[Shermy]

Rearm most of the army. Tell them the truth that the instability is caused by Saudi and Iranian interference at top wanting to keep Iraqi power down, Iraqi oil offline, and Saudi and Iranian oil prices up. The religious propaganda is just cover for the real interests at play. The Iraqis will understand when explained they're not getting their fair share. Both Saddam and their neighbors want to keep them down.

We're spending our own billions instead of using the Iraqi oil for reconstruction as previously promised. In turn we are subsidizing Saudi and Iran and OPEC with more billions at the same time with higher oil prices and higher percentages of overall OPEC production quota. Saudi/Iran's expense in "strategic" oil disruptions has brought them immense profits in return.

[cake_crumb]

"Rearm most of the army. Tell them the truth that the instability is caused by Saudi and Iranian interference at top wanting to keep Iraqi power down, Iraqi oil offline, and Saudi and Iranian oil prices up. The religious propaganda is just cover for the real interests at play."

The Iraqi army? Iran has been trying to take over Iraq from within for years, and Saudi is Sunni - Saddam's favorite flavor. They already know all that.

[APRPEH]

re-arm the army? why? a better question is where is the former iraqi army? the us scored a great intelligence victory before the war convincing the iraqi military to go home. however successful the intelligence operation, it was a stupid strategic decision based upon short term political reasoning. today, american soldiers are dying specifically because there are hundreds of thousands of former iraqi soldiers who went home with their AKs, rocket propelled grenades, morters, etc. wouldnt have made more sense to catch them on the battlefield, kill them and break their toys? isnt that what armies are supposed to do? now we are trying to control a heavily armed country with 150,000 soldiers. we probably need a minimum of 500,000 on the ground to disarm the iraqis. without doing so, no "nation-building" will ever occur. see also http://www.deprogramprogram.com/wbswebpage.cfm?pagetextid=nofrontgetsaddam for a reasonable analysis...