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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (98961)	5/23/2003 6:57:06 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

He said that the US had planned to decapitate the regime, remove the top bad guys, then rule Iraq via its existing institutions. But when the regime fell, the institutions all imploded too, and the Iraqis responded with a perfect orgy of looting. Sorry... I ain't buying that one... There should have been contingency plans in case such disorder broke out. Anyone with an ounce of experience just reading about previous falls of despotic regimes know that the problem was not only the leader of the totalitarian regime, but the minions who were all part of "the family" and would flee with their ill-gotten goods while the getting was good. The only institution in Iraq was the Baathist party. And maintaining the Baathist party as a functional political and authoritative entity was a non-starter from day one... The best that would be achieved would be vetting the current members and discerning who was "hardcore" and who was just a member in order to have a job. It's easy to sit in an armchair and say, "you should have forseen this". But show me anyone who did forsee it. That's what they get paid to do at the Pentagon, Nadine.. To predict and anticipate as many potential scenarios as possible. Remember.. Franks told everyone his plan was "flexible" enough to handle any variety of contingencies. Apparently that flexibility didn't extend into post-war governing until an internal governmental structure could be established. The question is now, how fast can they adapt? Hopefully much faster now that the UN is out of the way (with a 14-0 vote even).. They can sell the oil they have stored in Turkey and use those funds to pay their civil servants... That will be a good start. And it appears they may have confiscated $300 million in gold as well.. But I believe some $4 billion was stolen from Kuwait so we'll have to see if there will be a claim against it. But much of the turmoil we saw over the past several weeks just should not have been permitted to happen to the extent that it did... And from where I've been looking over the past 3 weeks, and my experiences, there are a lot of things that should have been done better.. Hawk

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (98961)	5/23/2003 6:58:31 PM
From: KyrosL	Respond to of 281500

I mentioned Friedman's interview in a post yesterday. I am not blaming the administration for not predicting this. But now the situation is clear. It has been clear for more than a month: a lot more people and money injections are needed immediately to fix the basic things before Iraq disintegrates into a living hell. Everybody is saying that, republicans and democrats: more people, more money, now. Why is the administration not moving? Is it defensiveness because their "light force" doctrine did not prove to be the right choice after all? I suspect so, and am appalled. Only idiots would jeopardize a rather compelling ME grand strategy to score political points.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (98961)	5/23/2003 10:46:00 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

>> show me anyone who did forsee it<< (foresee, seeing before) Nobody on FADG had one teeny tiny peep of insight that this was possible. There were multiple debates, no need to recreate, you and I were both here, but there was never one single solitary debate about the issue of providing security after the Iraqi regime imploded. In retrospect, everybody who didn't raise it can take a turn at being dunderheads, including the peaceniks who chanted "no blood for oil" and the cynics who said "it's all about righting Poppy's wrongs," and the neocons and the paleocons and everybody else. Nobody, not one single person, raised this issue in advance.