American military buildup into a waiting game. Another factor is the size of the buildup itself. It is not as big as the force the U.S. and its allies deployed during in the region in 1991. But with several Army divisions, five or so aircraft carriers, a Marine Expeditionary Force, some 500 Air Force planes and the participation of some 30,000 British forces it is formidable. We have not heard a lot about troop rotations because Washington is not planning them until the Saddam Hussein regime is ousted from power. The Bush administration is preparing to put its doctrine of preemption into action and is assembling a force to hit Iraq from different sides at a time of the Pentagon's choosing. "As forces prepare for war, the longer they wait the more difficult it is to maintain a high state of readiness and the sharpened instincts that are needed to win decisively and quickly," said Harlan Ullman, former Navy officer and a senior adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. There is still time for a last effort to try to persuade Iraq to cooperate with the United Nations inspectors and for a final attempt to try to forge a consensus within the United Nations Security Council for military action if Baghdad fails to do so. That is a function of the military timetable too. With unease in Turkey about American plans to use that country to open a northern front the American deployment there is running several weeks behind schedule. Early to mid-March now looks like the optimal time to begin an allied military campaign, giving diplomats at the United Nations a little more time to maneuver. Waiting months, however, seems unlikely, and from a strictly military standpoint inadvisable. The Bush administration has yet to lay out all of the evidence about Iraq's weapons programs or its links to terrorists but it has already laid the groundwork for an early war. The military preparations have a momentum and dynamic of their own. The administration will not want to keep the military in idle for long so the diplomats will also not have long. The forces are getting in place. The gun is cocked. Nobody can tell the future, but the forecast is for war.