Yesterday, I attended a lecture by Prof. Anthony Cordesman, who is the "Arliegh A Burke Chair in Strategy" at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC. [ http://www.csis.org & http://csis.org/html/4cordesm.htm & http://csis.org/burke/ ] He was talking about"Lessons of the Iraq War" at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) http://www.defence.gov.au/adfa/ , organised by the Australian Defence Studies Centre (ADSC) http://idun.itsc.adfa.edu.au/ADSC/.
Cordesman was/is NOT a 'yes-man' for the current administration. His recent paper on Saudi Arabia ight show this. http://csis.org/burke/saudi21/saudi_challenge.pdf [62kB] He was particularly critical, several times, about the lack of planning for "counter-insurgency" in the US invasion of Iraq. He commented that it seemed that there was little thought given to it compared to the 1991 invasion. Consequently, there had been a degree of unpreparedness for the push-back by the Iraqi irregulars who have been sniping at the US forces. He called not finding the WMD "embarrasing" both strategically and politically. He also said that the media had been particularly unproductive in not making an honest and dispassionate investigation of the whole question. In the 1991 war, 8% of the munitions were "precision guided"; in 2003, 68% were these type. When asked for a "best case scenario", he said: - a federal governmental structure in 2 years; - sharing of wealth and power between all factions that is seen to be fair to all; - a legal system; - economic transformation and development; - reparations and forgiveness (for the wrongs of many years); - a stable basis for the country's development (by Iraqis, not outsiders); - human rights - hope; - political parties (but, then, 'democracies' can arguably not claim 'viable' political parties!) --- Rememberm there have been 2 wars, dictatorship and a 'command economy' recently, and arguably a disfunctional government since the country was created in the 1920s. I'll write up more of my notes if people are interested. Peter ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------
