Rumsfeld, you sleaze

[Beagle]

that first comment was for you. Subtract a “both,” whichever makes sense.

Sam I am also concerned about the US overtaxing our military. We have commitments all over right now.

I am no expert, but the risks to taking on Iraq when Saddam knows his back is against the wall seem high. A dictator with nothing to lose is a real wildcard.

[El_Kabong]

Mr. Stone, if you wish to read into my remarks some sort of opposition to our long-awaited return to Iraq, you are welcome to. Frankly, though, I believe the world would be a better place if Saddam Hussein had, say, chosen to operate a convenience store in Paris rather than enter politics, and I think we should have taken the additional 36 hours or to complete the triumphant march into Baghdad, back when we had the chance.

Actually, I was referring specifically to the idea that first strike without advance notice (though not in Iraq of course, as we’ve practically put up billboards with the invasion date on them) is now on the diplomatic menu, for anyone the administration deems a threat. It was a “day of infamy” when it was done to us, but obviously it is just realpolitik when we do it to them.

[ElvisL1ves]

Aviation Week and Space Technology, as soberly pro-Military-Industrial-Complex a publication as you’ll find, has a good summary of the military options now being reviewed. But even they suggest that too many people in the Bush Administration, as well as the Pentagon senior career staff, have read too many Tom Clancy novels:

More aggressive elements in the White House’s planning staff are advocating a course of action that military officials believe is “a gamble” that involves no mobilization of internal Iraqi military and political forces to prevent retaliation and to stabilize the country.

“The military is irritated at the administration which keeps pushing simplistic military-only operations,” the official said. These plans assume “that it’s going to be a cakewalk with minimum resistance,” he said. "They want to go right now. Cheney wants to go in with more force, and Congress is mad because it hasn’t been consulted about any war plans.

“The Pentagon can still conduct an air campaign about the size of Desert Storm, but military leaders want the right political strategy to go with it,” he said. “They don’t want to launch an attack without direct provocation by Iraq and support from Capitol Hill.”

The Joint Chiefs of Staff don’t like the so-called “inside out plan” touted by administration officials (roughly the same air war designed for the 1991 campaign) because it concentrates on military targets and not the major political requirement of toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime, senior military officials said.

In addition to a robust air campaign, “there needs to be both covert and ground force operations to get at the Iraqi leadership,” a senior Air Force official said. “That’s the only way to prevent retaliation against politically embarrassing targets like Tel Aviv and other sites in the Mediterranean area.”

I’m sure the Israelis will be relieved to know that an Iraqi WMD strike against Tel Aviv would only be “politically embarrassing”.