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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gauguin who wrote (7601)	2/18/1998 3:52:00 AM
From: Bill Ulrich	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

Whilst a &#147thinking&#148 solution would be best&#151maybe even possible&#151the worst thing to fear is not that a forceful solution will be implemented. Rather, the worst thing to fear is that a forceful solution would be implemented, then left unfinished due to political hand-wringing. Don't misunderstand me&#151like you, I want a solution which is reached in the conference rooms rather than the sand dunes. But this matter has never had a stake put in it diplomatically or militarily. -MrB

To: Gauguin who wrote (7601)	2/18/1998 10:29:00 PM
From: JF Quinnelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

Iraq is a long way from home. Our supply lines are long, and our Gulf "allies" deny us the use of airbases on their soil. We have fewer aircraft than last time, the A-6 carrier based bombers having been scrapped. The military has about 60% of the firepower it had in 1991. But we have more smart weaponry and it may be better than last time. With cruise missiles and bombs we can blow up whatever we can see, but Saddam may still refuse to admit the investigators. He surely has some of his weapons stashed in populated areas. Will we be willing to blow up a few thousand civilians to destroy them? Short of going door to door with infantry we aren't going to root out his Poor Man's A-Bombs or find Saddam. It would take a half million ground troops to do it, so I don't think we will consider that. If our goal is to wreck a lot of his equipment, we can do that. But he will still be in power, he will still have germ factories and poison gas. We may create many more Arabs who will wish us dead for generations. Keep in mind Clinton thought he was going to have troops in Bosnia for only one year. It's much easier to get into these things than to get out of them. We don't even know what Clinton's intentions are. It has the look of a tarbaby.