[CIB-173RDABN]

Saddam's only real threat to us is his bio and chem warfare capability. This threat is greater when we mass our forces and take a long time to build them up (a la 1991). Reliance upon speed, maneuver, stealth, and deception in lieu of massive force will minimize our vulnerability to this type of threat. Powell's preferred approach would maximize it.

When this is all said and done, I would like someone to explain to me why Saddam waited while we moved men and machinery into the area. Why didn't he attack when he had the numerical superiority?

[ASA Vet]

Why didn't he attack when he had the numerical superiority?

Because he and most of rest of the world thought it was
all a bluff, and that the U.S. didn't have the balls to really take large scale military action.

Remember our will as a nation was supposed to have been destroyed by Vietnam.

[financeprof]

There are a variety of possibilities, but short of getting inside of his head (a scary thought) we'll never know for sure. I suspect that he was surprised by the swift US response and deployment to Saudi Arabia (given that he apparently thought the US had given him a green light to go into Kuwait). I doubt that he wanted a war with the US, but as with most dictators, felt that it would be fatal to turn and run. He probably also counted on the USSR's protecting him.

I also recall (somewhat dimly) reading one of the books that came out soon after the Gulf War (by Norman Friedman, I think) that Saddam's troops weren't really capable of moving in force into Saudi. If my recollection is correct, many of his tanks broke down moving through the desert to the Kuwait-Saudi border. I'll try to verify that.

In any event, we shouldn't plan on being lucky twice. This time Saddam knows that if we go in, its because we are going to put his head on a pike. Under these circumstances he has no reason to hold anything--including WMD--back.