[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #1

In my opinion, the all-out assault will be preceded by internal guerilla uprising probably by Kurds. This will distract Saddam. He has to divert part of his elite troops to fight these guerillas. While this insurgency is in progress under the direction of CIA/SpecOps, U.S. will try to instigate defection of high ranking people or army units. Then U.S. can mount an invasion. But due to WMD, the invasion force may be spread out and move in slower pace. Anytime Saddam uses his WMD to Kurds, American troops or Israelis, U.S. will use her small nukes for retaliations. It is politically less provacative for U.S. to nuke Iraq than Israel. I know, U.S. is a great satan in Mid-East. But U.S. is still more popular than Israel. Finally, if the stalemate develops in the battlefield for some reason, U.S. will again use nukes to finish the war. U.S. cannot afford to have prolonged attrition battle Muslim extremists are so fond of waging. U.S. should not give any hopes to them. If they play madmen, they will be nuked.

[Governor StrangeReno]

Problem Turkey also hates curds and may not be amenable to having them getting rambunctious in areas they want in Turkey,besides after 1991 I don't think they'll play they got well and truly shafted,they probably consider their current anarchic no go zone for Saddams military a better option.

[Criminal Number 18F]

Maq -- good, insightful post.

Tige -- while an insurgency of the Kurds would be very good to have, both the Barzani and Talabani factions (which are more or less clan-based and fight each other intermittently) have been burnt by US indecision or withdrawal at least three times before:

• 1974 when Kissinger pulled the plug to appease the Shah.

• 1991/2 when the US stood by and let Sadman the Madman's air pound hell out of the Kurdish and Shiite insurgents, so long as the aircraft didn't cross the no-fly line.

• 1994/5 when the Kurds and dissident Iraqi officers staged a coup.

The only way they will believe us is if we are there shoulder to shoulder with them. I think Maq gets this. This in tuen makes specific demands as to units that can be used, etc. which I shan't go into.

I can't imagine any scenario other than a WMD attack on the US or a close ally that would lead to a US use of nuclear weapons. In fact, in many cases of WMD attack the correct responce would not be nuclear. For nukes to be worth shooting off, the provocation must be sufficient, but that's only half of the equation, the political half. The other half is military: the target must also be suitable.

So far we have faced nothing that would justify the use of nuclear arms, from a strictly military viewpoint.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F