Posted on 11/16/2002 4:33:01 AM PST by Chairman_December_19th_Society
We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail! [President Bush]
Good morning!! Do not let the victims of the attacks on New York and Washington, nor the brave members of our Nation's military who have given their lives to protect our freedom, die in vain!!
Jiang Zemin may have stepped down as President of China, but he still retains control of that Nation's military.
Director Tom Ridge is expected to be nominated as the first Secretary of Homeland Security.
And Britain's Medical Officer (akin to our Surgeon General) announced that his country will begin an education campaign to inform British subjects how to respond to a biological or chemical attack.
For AMERICA - The Right Way, I remain yours in the Cause, the Chairman.
This may not have anything to do with anything, but I have never been to the USO Canteen thread. I used to get pinged to them all the time when they started out, but I never did go.
My husband just said that if X42 were still president, he would probably have figured out how to get his hands on some of that money and would have installed a bunch of Saddam's relatives in Florida!
Funny, but sadly too close to the truth!
5.56mm
I , like you, have started to get in the Christmas spirit. The decor in the stores is so lovely this time of year. I love to window shop.
Now a Packer win today will just make the weekend!
Go Pack!
At some point early on, the president met with his foreign policy team to discuss Iraq. That team likely would be Cheney, Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, Tenet and perhaps a couple of others. In that meeting evidence about what Saddam was up to was presented. It was a shocker and demanded action. Dubya put someone, likely Cheney in charge of putting together all options both military and diplomatic that might resolve the problem of Saddam and his weapons of mass Destruction.
Cheney after talking to everyone and reading all the takes, presented all the options. It was decided that removing all WMD from Iraq had to be done.
Next came lots of brain storming to figure out the best way to do it. Bits and pieces got delgates to all sorts of people who only knew about their bit or pieces. Finally a final plan was adopted. The rational and plan went something like this.
The War powers act certainly gave the president the right to act alone. He could lean on Kuwait and use it to build up the force necessary to take down Saddam. There was just one fly in that ointment. If we started a unilateral build up with the declared intent to take out Saddam, Saddam would not likely just sit there and wait for us to attack. He would use every weapon he could to shove us back in the sea out of Kuwait and perhaps try some stuff here in the USA. He would act at the earliest point where our intentions were certain and our build up was still low.
Saddam would know he could not win if we went the full course. His motivation would be how much could he hurt us and make the US anti-war movement grow. His best shot would be to kill and torture enough of our troops and people to make a fast Viet Nam type response in the US public. It would be his only chance. He would surely take it. He would, if he could, hurt us here at home as well.
The problem for the President was as follows. How do we build up in Kuwait and other required areas to the point where we can take Saddam's military down with few if any loses, while at the same time giving Saddam no good reason to try to stop us with military and terrorist actions? That is a mouth ful and a big problem.
The build up of the 80,000 attack troops and the 170,000 support troops we need to defeat Saddam would take months. If Saddam attacked us when we only had 16,000 troops on the ground, his army might suffer 50,000 loses but it could still take 5,000 of our troops. He could perhaps hold them killing 10 or 20 a day on CNN until we withdrew.
It was decided that we should always leave Saddam with the illusion there was a viable and peaceful way for him to achieve at least a draw if not victory. What someones must have said is, we need a way for Saddam to think he can escape scott free right up until we spring the trap. How can we make Saddam think he can still win with out him using force and terrorism to do so?
The solution was to go to the Senate and the UN. Someone asks... what if one or the the other turn us down? Someone replies, we go in saying we will take Saddam down no matter what they do. We never take that back. But we appear to waffle under UN and Senate pressure. But we never actually buckle.
What if the president says to both the UN and the Senate we want your approval. If you do not give it I will act alone. But then immediately starts negotiating with the Security Council and the Senate. In the fog of war mixed signals are valuable. Tell Colin and Rummy to go out to the media and Generate FOG. Who will believe we are really going to go war? We can hope Saddam doesn't. Could we have some more FOG?
The policy we adopted had to take into account the biggest fear Schwartzkopf said he had in the Gulf war. That was the fear Saddam would attack Saudi when the Iraqi army could lick the small force we had in Saudi. Why didn't Saddam do it back then? Saddam was pretty sure that if he did not attack Saudi he would be OK. His worst case situation was to be back where he was before he attacked Kuwait.But there can be no such deal time. So Saddam must always think he can win peacefully untill there is no chance he can.
So the President announced he would go it alone, and let that sink in a few days. Dubya was not moving many troops but he is sure talking mean.
Then upon the urging of Colin Powell and an adviser to be named later the President backed up and appeared to have a change of heart. He was going off to the UN where everone was prepared for the grand Dubya surrender. Whoops Dubya shows up with his take it or leave it speech. Put that in your Whoopie Goldberg and see if it floats. But then Bush immediately starts negotiating with the UN. Fog fog and conflicting signals for all in the middle east and on the media plantation too. Could anthing be more confusing... Did I mention Zig and then a Zag?
Meanwhile back in the middle east the build up is moving at a rapid pace. Bush waits weeks on the UN and weeks on the Senate. He appears to waffle a bit here and does a wobbly there. Saddam does not move a troop. Then we get the Unanimous UN thing-ie and Saddam has agreed to inspections.
The final step will be to present the evidence that caused the whole thing to be a problem in the first place. If there is not an immediate UN vote to take him down, we go at it hard with the help of the Brits.
I suspect if the UN does not take the bait we will still act very quickly once our full force is in place and trained to act. After we destroy Saddam we will start remaking the Middle east as we did Japan after WWII.
The entire strategy had to be to keep Saddam from hurting us when he still could. We are very near to the point were he can not.
I considered two possibilities that Dubya acted with a long term plan or he is playing it by ear. People I know say Dubya always plays from prepared arrangements and the arranger had best be able to justify every single note.
But this stuff about Cheney, Rummy, Powell and Condi fighting for the right to send in the the next play in the game says there was no game plan. I think there is always a game plan.
All these months the press has been whining "Where's the evidence?" They want those blown-up aerial photos on easels like Adlai Stevenson showed in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
I think they will get them, but not until our troops are in position, and bombers are on the way.
All these months Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney and Powell have been very consistent in what they have said. There have been hints that more is known than they are telling.
Woodward is making things up, as usual. I remain convinced that he got access only for that 9/11 series he did for the Washington Post and has spun a whole book out of the original series. Interestingly, the original series was quite positive. There weren't many "thoughts" in it, of course.
Now that Woodward has seen the disaster the democrats are facing in 2004, he comes out with something designed to discredit and divide the administration. It is quite transparent, and I hope it lands him at the bottom of the sales bracket at Amazon.
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