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

To: Neocon who wrote (146043)	9/20/2004 7:18:23 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Neocon; Re: "It all depends upon our intelligence resources, which I cannot assess, of course. If we are building the resources in human intelligence on the ground that I hope, things will go better soon. If not, not." I hope things will get better soon too, but I doubt it. As to our "building the resources in human intelligence on the ground", if the past 18 months hasn't already convinced you that this is not going to happen, what will it take? It's not like your hopes haven't been dashed before. Let me remind you: Neocon, December 23, 2003 The problem is that if we had occupied in force, or acted more aggressively without real intelligence to suppress the resistance, we would have created a much more hostile populace. We would have had to have battered down a lot of doors, and detained a lot of civilians, without much discrimination, as well as appearing to sit on the country with more intent to stay. Unfortunately, by missing Saddam during major operations, and due to a better organized last ditch effort than we anticipated, the situation got very dicey. However, it was always a matter of time to deal with Saddam and others in the leadership of the Ba'athist Party, to develop intelligence assets sufficient to mount a more aggressive, but tailored, response, and to increase the participation of native security personnel in order to show our good faith in planning to turn things over as the situation permitted. Now, the tide is turning, and we should see much more rapid progress in the next few months. #reply-19627032 -- Carl