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

To: Sam who wrote (184584)	4/4/2006 11:00:53 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

This is not only an evasion; it is bad historiography. Particularly in free societies, botched or unnecessary military invasions are almost always recognized as mistakes by the public and the professional military soon after they happen, and are rarely vindicated by time. First off, I like some of Coll's writings, in particular "Ghost Wars". However, this article, like so many of the biased analysis based upon 20/20 hindsight deliberately avoids the point that: 1. We didn't know any of this information prior to commencement of the invasion. In fact, given Saddam's strict internal security measures, we knew very little about the status of Saddam's actual WMD status. I've commented previously that if Saddam only told his inner circle a few months prior that Iraq didn't have any WMDs, then it BEGS THE QUESTION of why he was telling he had them PREVIOUS to the passing of UNSC 1441?? Coll obviously fails to address this. He also fails to address the fact that, not only the intelligence agencies of the US, but those of the other 15 members of the UNSC also concurred that Iraq was in "MATERIAL BREACH" of previous binding UNSC resolutions related to the previous cease-fire and disarmament obligations and that, for the purpose of "good international order" and adherence to the binding mandates of the UNSC, a failure to respond to Saddam's intransigence would have put another nail in the coffin of the UNSC and left it forever susceptible to black-mail by Saddam due to the Oil for Food scandal once the sanctions were lifted (and soon France or Russia would have used their permanent veto to life the sanctions). Coll is living in the past and second guessing the decision to go to war with his 20/20 hindsight information, NONE OF WHICH WAS AVAILABLE until my ISG associates uncovered it and FINALLY LEARNED THE TRUTH (or most of it). 2. For the above reasons alone, Coll's conclusion, derived from his 20/20 hindsight, that the invasion was "botched or unecessary" is mistaken.. It was immensely successful because it was accomplished with a minimum of forces, and achieved absolute surprise (since Saddam expected the US to wait until more US forces arrived). However, he could correctly blame the political and military decisions that permitted the Iraqi army to dissolve without being properly detained, but he failed to do so. If anything, we should have rounded up all the members of Saddam's Intelligence agency and Special Republican Guard. He could also correctly blame the refusal of Coalition leadership to seek out, and deal with, the primary Sunni Tribal Chiefs in order to seek their compliance and obediance, in exchange for a measure of power over the Sunni areas (which would have to gradually diminish as the government was put together). In fact, as one of the Senior Analysts (and Arabist) for the ISG once mentioned to me, failing to be magnanimous with the Sunnis power structure and to integrate them into the government strengthened their distrust and justification for supporting the FRE and Al Qai'da elements. They would fight to restore their "honor", which the coalition leadership deprived them of by showing decided bias in favor of the Shia and Kurds. There were MANY things the coalition could have done to prevent the necessity of having a quarter of million soldiers occupying Iraq. But we didn't.. Our political and military leadership made blunders.. Our soldiers were unecessarily heavy-handed at times (stepping on necks, using dogs indiscriminately.. and later, of course, Abu G). So those blunders created a situation in which.. yes.. it would have been nice to have 250,000 troops on the ground. And maybe we should have done it, but we didn't.. 3. Which brings me to the point that, despite all the perilous predictions and dour analysis, civil war has not broken out in Iraq. There's a lot of violence and quite a few deaths. But it's funny how the press focuses on dead Iraqis NOW, but didn't really seem to give a hoot about the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis that died under Saddam's regime. NOR do they focus on the fact that most of those deaths are the result of the very same people who were doing the killing when Saddam was in power. The only thing different is that the Shi'ites and Kurds now have weapons to defend themselves with (and in some cases to advance rival militant movements). And Mr. Coll fails to discuss the repercussions of compounding the previous mistakes by committing the error of just ceasing all attempts to defeat the insurgent presence in Iraq. He well knows the ideology of Al Qai'da and the Iranian political leadership, from his previous research and writings. He knows that any US retreat from Iraq, let alone the entire region, would only embolden the Islamo-Fascists. Al Qai'da can only be defeated by discrediting it's appeal to other Muslims. And that is being accomplished everytime we see an Iraqi police recruiting station, or innocent civilians, blown up in a suicide bombing. Because this is muslims killing muslims, not just killing US soldiers. The other day I posted an article about how the local governments in the region are taking on more of a "wait Bush out" attitude and wait for the next US President who will immediately pull all US forces out of the region... This was exactly the words from Ahmadinejad and his primary political advisor. Now you have to decide whether the policies you're advocating will defeat, or lend assistance to, the strategies of our opponents. So just how would you address our opponent's strategy of "Wait Bush Out"?? Are you going to do exactly what the enemy wants you to do? Is that how you win wars? Hawk