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

To: michael97123 who wrote (95971)	4/24/2003 11:41:20 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

Yes, things post war have not gone as well as we would all like, but they are going as well as can be expected in a post war environment. Thanks for putting it so clearly, Mike. That's exactly where we disagree. The administration had an enormous amount of time to plan for this invasion, one of its's prime public rationales was to make life better for Iraqis, yet planning for post invasion recovery operations looks weak at best right now. You will recall that Senator Lugar complained, loudly, that the administration had not thought this process through well, as witnessed by the presentations before the Senate Foreign Affairs committee and, interestingly enough, the failure of some folk to appear there. I'm not making the claim here that the post invasion activity will not succeed. Just as I'm not making the claim there is not significant wmd presence, significant enough to warrant an invasion. It's much too early to tell. I'm simply making the claim that early signs are not good. Not enough troops; not enough positioning of troops in places of critical need--water plants, electrical plants, etc.; and not enough widely placed security. Look, for instance, at the comment at the Brookings panel, that there are not enough troops in the northern sector to manage the predicted conflict between the Kurds and Arabs over the houses from which Saddam had evicted the Kurds. Just a tip of the iceberg item which could presage reverse ethnic cleansing. No one knows what this means for the long term, or so it seems to me. But the early signs are troubling, as the much used phrase goes. Thank heavens for the SI spell checker.