[america-rules]

Zinni is trying to fit the mold of the current facts with what he said before the war.

He said we would need 500,000 troops to bring Saddam down and take Bagdad !

He said there would be 5-10 thousand US killed doing it !

Zinni has gone off the deep end lately and is trying to prove his theory when he was wrong.

Any deaths suck as well as wounded GI's but if anyone asked a month before the war would you trade 500 combat deaths for the capture of Iraq/Saddam with less then 2% of the oil wells damaged and 36 countries helping most of us would say it's a good deal !

[justa-hairyape]

but if anyone asked a month before the war would you trade 500 combat deaths for the capture of Iraq/Saddam with less then 2% of the oil wells damaged and 36 countries helping most of us would say it's a good deal !

Great points. The coalition won the war in spectacular fashion. It will go down in history as one of the greatest military offensives ever. The insurgency has actually been fairly mild compared to what it could have been (ie - WMD attacks on cities by Saddam loyalist).

[dread78645]

He said we would need 500,000 troops to bring Saddam down and take Bagdad !

No he didn't. It took 500,000 to get Iraq out of Kuwait in Gulf War I.

General Zinni's plan would deploy 250,000 up to 300,000 depending on the resistance during occupation.
Generals Powell, Scowcroft, Shinseki, and even Weasel Clark concurred.

He said there would be 5-10 thousand US killed doing it !

Uhmm where'd you get that? Maybe you confused former SecNav James Webb w/ Gen. Zinni.