Why Did Saddam Play Chicken With GWB?

[XT]

[QUOTE=Themenin]
Well, we’re coming at this from opposing views. To my way of thinking, human nature is such that however bad the home-grown despot is, he’s our home-grown despot, and we see him as a lesser evil than a foreign invader. And once the home-grown despot is gone, how good or how bad he was is no longer an issue. The WWII Baltic States example is somewhat analogous to the situation with the Kurds in Iraq. It’s a big stretch to say the invaders were welcomed or even tolerated by Russia or by Iraq. Even there, I think you’ll find that the number of actual active “collaborators” is fairly small.
[/QUOTE]

Well, recall that this discussion stemmed from the postulation that Saddam AND the Ba’athist regime folded its hands prior to hostilities and left the building. My speculation was that the Iraqi ARMY wouldn’t put up a coherent fight…or probably much of a fight at all. The only resistance would probably come from some of Saddam’s para-military types…and perhaps not even from them if Saddam and Son’s took a golden parachute and were laying on a beach somewhere collecting 15%.

I think the Russian example is not a stretch at all, though of course its not a perfect example…it just shows that under a repressive regime people are sometimes willing to look on invaders, even invaders who they have a strong dislike for (as I would assume most Russians felt towards Germans even prior to the war) as the lesser of two evils. And this was with active hostilities…so, getting back to my original point, I don’t see it as a ‘crazy’ idea that, given the supposition that Saddam et al bolted, that the US and coalition would have had the same fight on their hands regardless. Especially if they had handled it better wrt getting more nations on board, especially some of the various Arab nations…which again, I think would have been possible had Saddam fled.

YMMV…seems reasonable to me.

-XT

[marshmallow]

[QUOTE=xtisme]
…so, getting back to my original point, I don’t see it as a ‘crazy’ idea that, given the supposition that Saddam et al bolted, that the US and coalition would have had the same fight on their hands regardless. Especially if they had handled it better wrt getting more nations on board, especially some of the various Arab nations…which again, I think would have been possible had Saddam fled.
[/QUOTE]

The only way I can conceive of this working is if the other Arab nations’ contributions involved a couple hundred thousand troops following intelligent counter-insurgency doctrine along with the rebuilding of the infrastructure and we withdrew fairly quickly. That just might’ve worked.

Otherwise, this is a fantasy.

The point is, if the regime is repressive enough there will be many who not only won’t fight for it but will hold their noses and greet the ‘invaders’…if not with open arms then at least without shooting at them. For further examples look at some of what happened during the Korean war with North Korean refugees and some of the captured armed forces, especially after Inchon while the US was driving through North Korea (and before the Chinese jumped in).

This is entirely correct. This also happened in Iraq. People don’t generally like brutal dictators unless it’s their best option.

We lost their trust. Reading stories of hopeful Iraqis trying to make their country better only to be disillusioned or killed/maimed or having them join the insurgency really tears at me.

Thats not exactly what I said…nor was it known at the time (hindsight and all that). What I SAID was, the Iraqi ARMY wouldn’t fight the US (to expand in a coherent fasion, as you imply) without Saddam there to make them do so.

The Iraqi army didn’t actually fight us in a serious manner. At least, not in a conventional military fashion. A couple of units attempted such and were absolutely destroyed because the United States has the most technologically advanced and arguably well trained troops in the world. The Iraqi conventional army, on the conventional battlefield, was never a factor, in the real world or any hypothetical we can spin.

What may or may not have come later is speculation…and certainly wasn’t know AT THE TIME. So, what you are saying is that its ‘crazy’ in light of what we now know…and wasn’t all that ‘crazy’ in fact, because we wouldn’t have had to face the actual Iraqi Army. And its possible that if there had been a peaceful transition things might not have gone the way they eventually did wrt the insurgency…we’ll never know.

Again, the threat of us ‘facing’ the Iraqi army on a conventional battlefield is meaningless. If you mean the threat of them melting away and starting the nascent insurgency then you have to explain yourself. In an alternate reality where Hussein and others at the top left the country as a prelude to our invasion why wouldn’t the Iraqi military do exactly what they did in our reality?

Your automatic assumption that had Saddam fled the Iraqi’s would have fought, and would have had an insurgency is just speculation on your part…and its speculation informed by the history we’ve witnessed in the last 3-4 years. It wasn’t something commonly acknowledged BEFORE the invasion…ken?

This is offensive to the people whose job it is to study history and military strategy and know a little about the ME. Do you believe our intelligence agencies to be filled with fools? Do you believe they are incompetent?

Well, OK, jokes aside, it’s the year 2007 – an informed person simply can’t sit back and pretend no one predicted what is happening today would happen, nor can one attribute such predictions to a small group. Obviously, they lost the internal debate due to an accident of history.

If you wish “commonly acknowledged” to mean the public debate as portrayed by the major media sources then I don’t think you wish to go down that road. If 40% of the voting public could locate Iraq on a map I’d be pleasantly surprised.

As for the gist of your argument, it also doesn’t make sense to me. Please explain how Hussein can influence the insurgency in such a macroscopic way. Explain how we wouldn’t have the insurgency in this alternate reality. We’d still go through with deb-Baathification, right? And disband the Iraqi military? And go through with our economic policies? And our ham fisted, ignorant, and incompetent counter-insurgency tactics (which we could’ve avoided if we didn’t ignore the literal books the military wrote after Vietnam)? And our abortion of an attempt at infrastructure building? And our bungling bureaucracy and mixed up command and control? And sending 20 year old Republican stooges with no real world experience to head major institutions like banks and hospitals and the stock exchange? I can go on. The point is, if we did all those things the same way we’d achieve the same result.

Do you disagree?

[XT]

[QUOTE=mstay]
The only way I can conceive of this working is if the other
Arab nations’ contributions involved a couple hundred thousand troops
following intelligent counter-insurgency doctrine along with the rebuilding
of the infrastructure and we withdrew fairly quickly. That just might’ve
worked.
[/QUOTE]

So…you can’t conceive of a situation in which, had Saddam and his
government fled, other governments, including Arab governments, would not or
could not be brought on board as a peace keeping force during the interim??
Seriously? And this is fantasy to you?

Well, I don’t know what to say in that case…seems reasonable to me that
had Saddam folded, other nations in the region would have been eager to make
sure the wheels didn’t fly off during the power vacuum. I don’t really see
that intelligent counter-insurgency doctrine has anything at all to do with
this scenario…or why it would have mattered AT THE TIME to anyone at all.
Unless they had a time machine of course…and an alternative history time
machine at that.

Maybe you didn’t actually read what I was responding too?

[QUOTE=mstay]
We lost their trust. Reading stories of hopeful Iraqis trying
to make their country better only to be disillusioned or killed/maimed or
having them join the insurgency really tears at me.
[/QUOTE]

Thats true enough.

[QUOTE=mstay]
The Iraqi army didn’t actually fight us in a serious manner. At
least, not in a conventional military fashion. A couple of units attempted
such and were absolutely destroyed because the United States has the most
technologically advanced and arguably well trained troops in the world. The
Iraqi conventional army, on the conventional battlefield, was never a
factor, in the real world or any hypothetical we can spin.
[/QUOTE]

Well, thats not really the point one way or the other. I think the Iraqi’s
fought harder and were more of an initial factor than you are giving
them…but really its irrelevant IMHO to what I was discussing. Except in
the fact that they wouldn’t have fought at all, at least IMHO, had Saddam
folded. And also there would have been less of a power vacuum had Saddam
and his government bolted and the US/Coalition forces basically just come in
too keep the peace and during the transition. As things happened in
reality, we had to fight our way to the capital, and even THROUGH the
capital…and during that time there WAS a pretty severe gap due to the fact
that Saddam and the Iraqi’s C&C were so disrupted…and no one was in
charge.

[QUOTE=mstay]
Again, the threat of us ‘facing’ the Iraqi army on a
conventional battlefield is meaningless. If you mean the threat of them
melting away and starting the nascent insurgency then you have to explain
yourself. In an alternate reality where Hussein and others at the top left
the country as a prelude to our invasion why wouldn’t the Iraqi military do
exactly what they did in our reality?
[/QUOTE]

Again, you are both discounting what the Iraqi’s did and did not do, the
time gap…and also the question I was actually answering. The ‘threat’ the
Iraqi’s posed or did not pose to US/Coalition forces was irrelevant to the
question I was actually answering.

To answer your question though, no…in the alternative history I was
speaking too (in response to the discussion earlier I was having with Der),
the Iraqi Army wouldn’t have taken the field at all…so coalition forces
(who I speculate would have been composed of several nations that didn’t
actually take part in the reality invasion) would have simply driven to the
capital and taken control without fighting at all. The Iraqi military
wouldn’t (perhaps) have been dissolved at all…just stood down. After all,
if there was no fighting, there would be no reason to dissolve them
completely (and no reason for the beaten remnants to melt away…as there
would BE no beaten remnants, ehe?).

[QUOTE=mstay]
Well, OK, jokes aside, it’s the year 2007 – an informed person simply can’t sit back and pretend no one predicted what is happening today would happen, nor can one attribute such predictions to a small group. Obviously, they lost the internal debate due to an accident of history.
[/QUOTE]

Well, as I wasn’t saying this, I’m not sure where this is coming from. However…out of curiosity…show me some the mass of informed people who predicted what would happen in Iraq BEFORE the invasion wrt the insurgency we are currently seeing. Because frankly I don’t recall the hue and cry predicting all thats happened. As I recall things, it was supposed to be the invasion that was going to inflict all the casualties people were wringing their hands over. If there were scores of folks predicting this kind of thing I must have missed it myself at the time.

Not that this has anything to do with what I myself was discussing, mind…this is for my own curiosity only.

[QUOTE=mstay]
If you wish “commonly acknowledged” to mean the public debate as portrayed by the major media sources then I don’t think you wish to go down that road. If 40% of the voting public could locate Iraq on a map I’d be pleasantly surprised.
[/QUOTE]

No idea how this is at all related to anything I said so…strawman?

[QUOTE=mstay]
As for the gist of your argument, it also doesn’t make sense to me.
[/QUOTE]

Obviously.

[QUOTE=mstay]
Please explain how Hussein can influence the insurgency in such a macroscopic way.
[/QUOTE]

He didn’t…nor did I say he did. I’ll just assume you haven’t read or perhaps understand what I wrote…not that you are trying to put words in my mouth.

Though I’m into my 4th glass of some very fine single malt, I’ll try and 'splain: The power vacuum left behind when Saddam’s government and military was cut off from its C&C abilities left a gap while the US and coalition forces basically attempted (with far too few troops) to secure the major infrastructure of the country…including the capital. Couple that with basically the beaten remnants of Saddam’s army AND more importantly his para-military forces fading into the wood work during the resultant chaos and you have basically the situation we face today. When you add it the various folks pissed off by the odd bombing killing family members, the chaos and shortages before even basic services were restored, and any number of OTHER insults dealt during the invasion by the invaders and its not hard to see where this insurgency sprang from.

Take most of those factors away, especially the large gap while the country was in limbo, the need to bomb the shit out of the countries infrastructure, or attack military targets that were intermingled with a civilian population, the disbanding of the regular military in such an irregular way, the deliberate dispersal of the para-military into a guerrilla posture, and the power vacuum when Saddam et al were still about but unable to impose C&C coupled with the allies still attempting to do so through hostile country, and I don’t see why its such a ‘crazy’ idea…unless you don’t really understand any of this stuff of course. Which seems to be the case, sadly.

[QUOTE=mstay]
Explain how we wouldn’t have the insurgency in this alternate reality. We’d still go through with deb-Baathification, right?
[/QUOTE]

Why would there necessarily BE an insurgency had Saddam and the Ba’athist folded? Where would it come from? Oh, I concede that the Sunni might still have been pissed off…but without the harm done initially to the infrastructure during the invasion phase, without the large numbers of Iraqi troops suddenly cut loose after being beaten AGAIN by the US, without the para-military formations to form the core of the initial insurgency…well, where exactly would the outrage have come from do you think?

Again, I’ll concede we might still have gotten some discontents…but think about it. The Iraqi infrastructure wouldn’t have been destroyed. Food, medical supplies, vital services wouldn’t have been disrupted. Large numbers of civilians wouldn’t have had their homes bombed, shot at…or family members killed incidentally by both sides shooting where they happen to live. And IF the US had managed to get other Arab nations (perhaps Saudi, maybe Syria or better yet Jordan, etc) on board for the transitional occupation I think it would have made things go even more smoothly. And Saddam et al agreeing to take the golden parachute and go somewhere else would have opened that door. Hell, I think, as I said earlier, that some of our Euro buddies who abstained from an invasion would have been more willing to peacefully occupy an Iraq who’s leadership had left the building.

[QUOTE=mstay]
The point is, if we did all those things the same way we’d achieve the same result.
[/QUOTE]

Well, if we did all the same things in the same way, then it wouldn’t be an alternative…would it? I wasn’t speculating (though you obviously were…or thought I was) that we ‘did all the same things in the same way’. I was speculating how things could have changed if Saddam and his merry men decided to throw in the towel, to take the money and run while the running was good.

[QUOTE=mstay]
Do you disagree?
[/QUOTE]

How can one disagree? Obviously if an alternative history worked out exactly as history DID worked out…then it would be exactly the same. I disagree that had things been different they would necessarily have worked out exactly the same…if thats what you are driving at. I think had Saddam and the Ba’athists left (something I think COULD have happened, but something I doubt WOULD have…if you get my drift), then I think that its reasonable to conclude that there would be at least the possibility that things would have worked out differently…and therefore be different today.

Do YOU disagree?

-XT

[FRDE]

One small but pertinent point, the Ba’athist party was like the Nazi party or the Communist party in the Eastern bloc.

If you wanted to get anywhere then you had to be a member.

Dissolving the Ba’athist party means that you lose your administrative talent.
Personally I would have tried to keep it intact.

[elucidator]

And, of course, had Custer* won* the Battle of Little Big Horn…

[XT]

[QUOTE=elucidator]
And, of course, had Custer won the Battle of Little Big Horn…
[/QUOTE]

Yes? What would have happened?

And what exactly is your point, if you’d be so good? Myself, I had a point…which simply was that it wasn’t ‘crazy’ to think that, had Saddam surrendered, things could have been different. Yours was…what exactly?

-XT

[RickJay]

[QUOTE=FRDE]
One small but pertinent point, the Ba’athist party was like the Nazi party or the Communist party in the Eastern bloc.

If you wanted to get anywhere then you had to be a member.
[/QUOTE]

So it’s been claimed. But I’ve read reputable sources that said that:

1. It’s not true; some higher-ups were not members, and

2. Belonging to the party didn’t mean you believed in anything in particular.

[elucidator]

You are emphasizing circumstances over competences. Of the latter, the Bushiviks had zippo, bupkis, nada. There is no platter silver enough, as testified to by personnel decisions that went into the CPA, they would have fucked it up no matter what set of circumstances you propose. These guys would fuck up a free meal.

…well, where exactly would the outrage have come from do you think?..

Foreign guys with guns, walking around your turf. Monkeys are funny that way.

[elucidator]

On the other hand, if Saddam* had* surrendered, they would have interrogated him with great sincerity to find out where the WMD’s were. Until he cracked, and told them, blubbering through broken teeth, where they were.

But of course, he couldn’t, could he?

[XT]

[QUOTE=elucidator]
You are emphasizing circumstances over competences. Of the latter, the Bushiviks had zippo, bupkis, nada. There is no platter silver enough, as testified to by personnel decisions that went into the CPA, they would have fucked it up no matter what set of circumstances you propose. These guys would fuck up a free meal.
[/QUOTE]

Certainly Bush et al could have fucked things up in one way or another. I would go so far as to say that in some way or another, they most certainly would have. The point of course is that they wouldn’t have necessarily fucked things up in the same way…or that the results would have been the same. YMMV…but assuming that Bush et al would necessarily have to screw the pooch is as knee jerk as assuming they would necessarily get things right…IMHO anyway.

[QUOTE=elucidator]
Foreign guys with guns, walking around your turf. Monkeys are funny that way.
[/QUOTE]

Whew…good thing for my alternative history scenario that there are humans in Iraq then! We’d be fucked no matter what if a bunch of monkeys were in charge and living in Iraq!

-XT

[XT]

[QUOTE=elucidator]
On the other hand, if Saddam had surrendered, they would have interrogated him with great sincerity to find out where the WMD’s were. Until he cracked, and told them, blubbering through broken teeth, where they were.
[/QUOTE]

Um…no. I assume that, had Saddam and his merry men surrendered before hostilities started he’d even now have his scruffy ass on a beach somewhere, kicking back and watching his bank account grow. It really would be unreasonable to think that Saddam et al would surrender and put themselves in custody of the US. Think Marcos or Pahlavi…something along those lines.

-XT

[Der_Trihs]

[QUOTE=xtisme]
To answer your question though, no…in the alternative history I was speaking too (in response to the discussion earlier I was having with Der),
the Iraqi Army wouldn’t have taken the field at all…so coalition forces
(who I speculate would have been composed of several nations that didn’t
actually take part in the reality invasion) would have simply driven to the
capital and taken control without fighting at all.
[/quote]
Why ? No one wanted this invasion but us. Why would anyone else have joined, and why would it make a difference ?

And I serious doubt that no one would fight.

[QUOTE=xtisme]
Well, as I wasn’t saying this, I’m not sure where this is coming from. However…out of curiosity…show me some the mass of informed people who predicted what would happen in Iraq BEFORE the invasion wrt the insurgency we are currently seeing.
[/quote]
Didn’t Bush the Elder predict it all back at the end of GW I, and therfore choose not to topple Saddam ? It’s not like it was hard.

[QUOTE=xtisme]
Why would there necessarily BE an insurgency had Saddam and the Ba’athist folded? Where would it come from?
[/quote]
The same people it comes from now.

[QUOTE=xtisme]
Oh, I concede that the Sunni might still have been pissed off…but without the harm done initially to the infrastructure during the invasion phase, without the large numbers of Iraqi troops suddenly cut loose after being beaten AGAIN by the US, without the para-military formations to form the core of the initial insurgency…well, where exactly would the outrage have come from do you think?
[/quote]
Us invading for no good reson. Us destroying their government, laws and economy and taking control of their oil - all of which we would do; that was the point of invading.

[QUOTE=xtisme]
Again, I’ll concede we might still have gotten some discontents…but think about it. The Iraqi infrastructure wouldn’t have been destroyed. Food, medical supplies, vital services wouldn’t have been disrupted. Large numbers of civilians wouldn’t have had their homes bombed, shot at…or family members killed incidentally by both sides shooting where they happen to live.
[/quote]
Why not ? There was no need to invade in the first place; I expect that we would have bombed them no matter how hard they tried to surrender. After all, if they don’t resist then they aren’t a danger, and if they aren’t a danger then why are we invading ? A violent invasion was a political necessity. Plus, a great many supporters of Bush and the war are bigoted, bloodthirsty sadists; one of the reasons so many supported the war was the chance to kill foreigners, I believe.

[QUOTE=xtisme]
And IF the US had managed to get other Arab nations (perhaps Saudi, maybe Syria or better yet Jordan, etc) on board for the transitional occupation I think it would have made things go even more smoothly. And Saddam et al agreeing to take the golden parachute and go somewhere else would have opened that door. Hell, I think, as I said earlier, that some of our Euro buddies who abstained from an invasion would have been more willing to peacefully occupy an Iraq who’s leadership had left the building.
[/quote]
Why ? More invaders would just mean more targets. And no one but us wanted the invasion.

[QUOTE=xtisme]
I think had Saddam and the Ba’athists left (something I think COULD have happened, but something I doubt WOULD have…if you get my drift), then I think that its reasonable to conclude that there would be at least the possibility that things would have worked out differently…and therefore be different today.

Do YOU disagree?
[/QUOTE]
Yes; I doubt it would be much different. We are the driving force behind the Iraq disaster; not Saddam.

[RedFury]

@xt

Well, I don’t know what to say in that case…seems reasonable to me that
had Saddam folded, other nations in the region would have been eager to make
sure the wheels didn’t fly off during the power vacuum.

What you appear to be glossing over is the fact that the Coercion of The Unwilling, awaiting The Decider’s order to invade included nary an Muslim nation. And as you can see from the snippet from my rior post, the US was going in in 48 HOURS whether Saddam surrendered or not. Hardly enough time to get much of anything organized any differently than it already was – much less get a Real Coalition put together.

Took an experienced political operator such as Bush peré, plus real politicians like Baker and Co. a minimum of six months, endless American Advantage miles, an real diplomacy to put together that truly international force in place prior to GW-I. So how the heck do you think it’d be possible to do the same in 48 hours? Especially with the team Dubya had around him at the time…which segues nicely into both mstay’s and 'luc’s posts if only you read them in reverse order by starting with this one.

IOW, even if you look back at how things went without changing a thing other than Saddam’s surrendering and fleeing, all else would remain the same. Now read mstay’s and luc’s posts.

See what we’re getting at? Only in your dreams could this bunch – especially the leaders of the charge, Rummy, Cheney, Wolfowitz, et al – be anything other than bumbling, incompetent, greedy and ruthless motherfuckers.

Ever watch Bill Murray in “Groundhog’s Day”? Same thing.

---

Cites for insurgency predictions prior to the invasion? A ten second Google search will show you a ton. For instance:

1-Foreign Policy in Focus

In addition to possible ongoing guerrilla action by Saddam Hussein’s supporters, U.S. occupation forces would likely be faced with competing armed factions among the Sunni Arab population, not to mention Kurd and Shiite rebel groups seeking to break away from any ruler in Baghdad. This could lead the United States into a bloody counterinsurgency war. Without the support of other countries or the United Nations, a U.S. invasion could leave American forces effectively alone enforcing a peace amidst the chaos of a post-Saddam Iraq.

2-CIA Warned Bush Administration of Post-War Iraqi Resistance Prior to Invasion

3-After Saddam Hussein: Winning a Peace If It Comes to War

Ultimately, post-war chaos and long-term disorder in Iraq may prove more destructive to human life, regional stability, and national interest than any attempt to oust the Iraqi ruler. If the United States is going to war with Iraq, it should be prepared to go the distance.

Iraq is not a collapsed state nor is it experiencing significant civil war; but a shorthand approach to post-war reconstruction may produce both.

4-Prewar Intelligence Predicted Insurgency

5-Invasion and Resistance: The Iraqi Insurgent War

That should suffice for now. Want more, you’re welcomed to do your own homework.

I mean just because those of you that were pro-war didn’t listen to what those of us that opposed it had to say doesn’t mean we didn’t predict, in one form or another, pretty much what has happened since. It’s just that one gets rather tired and frustrated of reminding the war advocates of all the “we told you so” we countered with during the pre-invasion war fever.

[marshmallow]

[QUOTE=xtisme]
So…you can’t conceive of a situation in which, had Saddam and his
government fled, other governments, including Arab governments, would not or
could not be brought on board as a peace keeping force during the interim??
Seriously? And this is fantasy to you?
[/quote]

That is not what I said.

I said the only way it would’ve made a difference is if the contributions of the Arab governments were large and competent. Anything else is a pebble in a lake (or worse, if the force is, say, large and incompetent).

I don’t really see
that intelligent counter-insurgency doctrine has anything at all to do with
this scenario…or why it would have mattered AT THE TIME to anyone at all.
Unless they had a time machine of course…and an alternative history time
machine at that.

It would’ve mattered because if you don’t prevent an insurgency from taking hold and festering you have what is occurring on the news currently. For example, letting the population loot practically every government building to the bone (literally, the steel beams of the structure) is a bad idea, to say the least. The air of lawlessness and anarchy in the streets in the months after we took Baghdad suffocated whatever good intentions we could’ve mustered. That was only the start, of course.

Well, thats not really the point one way or the other. I think the Iraqi’s
fought harder and were more of an initial factor than you are giving
them…but really its irrelevant IMHO to what I was discussing. Except in
the fact that they wouldn’t have fought at all, at least IMHO, had Saddam
folded. And also there would have been less of a power vacuum had Saddam
and his government bolted and the US/Coalition forces basically just come in
too keep the peace and during the transition. As things happened in
reality, we had to fight our way to the capital, and even THROUGH the
capital…and during that time there WAS a pretty severe gap due to the fact
that Saddam and the Iraqi’s C&C were so disrupted…and no one was in
charge.

There was a power vacuum for months after we took command of the country because we literally had no plan and we had a schizophrenic view of our role as caretakers of the country we had just conquered. We neither allowed the Iraqis to take control of their land NOR did we seriously occupy the country and clamp down. It was the worst of both worlds with no positives.

To answer your question though, no…in the alternative history I was
speaking too (in response to the discussion earlier I was having with Der),
the Iraqi Army wouldn’t have taken the field at all…so coalition forces
(who I speculate would have been composed of several nations that didn’t
actually take part in the reality invasion) would have simply driven to the
capital and taken control without fighting at all. The Iraqi military
wouldn’t (perhaps) have been dissolved at all…just stood down. After all,
if there was no fighting, there would be no reason to dissolve them
completely (and no reason for the beaten remnants to melt away…as there
would BE no beaten remnants, ehe?).

There were pre-war plans for some Iraqi units to form guerilla units.

There was no reason to dissolve the military in our reality, either. It was one of the most fundamental mistakes we made in the occupation. I don’t see why we wouldn’t have done it in the hypothetical, either. Experts warned against it (really, putting close to a million men with knowledge of weapons and access to such out on the streets and out of the job would be a bad thing? Who could have seen that one coming…) but we did it out of ideological stubbornness.

Well, as I wasn’t saying this, I’m not sure where this is coming from. However…out of curiosity…show me some the mass of informed people who predicted what would happen in Iraq BEFORE the invasion wrt the insurgency we are currently seeing. Because frankly I don’t recall the hue and cry predicting all thats happened. As I recall things, it was supposed to be the invasion that was going to inflict all the casualties people were wringing their hands over. If there were scores of folks predicting this kind of thing I must have missed it myself at the time.

Not that this has anything to do with what I myself was discussing, mind…this is for my own curiosity only.

But it does. Because, again, you said the following (the main reason I replied to your first post):

Your automatic assumption that had Saddam fled the Iraqi’s would have fought, and would have had an insurgency is just speculation on your part…and its speculation informed by the history we’ve witnessed in the last 3-4 years. It wasn’t something commonly acknowledged BEFORE the invasion…ken?

Now, in my first reply I wasn’t sure what you meant by “commonly acknowledged.” If you meant within the government and intelligence services and by people who know their shit then you are dead wrong and this suggestion made me bristle. I’m ready to cite if you think the military apparatus ignored 250 years of military history and 75 years of counter insurgency. I can cite dozens of ME experts in the government putting reports together who pretty much nailed it as far as predictions go. That they were all ignored is beyond words. Reading their accounts of them trying to insert sanity into the internal debate and being pushed away is infuriating.

On the other hand you could’ve meant the popular press. This seems like what you meant. I commented that you don’t wish to go down this road because, well, it’s one of the most embarrassing moments in our media’s history. This period of outright government propaganda parroted by a supposedly free press will be studied for years. Of course the press didn’t examine the dangers of invading an Arab country with 150K troops and what sort of explosive unrest that could lead to. They also didn’t examine the WMD claims, the claims of terrorist connections, the history of the UN inspections, the testimony of Scott Ritter and others, or even the idea that, somehow, Iraq was such a threat to the security of the United States that we needed to invade as soon as possible.

The information was out there, though. I will definitely agree, of course, that it wasn’t common by any stretch. You had to dig. It was easier on the internet, but that’s the nature of the beast.

Though I’m into my 4th glass of some very fine single malt, I’ll try and 'splain: The power vacuum left behind when Saddam’s government and military was cut off from its C&C abilities left a gap while the US and coalition forces basically attempted (with far too few troops) to secure the major infrastructure of the country…including the capital. Couple that with basically the beaten remnants of Saddam’s army AND more importantly his para-military forces fading into the wood work during the resultant chaos and you have basically the situation we face today. When you add it the various folks pissed off by the odd bombing killing family members, the chaos and shortages before even basic services were restored, and any number of OTHER insults dealt during the invasion by the invaders and its not hard to see where this insurgency sprang from.

Maybe there’s something to what you’re saying. Maybe the insurgency would’ve been slightly slower in growing in this scenario. The problem is the sum effect is peanuts compared to our policies of de-Baathification and the disbanding of the Iraqi military, to take two of our bigger fuck ups. The Iraqi campaign isn’t such that one could tweak a variable or two here and end up with rainbows and lollipops. One could posit a competent campaign rooted in the lessons of history and run by the book of military and ME experts and maybe, just maybe, we could debate on whether rainbows would ensue.

Why would there necessarily BE an insurgency had Saddam and the Ba’athist folded? Where would it come from? Oh, I concede that the Sunni might still have been pissed off…but without the harm done initially to the infrastructure during the invasion phase, without the large numbers of Iraqi troops suddenly cut loose after being beaten AGAIN by the US, without the para-military formations to form the core of the initial insurgency…well, where exactly would the outrage have come from do you think?

Where would it have come from? Indeed, where would the anger come from when 150K white “Christian” soldiers (from a country who indirectly caused and supported a system which killed a million of your countrymen) decide to take over your country on a whim?

It doesn’t matter if Saddam left on his own. It doesn’t matter if we get nominal Arab support. The economy and infrastructure, if you didn’t know, was already in shambles before we invaded. We would still govern just like we did -– incompetently.

I mean, why wouldn’t we have gone through with de-Baathification, for example? You can just say we wouldn’t and speculate from there but then we aren’t talking about the motives of the actors in our reality. The justification for removing the Baathists were that they were evil and didn’t belong in a democracy. No logic, no moderation, no input from experts could dissuade those in the administration. Thus, hundreds of thousands if not millions of people became jobless. This is one example of us being dangerously stupid and I don’t see it changing just because Hussein left on his own accord. We were stupid all by ourselves.

Again, I’ll concede we might still have gotten some discontents…but think about it. The Iraqi infrastructure wouldn’t have been destroyed. Food, medical supplies, vital services wouldn’t have been disrupted. Large numbers of civilians wouldn’t have had their homes bombed, shot at…or family members killed incidentally by both sides shooting where they happen to live.

So that whole Sunni/Shia thing would’ve been peachy keen?

The infrastructure was already in tatters. Ditto the medical supplies and what we may consider vital services. Ten years of brutal sanctions made sure of that. When we took over they got even worse, somehow.

Well, if we did all the same things in the same way, then it wouldn’t be an alternative…would it? I wasn’t speculating (though you obviously were…or thought I was) that we ‘did all the same things in the same way’. I was speculating how things could have changed if Saddam and his merry men decided to throw in the towel, to take the money and run while the running was good.

Of course I was speculating we did everything else the same. The actors are still the same. Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Frank, Wolfowitz, Feith, Rice, and others – the same ideological blinders.