The US, UN & Iraq II

For those interested:



Center for Public Integrity

This is the ethics watchdog group that informed us of some of Richard Perles's doings and the fact that even though he resigned the chairmanship of the Defense Policy Board he still was a member and could still advise DOD as to which defense contractors to hire.

JM

May you never feel need to restrain your condemnation of policy you feel thus meritorious. You are an honorable, and honest, sort, of the highest principle and deepest conviction. Neither side of the argument is devoid of the type. Both sides of the argument are well populated by the other sort, to the advantage of none.

Thanks, Timber. Isn't A2K the place we're supposed to try to do our best? It certainly seems that way to me, did when I first signed in. No matter how much we disagree with each other, it seems to me remarkable that we get to read and think about the other's point of view, trade info, hone our own points of view. With occasional lapses. A2K really is a gift. Not to be taken lightly.

Every observer of this war just refuses to understand the significance of having absolute control of the air above the battlefield. Every day of the war a minimum of 800 STRIKE sorties are flown(many more support, refueling and recon sorties were flown)1sortie (one aircraft) carries a minimum of two precision guided bombs. That equated to a minimum of 1800 guided bombs dropped per day during day light or darkness(obviously during the two days of sandstorms many pilots returned with unexpended ordnance). They have reported at least 9000 guided bombs released. Each of these bombs has a circular error probability (cep) of only 2meters (roughly 8 ft).

Saddam has miscalculated twice in this regard---once in 1990 and again now. I would categorize him as a "SLOW LEARNER".

This has also been a victory for fast moving armor(tanks and artillery). This is good time to mention the doctrinaire army generals who have criticized and contradicted the Sec Def(bad move). They wanted a huge artillery piece that would have been absolutely useless in this type of warfare. Rumsfeld cancelled it and the Army howled. The marines seem to have adapted to the new fast maneuver warfare, as well as the Air Force and the Navy. The army is still living in the 20th century and the days of stupid frontal assaults. Just one step beyond the insanity of the Civil War.

Since there is no evidence that human nature will ever change, then one must assume there will be a need for a military force, at least for the foreseeable future. If there must be a need for war----then it is fairly intelligent to have overwhelming superiority.

It was reported at first by the US military that Iraq had fired Scud missiles at Kuwait, yes; but that was actually refuted later. No Scuds have been discovered so far.

There is the proof that there were training manuals on how to react to the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield on the bases of the Iraqi army and irregular groups. This could or could not indicate that the regime itself still has such weapons. It could alternatively indicate that the Iraqi troops used to have chemical weapons (which we know is true); or that they prepared for a possible enemy attack with chemical weapons, such as those the US army has, for example.



Yet it is Bush who started a war that in itself outside the US is generally regarded as a violation of international law.



As we all knew it would be and nobody here ever refuted.



Although they turned out to stand against coalition forces in practically every city those forces tried to take for longer than had ben expected and up to after the coalition armies had claimed they were "secured".



Which is probably exactly the effect the tactics had aimed for, alongside the aims of slowing down the UK/British advance and complicating their communication with the local population from a position of liberators, in which it also seems fairly effective.



There's been some 600-700 civilian casualties in the war so far. (nobody seems to be counting deads iraqi soldiers anymore). That could be described as surprisingly few, though it should be remembered that the yugoslav war (less than 1,000 casualties in months of bombing) set a new standard there. As of the actual damage done to the enemy's capabilities, it's likely to be big, of course, but basically, its still anyone's guess.



Something to await in fear, though it should be added that the "this would be the dangerous point in time" argument has been made several time already, but still no WMD have been either used or even discovered anywhere.

We will indeed watch with interest if they ever turn out to have been there in the first place. Problem is that the US insist on excluding the IAEE from the loop and relying only on its own "inspections" - which will mean that, should they 'unearth' evidence of WMD after the war, nobody in the Arab world will believe they didnt put it there themselves. Its pretty much the capital issue for the Bush case for war, after all.



practically every analyst i have seen on tv or in the paper this week has said that it's turned out 'more difficult than expected'. several of those have been copied into these here threads. i dont know much about purely military affairs myself. for me, its just the words of all those "outsiders" versus the opinion of timber and you.



I hope so. Depends on how it'll be arranged. The professional international aid organisations have already expressed their exasperation about the apparent US intent to do all the aid + food distribution under its own authority - noting that the chaos in safran and elsewhere was unnecessary, and that it also was fundamental to the 'rules of war' that the humanitarian aid should be taken care of by a neutral organisation.



I havent heard that one, not in earnest; I have heard it argued, quite eloquently at times, that Bush's rhetorics is infused with a Christian sense of messianism; and that the suspicions about this in the Arab world have surely been encouraged by his use of words ("crusade" and the like).



Al-Jazeera being the only medium in this war to bring the world some crucial images about what was really happening in Basra and Bagdad - while on the other side, the US/British troops have actually been under orders to do everything they can to obstruct the work of non-embedded journalists.



I've been following the discussion here quite intensely, but I have heard very few posters predict a war of years - most of them having stated from the beginning that they believe the US, with its overwhelming military force, would win in the end - though a great many have predicted difficult years of winning the peace.

I have heard no-one predict millions of casualties, while - talking about inappropriate references to millions of victims - I've seen many a pro-war poster compare Saddam's regime with those of Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot.

As for the destabilisation of the world - well, the institutions of international law and order already have been destabilised, and as for the Middle East and international terrorism - the next few months and years will tell, won't they?



You will have seen nobody cheer at bad news on the war front. What you have seen is many posters infuriated at news of casualties and bloodshed caused by a war they considered both illegal and unnecessary. What you have also seen is an admirable critical attitude towards the media, and the competence to weed out which of the initial 'good news' turned out to actually be true or not later.

perception,

There are a few glaring errors in your logic. One of which is that those wishing for a US defeat don't necessarily expect it to happen, they are thus not as dumb as you paint them to be.

I still don't see good reasons for them to wish for a defeat but your attack on their intelligence is devoid of supporting facts.

Perc, you must have heard the speech of that Iraqi minister where he announced that since the war had started, 4,000 volunteers from the Arab world had made their way to Iraq to help fight the Americans; you must have seen the independent newspaper reports about Arabs from a number of countries crossing into Iraq this last week.

As both the article I posted here by Fisk, and some other posters on this thread already pointed out: this war may just have created the very Al-Qaeda-Saddam link, that Bush's intelligence never was able to prove before - when it could still have justified the start of this war.

My fear is not that the war is morally wrong, but that it is illegal and badly managed. The so called battle for hearts and minds (irritating phrase) is lost. The battle for Saddamgrad is about to begin. The miscalculations on behalf of American war planners will and are costing unnecessary American British and Iraqi lives. This war is by no means over yet. Saddam is already a hero, if he lasts out another couple of weeks he will have "won" even from beyond the grave. The only bright points are that the Likudniks in the American administration are discredited, and Bush is now committed to a "viable Palestinian State", whether he likes it or not.

Craven

You are correct and I have edited my post to correct my overstatement which I tend to do occasionally.

Happy to see you don't have any criticism of the real substance of my commentary.

Thanks for the constructive criticism.

true. good news, too. perhaps the nature of war really has changed fundamentally, compared to Vietnam days - Yugoslavia and Afghanistan already indicated it. Still, there's almost a thousand civilian casualties - so was a prediction of "thousands" really all too "hysterical" an exaggeration? Hunderds of thousands would have been badly off, yeh, but "thousands" still - considering Bagdad is still ahead - seems like a realistic enough estimation.



True. Have to add here though that these two predictions I've mainly heard made by the proponents of war, who presented the possibilities, especially the latter, as 'proof' for how dangerous Saddam was and how badly he needed to be acted against immediately. You could take the "no attacks on third country" news also as a refutation of the US claim that Iraq still possessed Scuds and the like.



It was never predicted to be hugely effective as a traditional fighting force - all those predicting trouble pointed to the likely guerrilla tactics of which we've seen a few samples already. How effective it will be in the one thing it can hope to achieve - make this process as protracted and complicated a one as possible - will be shown in Bagdad, but I wouldnt say they were wholly unsuccesful in achieving that at least thus far.



On the former, analysts are mixed at best; on the latter reports are mixed as well. Some reports on hearty welcomes, some reports of the distrustful / angry kind. Both have been posted in threads hereabouts.



Now of course that danger has not in fact been predicted to materialise in the first ten days of the war; rather it has been sketched, here and in the press, as a serious possible long-term effect.



Well, there'd be about 130-160 of them, according to the press report Steve linked in above.



Yes, although again: polls always shoot up the moment a war actually starts, and they have shot up considerably less (to sixty-something % approval) this time than during Gulf War 1 (eighty-some %).



How so? Didn't you see the images of mass demos in Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon, and as far afield (talking Muslim rather than Arab) as Indonesia?

My point is not to shoot down every single of your assertions - it's mostly a "yes, but" or "true, but on the other hand" kind of thing - my responses are merely to show that the news is a lot more mixed than you make it out to be. for every fear that has luckily been proven unfounded thus far, there are two on which the news provides worrying clues, or on which at the very least the jury's still out. much too early, thus, to speak of "hyperbole and hysteria" yet, on many of the points above.



Now on that I would tend to agree. I personally suspect - but that is just a suspicion, no prediction - that Iraq will turn out not to use any WMD - simply because they didnt have much of them available anymore. In that case the US will have to "find" (and hopefully they will get in some independent inspectors to make their "finds" credible to the outside world) some very convincing evidence on those WMD to achieve post-factum legitimacy for its war.

nimh, I think we agree that there are plenty of "Yes, buts ... ". That is no small part of the problem. Much ... even most ... remains to be seen.

Nimh

perception wrote:
Captured by Al Queda in southern Iraq----but there is no link with Al Queda in Iraq----or is there?

Nimh wrote:

As both the article I posted here by Fisk, and some other posters on this thread already pointed out: this war may just have created the very Al-Qaeda-Saddam link, that Bush's intelligence never was able to prove before - when it could still have justified the start of this war.

Was the Fisk article to do with Ansar al Islam? Someone who seemed to have great knowledge about this group said they were under Taliban control--- if that is true----wouldn't it be logical to make that group a link with Al Queda? I don't know---just asking.

The link between Ansar al Islam and Al Qaeda is not hard to imagine. Not quite proven, but definitely not unlikely. Its the link between Ansar al Islam and Saddam that they'll have a hard time in proving, considering Ansar al Islam was based in the Kurdish area, had always agitated against Saddam's Baath brand of socialism, and for its survuival relied mostly on Saddam's arch enemy, Iran. See this thread.

The Fisk article that I was referring to, on what the inflow of Arab volunteer fighters from abroad could imply, was another one though - it's ... here (hope that works - it's on page 249 of this thread). Or, in full, here. Fisk is quite a ... feisty commentator, though - he's been a (war) reporter in the Middle East many years now, and has strong views on the issue! ;-)

Nimh

Just read the Fisk article and the suicide bomber is a very serious threat but I saw a film clip of a group of Shiite Clerics and the Head Immam was telling a different story. He said the driver of the vehicle( the killed 4 GIs) was forced to do this or his family would be killed and a similar story about the van filled with women and children. I saw this film clip twice on FOX news which you may not consider a valid source. I have noticed recently that MSNBC has minimized it's leftist slant of the war considerably. They are after ratings and they have suddenly realized the power of the general public who mostly support the war.

thats interesting, thanks for the update.

In Salom Pax's blog she tells how Sadam gave very large grants to Baghdad residents for the purpose of building 'bomb shelters in their back yards.

I wonder if those shelters could hold say.... a missle or a drum of chemicals or other wmds? Idon't think the inspectors looked in many backyards.

In Salom Pax's blog she tells how Sadam gave very large grants to Baghdad residents for the purpose of building 'bomb shelters in their back yards.

I wonder if those shelters could hold say.... a missle or a drum of chemicals or other wmds? Idon't think the inspectors looked in many backyards.

Lead elements of the 3rd division are within sight of the Baghdad sky line (about 20 miles out) on the south west and a second Marine advance is racing up the Tigris River toward Baghdad on the south east.It is a double envelopment and if they move quickly enough, particularly the Marines who seem to have a clear shot at this point, they could be in the capital by tomorrow evening. Maybe the Fat Lady is about to sing.

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-APO-1107&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20030402%2F192276696.htm&sc=1107

Powell fails to win pledge over Kurds
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
03 April 2003
Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, began mending fences yesterday between the US and Turkey. But he failed to secure a cast-iron assurance that Turkey will not move military forces into northern Iraq to throttle any separatist movement by local Kurds.

Instead, Washington and Ankara have agreed on an "early warning" system designed to head off friction involving the Iraqi Kurds, who Turkey fears could use the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime to make a bid for independence and stir fresh unrest in heavily Kurdish south-eastern Turkey.

Very nice interview just now on this evening's BBC/NPR's news with (didn't catch his name) a reporter from Le Monde. He was embedded, got no instructions from his paper about what to look for but just to write about what he saw. One of my favorite things that he saw was that married couples work and fight together BUT are not allowed to have sex! Imagine how the French readers reacted to that! It was a very sympathetic report -- sympathetic and sympathique.