> 20,000 soldiers is a hell of a lot, and the US has > more urgent/important things to do than sending them > traipsing around the Iraqi desert sounds like a pretty > good one.� Right now, at this moment, the US military > is desperately overstretched.� There is a 3:1 rule for > deployments - to put 20,000 troops on the ground > outside the US, you need to have a minimum of 60,000 > soldiers dedicated to the job.� Force constraints are > real, and a major concern of everyone in the defense > establishment right now. >
A) What could possibly be more important than finding the weapons of mass destruction that were the entire justification for the invasion in the first place? Weapons, I might add, that the Bushies claimed to know exactly where they were before the invasion. (In March, Rumsfeld was quoted saying they were in the Tikrit area.) B) We won the war - why are we now so overstretched? Maybe the Bushies underestimated what it would take to win the peace. They appear to have had no real plan for what would happen after the glorious victory, just as they have had little plan for Afghanistan other than going in and quickly declaring victory on the Bush News Channel - oops, sorry, I meant the Fox News Channel. C) If we need more troops, send 'em in. This is no time to be poormouthing things. If we don't have enough troops - why not? How can an occupation be harder to organize than an invasion? D) I'm sure the Bush apologists on this list will have all kinds of excuses for their beloved lord and master. Screwing up the aftermath does not detract from what was a successful military operation. But the point of the operation was not just to be able to declare victory. It was to find Saddam's WMD - which they swore up and down to the entire world existed and which they did claim to know where they were. I'm glad the bastard is out of power, but I'm not glad that there's anarchy in Iraq, and I'm not glad that his WMD can't be found. Where are they? Tom Beck www.prydonians.org www.mercerjewishsingles.org "I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed I'd see the last." - Dr Jerry Pournelle _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
