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

To: carranza2 who wrote (86236)	3/25/2003 4:35:52 PM
From: KLP	Respond to of 281500

Oh, no...Saddam said he/Iraq doesn't have any WMD...and some people believe him. For Iraq's sake, and for our Military's sake, I hope those folks are right. But hope our gas masks and other protective gear works well!! Yes, unfortunately the flip side of the coin is that our success now will create new dangers as Saddam will soon start using his truly nasty stuff. Which he doesn't have.

To: carranza2 who wrote (86236)	3/25/2003 7:04:30 PM
From: bela_ghoulashi	Respond to of 281500

....Even seasoned observers have had a difficult time keeping things in perspective. The Washington Post headlined its military analysis on March 22: "A Daring Race to Baghdad: Military Leaves Reputation for Caution in Dust". Two days later, the consensus was: "US Losses Expose Risks, Raise Doubts About Strategy". General Tommy Franks' reputation was transformed from that of overly cautious tread-head to military genius to river boat gambler in the space of 48 hours. Likewise, the failure of the people of Basra to throw flowers on British tanks - when they were surely aware Saddam Hussein's special security operatives were still lurking in the shadows - was pronounced a serious setback; that British troops had centuries of experience in post-combat "stability operations" was news to Americans, even though we had more than once been the object of such operations. These doubts arose even as the success and speed of the allied attacks in the war's opening days meant that most of the forecast nightmare scenarios had vanished. The torching of the oilfields in the south proved to be a non-event; the seizure of the western Iraqi desert all but removed any opportunity to suck Israel into the war. Chemical and biological weapons were not used against US or British ground forces at their moments of greatest vulnerability, when they were grouped together in Kuwait or as they filed across the border into Iraq. In fact, the reaction to the televised war has revealed more about the transatlantic chattering classes than about American or British soldiers, sailors, airmen or marines or the plans of their generals.... news.ft.com