Posted on 09/16/2002 8:33:58 AM PDT by robowombat
New York Daily News September 13, 2002
Invasion 'Bloody Mess'?
Expert worried by nukes, lack of U.S. postwar plan
By Richard Sisk, Daily News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - The U.S. would win a war with Iraq, but the battle and victory itself would have consequences that President Bush should think very hard about, a respected military analyst said yesterday.
"Could this be a bloody mess? Yes, it could," said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "And what do we do after we win?"
In a briefing on his 100-page analysis of Iraq's military, Cordesman said war probably is necessary to deprive dictator Saddam Hussein of chemical and biological weapons and stop his drive to get nuclear weapons.
But Cordesman said he was troubled that the White House had yet to plan for a postwar Iraq and had done little to gauge the reaction of Arab allies and Iran.
Cordesman also presented a doomsday scenario of Israel retaliating with nuclear weapons if Iraq unleashed a chemical or biological attack against it.
"The history here is of a man who lashes out," Cordesman said of Saddam.
If Iraq attacked with weapons of mass destruction, and he were an Israeli, "I would not be paying attention to phone calls from President Bush" urging restraint, Cordesman said.
Cordesman's estimates, which are similar to those of the CIA and other analysts, put Iraq's troop strength at about 400,000, backed by about 300 aircraft, 2,000 tanks and 3,000 armored personnel carriers.
This force has been decimated by 10 years of poor maintenance, lack of spare parts and little training, Cordesman said.
"This is a relatively weak and divided military and under pressure it might collapse," Cordesman said, but attacking on a guess "is not the way you go to war."
His cautionary analysis is at odds with the views of Richard Perle and Kenneth Adelman, civilian members of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Review Board who have influence at the White House.
They have argued that the U.S. would win quickly.
Adelman has described a U.S. invasion of Iraq as a "cakewalk."
Cordesman criticized that attitude, saying war was being pushed "by people who have the view that we can do this with a limited amount of force and little risk."
"It isn't going to be a cakewalk," he said.
The Iraqi Army has 23 divisions, and "seven to 12 of them you cannot possibly ignore or take lightly."
The U.S. probably would need about one-third of the forces used in the Gulf War, when 500,000 troops were deployed, he said.
Any military campaign has unknowns, and Cordesman compiled a two-page list of "uncertainties and intangibles." Among them are Iraqi morale and the "effectiveness of Iraqi opposition forces, if any."
But the key wild cards are whether Saddam would try to use chemical and biological weapons and whether they would be effective, Cordesman said.
"The problem is you can never really know," Cordesman said. "We are dealing with very critical risks."
The best intelligence cannot gauge whether Iraq has the ability to disperse chemical and biological weapons effectively, Cordesman said. "No one can give you an estimate of that kind of lethality."
The U.S. buildup to an Iraq campaign would not be lengthy, Cordesman said. Military equipment already is in place or being moved to the region, and transporting the troops would take three weeks or a month, he said.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who employed Cordesman for several years, said he expected Iraqi troops to offer little resistance.
"Saddam Hussein is vastly weaker than he was in 1991," McCain said. "And I'd ask one question: What member of the Iraqi Army is willing to die for Saddam Hussein when they know he's going to be taken out?"
Or Saddam might just roll over like a stuffed armadillo . . .
Then they must have added them since the last war.
The question to be asked (and it has already been answered, I think) is "Do we HAVE to go to war with this enemy at this time?"
Everything else is just speculation and verbal diarrhea.
No, he's troubled that the White House had yet to inform him as to what its postwar plans are. And how does he know what efforts have been undertaken to "gauge the reaction of Arab allies and Iran"?
This type of thing is so frustrating. Was it like this during WWII? Did non-governmental "experts" receive platforms in the national media to explain/complain about their concerns? We have elected officials and career soldiers who can be held accountable. Who is this jackass, and why do I give a rat's behind what he thinks?
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