[bart99]

" In their first five years, the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM)...achieved substantial successes."


If the UN hadn't forced us to stop after liberating Kuait, the whole thing would have been over in another month, rather than having "substantial sucesses" in 5 years, and still the problems 12 years later!

[bart99]

And nothing in the report that would prohibit Iraq from continuing to build up a masive conventional force while we just sorta commit to being passive onlookers as long as inspecoters inspect. That would be fine til Iraq decided to just let loose.

[Keith in Iowa]

[AgThorn]

Sorry, but for me, as long as he's still encouraging suicide bombers in Israel and the Phillipines and elsewhere, this guys got to go.

Perhaps thats not the "official" reason that we are over there but put that together with our abandoning the Kurds once before, this plan doesn't pacify my reasons for thinking rhat the only solution includes the ousting of this despot.

[blondee123]

A credible and continuing military threat involving substantial forces on Iraq's borders will be necessary both to get the inspectors back into Iraq and to enable them to do their job

AH, like yeah, we can afford to keep 300,000 troops there til dooms day!!

[7o62x39]

For the moment lets assume that the Carnegie Endowment isn't a front group and this Jessica Tuchman Mathews is well intentioned.

The critical flaws are many, but here goes

1)Her proposal requires a large forced (several hundred thousand combatants) forward deployed for a rather long and undetermined period while the inspections proceed. A) The cost of this force in the field is significant. B) The USA and UK have mobilized reserves, the troops are deployed in the field not in fixed bases. I assume Mrs. Mathews has not spent say 120 days in the Kuwaiti desert sleeping in the sand in a tent and eating MREs. C) The total force projection causes power vacuums around the world. USA force projection capabilities are not endless. This deployment represents a significant percentage of our capabilities. Others will cause mischief while we're tied down.

2) How much will the USA have to pay nations to allow us to be the UN's right arm. What are the consequences politically of such large forces stationed in arab countries. Iraq gets to prepare massive defenses to face off against our troops fixed deployments. Islamist or Baathist supported terrorist get to hit our troops in station.

3) Iraq, Islamists and opportunistic anti-American Leftists would have time to build their fifth column power against any use of the US force. Iraq would expand and target its bribes - both direct of individual leaders on the UNSC and of the country's themselves on the UNSC.

4) Saddam can play the game indefinately. Giving enough to ward off attack while seeking to develop a WMD inventory which would become large and sophisticated enough to become a deterent to any US action. The game continues until Saddam eventually is able to have the rate of growth in his covert WMD program exceed the rate he must give up elements of his WMD to the UN to ward them off and reach deterence.

If I'm Saddam I'll take this offer happily. I'll ask the French to raise it for me at the UNSC. I'll ship some of my WMD peeps to say Sudan and work on Bios and Chems there. ($ and people can be moved off shore for a secondary development play). Hell I'll buy a bunch of freighters and station labs on them and float them around the Indian Ocean. I'll hire some good Euro-Lawyers to find the types of ships the UN can;t search and put stuff on them. Maybe I'll move some labs to Embassies and smuggle stuff in diplomatic bags.

Give me more than just a few minutes to think on this and I'll cook up plenty of other ways to get around it. Here's $2 billion for some more French Mirage Jets.

[Hugin]

Next week we will send in 300,000 very intrusive inspectors.

[KeyWest]

Dumb thinking by the author. But what is new in liberal circles. One fact that was recently posted on FR is that 7,000 inspectors were in Germany before WWII to insure the Germans adhered to the restraints put on them after WWI.

[The Great Satan]

It would take about a suitcase full of the anthrax sent to Daschle to wipe out New York City. A station wagon full of the stuff would be enough to kill most of the urban population of the United States, and could be easily delivered by hand. The spores have an unlimited shelf life and are completely undetectable, so long as they are kept in an airtight container. It's too late for inspections. You can't unmake an omelette. We're f***ed, thanks to the UN.

[mewzilla]

I don't think the author read 1441. The Iraqis are supposed to cough this stuff up to the inspectors. The inspectors aren't supposed to be their to hunt the stuff up themselves.