Eugen Leitl reposted an article by someone: > From: Dave Farber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Risks of Iraqi war emerging > Some officials warn of a mismatch between strategy and force size. > By Joseph L. Galloway > Inquirer Washington Bureau
> Knowledgeable defense and administration officials say Rumsfeld and his > civilian aides at first wanted to commit no more than 60,000 U.S. troops to > the war, on the assumption that the Iraqis would capitulate in two days. The > total combat force now numbers about 180,000 troops. > > Intelligence officials say Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz and other > Pentagon civilians ignored much of the advice of the CIA and the Defense > Intelligence Agency in favor of reports from the Iraqi opposition and from > Israeli sources that predicted an immediate uprising against Hussein once > the Americans attacked. Much as I love to say it, one of the things I hope to come out of this war is sufficient egg on the faces of Rumsfeld and the other PNACs so that it's be at least another 100 years before anyone listens to them. Those of us who aren't in the USA sleep safer in our beds if we know that the US realises there are huge costs to war. I don't want a world where anybody - even the good guys - thinks that they can start a war with no risk. > The officials said Rumsfeld also made his disdain for the Army's heavy > divisions very clear when he argued about the war plan with Army Gen. Tommy > Franks, the allied commander. Franks wanted more and more heavily armed > forces, said one senior administration official; Rumsfeld kept pressing for > smaller, lighter and more agile ones, with much bigger roles for air power > and special forces. > > "Our force package is very light," said a retired senior general. "If things > don't happen exactly as you assumed, you get into a tangle, a mismatch of > your strategy and your force. Things like the pockets [of Iraqi resistance] > in Basra, Umm Qasr and Nasiriyah need to be dealt with forcefully, but we > don't have the forces to do it." Though this might be wrong. If the "pockets" are in cities, and if you don't want to kill thousands of civilians, what use are heavy weapons? For literal street-fighting you want units like the British Paras & Royal Marine Commandos, or the Gurkhas. And guess just who is in Basra now?
