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

To: Bilow who wrote (128595)	4/7/2004 12:48:58 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I'm not asking for a limit on the number of casualties in the whole war, I'm asking for the number in the campaign to pacify Iraq. It will take what is required. But obviously we're going to have to be attentive to the feelings of the majority of Iraqis. When it becomes evident that the large majority, not just a violence and intolerant minority, engage in a violent uprising against both the CPA and IGC, because they feel their lives are not getting better, then we'll have to reassess our mission goals. We can't change a society bent upon self-destruction and civil war. It may require that we play a little "brinksmanship" and threaten to leave them to their own fate if we don't obtain cooperation. It might take such an action at some point in the future to sober up not only the average Iraqi, but also the rest of the world that seems so reluctant to identify with the vision is proposing for the region. Namely democracy and economic integration and prosperity with the rest of the world (not just selling us oil). If the Bushies had known how bloody your version of the campaign in Iraq would be, they wouldn't have gone in. I'm not so sure about that... But one would hope they would have rethought their post-war planning to better emphasize rapid rebuilding of the infrastructure, having sufficient funds voted for and on hand to rebuild the country immediately (and not having to wait a year), as well as preserving the Iraqi army and detaining and vetting the Republican Guard rather than merely letting them go home. There is no doubt that mistakes have been made in retrospect. But that doesn't mean the mission wasn't right and necessary to confront the sources of Islamic terrorism, as well as their socio-economic sources of their recruits. But I sure as hell am unwilling to believe John Kerry has a better plan, outside of surrendering our foreign policy to the French and the UN. And btw, even Kerry admits we have to win in Iraq. So maybe you should ask him what his "threshold of pain" is vis-a-vis Iraq. Hawk

To: Bilow who wrote (128595)	4/7/2004 9:26:03 PM
From: NightOwl	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

*I'm asking for the number in the campaign to pacify Iraq.* And the generals of WWI and WWII most certainly DID put limits on the number of casualties that were acceptable in the individual campaigns. There's only so much manpower available. They ran games to get estimates of what the totals would be and then modified their plans accordingly. ...It always comes down to numbers eh CB? Well my butcher's bill to eliminate the urban shooting match is around 3,725. 625 for Fallujah, and 3100 for the rest of the cities. Make it 4,000 worse case, assuming the Iraqi's fight and we stop playing politics. ...It could be much smaller of course, but you know how picky the lawyers get about these things. What's your calculator say? But the real problem isn't our casualties or the 10,000, soon to be 80,000(?), urban militias. The problem as you know, is killing enough Iraqi's to be assured that the current militias aren't replaced by a new crop. That's not going to happen unless GB is willing to be put on trial, and I don't mean in the Senate. So once the 10-80,000 militants are reduced and disarmed (I figure it should take no more than 6 months with 300,000 troops) you'll need at least a 500,000 man/woman force to sit on top of the cities until you can get your elections held. Then... once they've got their dictator officially elected... you declare victory and get the heck out of the cities entirely so that they can wear themselves out killing each other without your having to go on trial. When they finish and have a passable military capable of defending their borders and attacking their neighbors you bring all the troops home and wait for Israel to nuke the place. ...Then you go back and trade them iodine pills for oil. 0\|0