Could The Iraqi Disaster have Been Anticipated?

In My Humble Opinion
21

No, for the most part it was almost completely ineffective, actually. Germany was not that much bothered by the resistance in the West until the Allies invaded and they had that to worry about.

You CAN control territory, to some extent, with soldiers. Of course,

  1. You need more soldiers than the USA has in Iraq,
  2. You need to be exceptionally brutal, in most circumstances, and
  3. You’re stuck there forever, or else when you do try to loosen the collar, all hell will break loose again.
22

ralph,if youare really really interested you should pick up a copy of Fiasco by Thomas Ricks. There were a number of instances of folks, intestimony before congress, in interviews,in symposiums at places like the Army War College who basicallysaid that the plans relied on too few people during the invasion and especially afterward. Yes we got to Baghdad fast and topples Hussein, but our lines were stretched thin and maybe more importantly we didn’t defened the borders. Then Bremer came in and disolved the Iraqi army and did a Baathist purge that created resentment and unemplyoment. This was against the best advice. Well known counterinsurgency measures were ignored, frequently in exactly the wrong way. In the book it is just shocking how much expert opinion is ignored.

23

glee - I want to compliment you. I have a hard time imagining how I could read anything more depressing than your post. :frowning:

That and the grey fog/mist outside my window really set the mood for this election day…

24

I’m interested in how much we relied upon Achmed Chalabi. It appears that Bush&Co dropped Chalabi like a hot potato-can it be that Chalabi fed them all a big bundle of lies? The situation seems to be getting worse-the iraqi parliament can’t meet because the representatives are afraid they will be murdered! maybe we should just leave, and let the chips fall where they may. :eek:

25

That’s my choice. Hard to imagine how things would be tremendously worse. Proclaim victory, hand over the reins, throw a parade, and then generously contribute to whatever efforts are initiated to put out the inevitable shitstorm.

26

The only people who insisted on trusting Chalabi before the war were the folks inside the Bush White House, because he was telling them what they wanted to hear. Everyone else who was sying Chalabi was as trustworthy as a three-dollar-bill were marginalized or ignored.