IRAQ: Future Looking Dimmer

Many assume that Iraq is next on the list of terrorist nations to be brought down after Afghanistan. While links between Saddam and al Qaeda are tenuous at best, and nobody has been able to tie the anthrax attacks to Iraqi intelligence, Iraq has been a sore thorn in the US side since the Gulf War ended prematurely in 1991. But what, actually, might be done?

@ an invasion by US troops from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait is out of the question. There are not enough US troops available without mobilizing entire National Guard combat divisions, and the Saudis won't back such a plan.

@ There is plenty of airpower available to give Saddam a good pounding and, perhaps, force him to accept UN arms inspectors (for all the good that would do). But does George W Bush want to have to answer the same question his father didn't want to answer: "Looking back on ten years ago, don't you wish you had gone ahead and eliminated Saddam Hussein?"

@ An Afghan-style campaign, with a few special forces troops calling in air strikes for local forces to drive Saddam out of the country seems far-fetched at best. There simply are no local forces (other than an entirely too small and badly divided force of Kurds) and Iraq does not have the tradition that Afghanistan has of local warlords changing sides when the wind changes direction.

@ If outside troops are needed, and if the US cannot provide them or all of them, and if the Saudi's do not want to support such a drive, that leaves the US with only one option: Turkey. The Turks were in charge of Iraq until the end of World War I. The Turks have a problem with Kurdish rebels, who can function only because they have bases inside Iraq. Turkey is a strong country lacking only one thing: oil. It has been discussed for months that the US might offer Turkey the northern Iraqi province of Mosul (a province that is Kurdish), but perhaps it might be considered to give them the entire country? The large Turkish Army, backed by the US Air Force and a division or two of US armor, might easily overwhelm Saddam's forces. If it is still politically valid to keep the Iranians away from the Saudi Border (and it is) then Turkish troops might shield the Saudis just as well as Iraqis. Turkey would have to agree to US conditions that much of the oil revenue be used to economically develop impoverished areas of Iraq, something the Turks would have to do if they wanted to be seen as liberators rather than foreign conquerors. Turkey would be forever changed by the sudden inclusion of tens of millions of non-Turkish Arabs (Shiites and Sunni) and Kurds, perhaps requiring some kind of federal system or protectorate status. The plan would probably work, but it is doubtful that any serious consideration might be given to it. And there is a serious risk. If Turkey and the US invaded northern Iraq, Iran might take the opportunity to gobble up southern (Shiite) Iraq before the Turks could get there. Faced with defeat, Saddam might even invite the Iranians in (even if this eventually led to their removal of his regime), which would speed up their advance. This could result in two possible outcomes, neither of which is good: Iran on the Saudi border, or a general war in the region between Turkey and Iran.--Stephen V Cole

THe author misses an immportant point-- the local populace in Afghanistan did NOT interfere or contest our actions because (1) they like what we were doing, and (2) we were explicitly NOT after them- they had no reason to fear us. In Iraq you could add to that the fact that the average Iraqi has a higher standard of living than the average Afghani, and the 'war' would be much more disruptive-- adding to their impatience to end the fighting and get on with their lives, preferably without the secret police.

Were we to do Afghanistan II in Iraq, it is a reasonable hypothesis that the populace could be made to remain neutral to positive. That leaves us with a far more conventional (and easy to identify, target and destroy) enemy to defeat. While larger, and stronger at first than the Taleban and AlQaeda, IRaq could fall just the same. We would likely have to occupy territory during the military action, but could quickly turn it over to a mix of friendly indiginous and multi-national type. Possession of Iraq is not the goal.

Iraq (dba Saddam Hussein) is defeatable.

What would make us think that the Iraqi Army is any more of a challenge today than it was 10 years ago, when it was much larger? Nothing.

Turkey is the obvious place to bring in ground troops which would be necessary to finish the job. I don't think that requires handing over the country to Turkey afterward, nor have I read anywhere that Turkey particularly wants it. The Iraqi people are hardly prepared for inclusion into a democratically-controlled NATO member like Turkey.

There actually is a big difference between going into Baghdad and the Sunni heartland and liberating Kuwait...as much as the monday morning quarterbacking Gulf War crowd doesn't want to admit it.

And the US Army really has shrunk DRAMATICALLY since the Gulf War.

I question there's enough in it for Turkey to do it unless they are given territory outright..which, I feel, is a bad idea.

I agree. Iraq is a paper tiger with some dangerous teeth. Turkey is hardly a problem, and does not need the added problems a real incursion into Iraq would bring.

THe point here is to remove the entire set of tin-horn dictators who have inflicted pain, fear, death and destruction on the word. There is no justification for any of the world's citizens to live in fear just becasue of these guys. Take 'em out.

JOhn--

We don't need a large army to defeat Iraq's ruling regime AND their military.

How long would it take us to reduce their fighting forces to below 50% battle ready? I say about 45 days, start to finish. At that point, one mechanized infantry batallion (with air support) could go anywhere in Iraq it needed to and accomplish all missions. Resistance would be futile, and the populace would not rise up (hypothesis.)

If you're suggesting that we can't take out Iraq, I'd suggest that you are wrong. There were many who also argued that we certainly couldn't oust the Taliban if Russia couldn't take the country in ten years of fighting.

The situations are hardly identical, of course, but Iraq had the fifth largest army in the world in 1990. After a few weeks of determined US effort, it was a complete shambles and it has never recovered.

Could we pulverize it again from the air, and figure out how to send an armored column down Baghdad Boulevard? Sure we could. It might be preferable to lay some groundwork now in terms of talks with opposition leaders and making this appear as an Iraqi insurgency which we are actively assisting. But we can do it without that if necessary.

This is certainly a more difficult task than we face in Afghanistan and we have to be additionally concerned about any WMD which Saddam might unleash. But we are resourceful and we are the lone remaining superpower. If we have to put the screws to Jordan to obtain a western staging ground, we can do that, too.

But does George W Bush want to have to answer the same question his father didn't want to answer: "Looking back on ten years ago, don't you wish you had gone ahead and eliminated Saddam Hussein?"

Another point missed...from the very beginning of the Gulf crisis, this was NEVER a stated goal - the coalition would not have stood for it....President Bush did exactly what he told the world he would do - get Iraq out of Kuwait...period. This is revionist history.

I wish he would have gone after Saddam - but the war would have had to have been fought much differently.......then again, hindsight is always 20/20

I'm not suggesting that we can't. I'm suggesting, and Cole is suggesting,that it's going to be fairly difficult. Every situation has to be examined on its own merits; because Afghanistan was far easier than believed that doesn't necessarily mean Iraq would be far easier than believed.

First thing I'd try is an out of the blue massive campaign to kill Hussein with no warning, and see what happens.

I'm really uncomfortable with the criticism of Bush and Powell, myself, for a number of reasons.

1) If Dukakis was president, you can rest assured he would have sat around for years "waiting for sanctions to bite" and Iraq would control Kuwait today. It took an INCREDIBLE amount of political will and determination, in the face of massive opposition, to put together an OFFENSIVE force just to get Iraq out of Kuwait; I doubt many other possible presidents we could have had would have done it, Republican or Democrat. Could you imagine Clinton kicking Iraq out of Kuwait?

2) I think a lot of the people criticizing Bush for not going to Baghdad would be criticizing him today FOR going to Baghdad, if he did. It's easy to monday morning quarterback. I suspect a Baghdad campaign would have been bloody, and the occupation of Iraq incredibly messy, and probably would have motivated more anti-US terrorism than we've actually seen in the last 10 years.

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