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| THE STRATFOR WEEKLY |
| 2004-04-16 |
| Bush’s Crisis: Articulating a Strategy in Iraq and the Wider War Summary President George W. Bush’s press conference on Tuesday evening was fascinating in its generation of a new core justification for the Iraq campaign: building a democratic Iraq. It is unclear why Bush would find this a compelling justification for the invasion, but it is more unclear why the administration continues to generate unconvincing arguments for its Iraq policy, rather than putting forward a crisp, strategic and -- above all -- real justification. Analysis It is clear that the current crisis in Iraq was not expected by the Bush administration. That in itself ought not to be a problem. Even the most successful war is filled with unexpected and unpleasant surprises. D-Day in Normandy was completely fouled up; the German Ardennes offensive caught the Allies by surprise. No war goes as expected. However, in order to recover from the unexpected, it is necessary to have a clear strategic framework from which you are operating. This means a clearly understood concept of how the pieces of the war fit together -- a concept that can be clearly articulated to both the military and the public. Without a framework that defines where you are going, you can never figure out where you are. It becomes impossible to place the unexpected in an understandable context, and it becomes impossible to build trust among the political leadership, the military and the nation. This is why the 1968 Tet offensive in Vietnam was unmanageable -- yet the Ardennes offensive of 1944- 1945 was readily managed. In a piece entitled "Smoke and Mirrors: The United States, Iraq and Deception" which Stratfor published Jan. 21, 2003, we commented on the core of the coming Iraq campaign, which was that the public justification for the war (weapons of mass destruction) and the strategic purpose of the war (a step in redefining regional geopolitics) were at odds. We argued that: "In a war that will last for years, maintaining one’s conceptual footing is critical. If that footing cannot be maintained -- if the requirements of the war and the requirements of strategic clarity are incompatible -- there are more serious issues involved than the future of Iraq." During President George W. Bush’s press conference this week, that passage came to mind again. The press conference focused on what has become the new justification for the war -- bringing Western-style democracy to Iraq. A subsidiary theme was that Iraq had been a potential threat to the United States because it "coddled" terrorists. Mounting a multidivisional assault on a fairly large nation for these reasons might be superficially convincing, but they could not be the main reasons for invasion -- and they weren’t. We will not repeat what we regard as the main line of reasoning (War Plan: Consequences http://www.stratfor.com/story.neo) behind the invasion, because our readers are fully familiar with our read of the situation. We will merely reassert that the real reason -- the capture of the most strategic country in the region in order to exert pressure on regimes that were in some way enablers of al Qaeda -- was more plausible, persuasive and defensible than the various public explanations, from links to al Qaeda to WMD to bringing democracy to the Iraqi masses. Such logic might work when it comes to sending a few Marines on a temporary mission to Haiti, but not for sending more than 130,000 troops to Iraq for an open-ended commitment. Answers and Platitudes Bush’s inability and/or unwillingness to articulate a coherent strategic justification for the Iraq campaign -- one that integrates the campaign with the general war on Islamists that began Sept. 11 -- is at the root of his political crisis right now. If the primary purpose of the U.S. invasion of Iraq was to bring democracy to Iraq, then enduring the pain of the current crisis will make little sense to the American public. Taken in isolation, bringing democracy to Iraq may be a worthy goal, but not one taking moral precedence over bringing democracy to several dozen other countries -- and certainly not a project worth the sacrifices now being made necessary. If, on the other hand, the invasion was an integral part of the war that began Sept. 11, then Bush will generate public support for it. The problem that Bush has -- and it showed itself vividly in his press conference -- is that he and the rest of his administration are simply unable to embed Iraq in the general strategy of the broader war. Bush asserts that it is part of that war, but then uses the specific justification of bringing democracy to Iraq as his rationale. Unless you want to argue that democratizing Iraq -- assuming that is possible -- has strategic implications more significant than democratizing other countries, the explanation doesn’t work. The explanation that does work -- that the invasion of Iraq was a stepping-stone toward changes in behavior in other countries of the region -- is never given. We therefore wind up with an explanation that is only superficially plausible, and a price that appears to be excessive, given the stated goal. The president and his administration do not seem willing to provide a coherent explanation of the strategy behind the Iraq campaign. What was the United States hoping to achieve when it invaded Iraq, and what is it defending now? There are good answers to these questions, but Bush stays with platitudes. This is not only odd, but also it has substantial political implications for Bush and the United States. First, by providing no coherent answer, he leaves himself open to critics who are ascribing motives to his policy -- everything from controlling the world’s oil supply, to the familial passion to destroy Saddam Hussein, to a Jewish world conspiracy. The Bush administration, having created an intellectual vacuum, can’t complain when others, trying to understand what the administration is doing, gin up these theories. The administration has asked for it. There is an even more important dimension to this. The single most important thing that happened during the recent offensive in Iraq was that the United States entered into negotiations for the first time with the Sunni guerrillas in Al Fallujah. The United States has now traveled a path that began with Donald Rumsfeld’s dismissing the guerrillas as a disorganized band of dead-enders and led to the belief (shared by us) that they had been fairly defeated in December 2003 -- and now to negotiations that were initiated by the United States. The negotiations began with a simple, limited cease-fire and have extended to a longer, more open-ended truce. The United States is facing the fact that the Sunni guerrillas have not only not been defeated, but that they are sufficiently well organized and supported by the broader Sunni population that negotiations are possible with them. There is an organized Sunni command authority that planned and executed this operation and is now weighing U.S. offers on a truce. That is a huge change in the U.S. perception of the Sunni guerrillas. Negotiations are also something that the administration would never have contemplated two weeks ago, regardless of how limited the topic might be. The idea that the United States needed to negotiate anything was unthinkable. This is not the only negotiation going on at the moment. There are negotiations with the Muqtada al-Sadr group. Negotiations with the Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani group. Discussions with the Iranians. Iraq is swirling with negotiations, offers, bluffs, double crosses and lies. It is quite a circus at the moment, with at least three major players (the Sunnis, the Shia, the United States) who are in turn fragmented in all sorts of fascinating ways -- and this doesn’t even begin to include the Kurds and other minorities. Making Alliances The United States is going to have to make alliances. Its core alliance with the majority Shia has to be redefined in the wake of al-Sadr’s uprising. Even if al-Sadr is destroyed with his militia, the United States and the Shia will have much to talk about. Far more important, the United States is now talking to the Sunni guerrillas. That might or might not lead anywhere, but it is vitally important to all sides, no matter what comes of it. The United States has recognized that the Sunni enemy is a competent authority in some sense -- and that changes everything. The United States will combine military action with political maneuvering. That is logical and inevitable in this sort of war. But as deals are cut with a variety of players, how will Bush’s argument that the United States is building democracy in Iraq fly? The United States will be building coalitions. Whether it is a democracy is another matter. Indeed, it was al-Sistani demanding elections (which he knew the Shia would win) and the president putting off elections -- declaring at the press conference that he would not bend to Shiite demands on a timetable. The problem that Bush has created is that there is no conceptual framework in which to understand these maneuvers. Building democracy in Iraq is not really compatible with the deals that are going to have to be cut. It is not that cutting deals is a bad idea. It is not that the current crisis cannot be overcome with a combination of political and military action. The problem is that no one will know how the United States is doing, because it has not defined a conceptual framework for what it is trying to accomplish in Iraq -- or how Iraq fits into the war on the jihadists. Bush Political Crisis This is creating a massive political crisis for Bush domestically. The public knows there is a crisis in Iraq, but there is little understanding of how to judge whether the crisis is being managed. If the only criterion is the creation of democracy, that is not only a distant goal, but also one that will be undermined by necessary U.S. deal-making. Democracy -- by any definition that the American public can recognize -- is not coming to Iraq anytime soon. If that is the mark of success, Bush’s only hope is that he won’t be kept to a tight timetable. What is worse for Bush is that, in his news conference, he framed the coming presidential election as basically a referendum on his policy in Iraq. The less that policy is understood, and the more Iraq appears uncontrollable, the more vulnerable Bush will be to charges that the Iraq war was unjustified, and that it is a distraction from the wider war -- which the American electorate better understands and widely supports. He is facing John Kerry, who has shrewdly chosen to call neither for a withdrawal from Iraq nor for an end to the war on the Islamist world. Kerry’s enormous advantage is that he can articulate a strategy without having to take responsibility for anything in the past. He can therefore argue that Bush’s impulses were correct, but that he lacked a systematic strategy. Stratfor said in its annual forecast that the election was Bush’s to lose. We now have to say that he is making an outstanding attempt to lose it. Obviously, the administration has a strategy in Iraq and the Islamic world. It is a strategy that is discussed inside the administration and is clearly visible outside. Obviously, there will be military and political reversals. The strategy and the reversals are far more understandable than the decisions the Bush administration has made in presenting them. It has adopted a two- tier policy: a complex and nearly hidden strategic plan and a superficial public presentation. It could be argued that in a democratic society like the United States, it is impossible to lay bare the cold-blooded reasoning behind a war, and that the war needs to be presented in a palatable fashion. This might be true -- and there are examples of both approaches in American history -- but we tend to think that in the face of Sept. 11, only a cold-blooded plan, whose outlines are publicly presented and accepted, can work. We could be wrong, but on this we have no doubt. Even if the administration is correct in its assumption that there must be a two-tier approach to the public presentation of the war, it has done a terrible job in articulating its public justification. The administration has held only three press conferences. Some explain this by saying that the president is too inarticulate to withstand public grilling. We don’t buy that. He is not the greatest orator by any means, but he doesn’t do that badly. His problem is that he will not engage on the core strategic question. Franklin Roosevelt, our best wartime president bar none -- who should be the model for any wartime president -- spoke on and off the record with reporters, continually and with shocking frankness when we look back on it. He did not hesitate to discuss strategy -- from Germany First to relations with Joseph Stalin. He filled the public space with detail and managed public expectations brilliantly, even during the terrible first six months of the war. We are convinced that the Bush administration has a defensible strategy. It is not a simple one and not one that can be made completely public, but it is a defensible strategy. If President Bush decides not to articulate it, it will be interesting to see whether President Kerry does, because we are convinced that if Bush keeps going in the direction he is going, he will lose the election. The president’s public presentation of the war is designed to exploit success, not to withstand reversals and hardships. What is fascinating is that political operatives like Karl Rove, the president’s political adviser, can’t seem to get their arms around this simple fact: The current communications strategy is not working. They seem frozen in place, seemingly hoping that something will turn up. We doubt strongly that building democracy in Iraq is the cry that will rally the American nation. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #22 raj> My point was in dispute to people #3 and #4 alone -- both of whom seemed to want to claim that the reason for the war was the violated UN resolutions. I tried to make them understand the difference between reasons for the war, and reasons for the "legality" of the war (for a given definition of "legality" that chooses to include UN resolutions in it, somehow). As for morality, as I've said *very* often, I don't find anything wrong morally about launching a war in which you overthrow a brutal dictatorship and try to install a democracy in its place -- my opposition to the Iraqi war is because of practical reasons: in short I considered the War on Iraq a foolish, not an immoral, thing to do. My reasons for that are very long, and have been very often explained, and we don't need to go into them now. Halfempty> If I could understand you, I might reply to you. Or then again perhaps not. |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2004-04-16 8:17:56 PM |
| #21 hi aris! i'm not thinking you are preposely atagaonistic but i'm hereing that nitratres getting cheap in yo hood ifin you catch my drift suggest good gtrain dogs to pervent a bad audience recdaction |
| Posted by: HalfEmpty 2004-04-16 7:44:45 PM |
| #20 Aris - point taken, and I maybe I misunderstood the thrust of your argument. The fact that Hussein stood in violation of 17 UN resolutions is not in dispute. However, mixed in with that are MORALITY based justifications (freeing the Iraqi people from the jackboot of Ba'athist fascism, removing a dictator who, fairly obviously, supported terrorists, etc.) which have been discussed ad nauseum by many supporters of the Iraqi liberation. One wonders, then, why we are even having this discussion. Let me clarify: RATIONAL - to remove a threat to US /British warplanes patrolling the No-Fly zones (locking onto planes with their radar systems, etc.). In that sense, the war was never over, just reduced to low level conflicts like I just discussed. I believe it is RATIONAL to not have our planes shot down by someone we were still at war with. GOOD / NECESSARY / SANE - I believe that's best summarized by the fact that there is a measurable segment of the Islamic population that is bent on the destruction of Western civilization which, for 'political' reasons, GWB has not quite had the courage (for lack of a better word) to state explicitly. Personally this disgusts me as it is bloody obvious. I am comfortable with the concept that non nuanced people like Jihadist thugs understand a .50 caliber shot to the head or a swift kick to the balls, and will react accordingly. Thugs and bullies do understand the application of superior violence, a concept which unfortunately eroded during the Clinton administration. In short, there's plenty that is 'moral' about protecting ourselves from 757's crashing into people filled skyscrapers (I was in one in Boston that day, I doubt I'd have been too pleased to get dusted by these assholes), so if that's not clear, maybe I don't see the point of your argument, whatever it is. |
| Posted by: Raj 2004-04-16 7:43:38 PM |
| #19 Raj> You didn't even understand my argument and latched onto something entirely trivia, a sidepoint, the idea of lawfulness in international relationships. But I'll humour you. Yes, if you say that you went in there to enforce UN resolutions, or because they violated some contract/agreement/treaty, then you are talking about and accepting concepts of international law -- and enforcing obedience to it. And when you bring UN resolutions into it, then you are using UN as the equivalent of the law-making body, even as the "resolutions" become the equivalent of the law to be enforced. That wasn't *my* argument. Those were the implications of the argument of the people I had replied to. If they had been talking about the MORALITY of war instead, then there would be little to no need to talk about Iraq violating UN "resolutions". And if they had been talking about the lawfulness according to US law, then they wouldn't have brought *UN* resolutions into it, they'd have only refered to US law. So, the only interpretations I have is that they were talking about lawfulness or lawlessness according to UN "law" - aka "resolutions". Mind you, I quite understand why one wouldn't give a damn about such "lawfulness", since the UN isn't a democratic body. I even understand the counterarguments --which seems difficult for many people to do, understanding arguments both for and against an issue. Still. --- Now, could you please why the hell were you pissed about that, since I actually didn't dispute the fact you were lawful according to that, but confirmed it instead? And I didn't even dispute the *morality* of the war to overthrow Saddam, morality being different to lawfulness but granting you'd be morally on the right to overthrow Saddam even if Iraq hadn't violated UN law? |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2004-04-16 5:28:59 PM |
| #18 Bush is in almost the same position as Nixon was with regards to the Cambodian incursion. There were only two decisive military actions possible then: * Invade and defeat NVN * Stop the infiltration Neither were supported by the American people at that point in the war. So Nixon went into Cambodia secretly to cut the Ho Chi Minh trail. The press tore him apart. He retreated. Bush likewise has only two decisive courses of action (COA) available to him: * Defeat the terror sponsor states (Iraq, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Palestine) * Contain the terror sponsor states. COA 1 is what he's chosen. Bush has articulated some things well: * This is a war about human rights * This is a war about WMD (because if AQ gets them, they'll use them and proliferation is out of control) * This is a war on terror. Other things he has not communicated at all * We've been at war with Syria since the late 60's; SA since 1973; Iran since 1979 * There is a religious element to this war * There is a civilizational/cultural element to this war. * Sacrifices need to be made. We cannot have a LBJ-style guns and butter war. * Warfare is changing. The Internet and CAD tools have made it trivial for someone like AQ Khan to proliferate nukes all over the world. Likewise for bio warfare. This has forced a change in the definition of pre-emptive attack. We can longer afford to look out just 30 days. We need to preempt assualts five or ten years in the future (five years was probably the planning cycle for major AQ ops like 9-11). I think that if GWB was to get up and articulate my second five points, he'd be impeached. He'd be called a hater, a sci-fi reading loon, and a paranoid. I don't envy his position. My second five points can't be discussed except at "fringe" websites like this until the first nuke detonates or the first killer virus is released. And that's the reason why the Nazis and Bolsheviks suceeded at first -- most people can't quite force themselves to think like the bad guys until it's too late. |
| Posted by: 11A5S 2004-04-16 3:50:41 PM |
| #17 Word up, Aris - what makes for a LAWFUL war, or is this just another bogus argument of yours? Thanks in advance. |
| Posted by: Raj 2004-04-16 3:33:18 PM |
| #16 In my opinion , Stratfor is totally correct in their analysis that the Iraq invasion was Fase II in the War on Terror.. Like Den Beste writes on his webpage, there are several reasons why Iraq was the obvious target, but in the end, Bush has made poor choices in explaining the whole damn thing to the public opinion.. I think there can be little discussion about that. And that's consistent with Stratfor's analysis that if one doesn't maintain a firm conceptual footing , one will risk getting in trouble .. Your country needs a new Franklin Roosevelt , not someone who tries to fool public opinion.. |
| Posted by: lyot 2004-04-16 2:42:46 PM |
| #15 eLarson> If the Community of Democracies (or whatever it's called) is meaningfully established, I'll be the first to argue for the dissolution of the UN. Until then, there's no point in dissolving the UN however. Anonymous4021> "but I also think it would be BAD to telegraph our punches" The problem is that America is pretending way too well to be without a long term strategy. Do you think that Syria and Iran would have dared wage their war through Sadr, had they actually believed the US was ready for them? "Pressuring" has sure worked in their case. Except it seems that they didn't notice being pressured any, or you'd think they'd be a bit more careful. |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2004-04-16 2:27:54 PM |
| #14 Christ, I gave up reading two-thirds through the first section. They're upset that the Bush Administration isn't justifying the war in Iraq by stating baldly that it's all a cynical bid to pressure nominal allies in the region? Well, *dur*! Stratfor seems increasingly prone to worthless neo-realist posturing. Why the hell does anybody pay for this shit? |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2004-04-16 1:54:42 PM |
| #13 "The single most important thing that happened during the recent offensive in Iraq was that the United States entered into negotiations for the first time with the Sunni guerrillas in Al Fallujah. The United States has now traveled a path that began with Donald Rumsfeld’s dismissing the guerrillas as a disorganized band of dead-enders and led to the belief (shared by us) that they had been fairly defeated in December 2003 -- and now to negotiations that were initiated by the United States. The negotiations began with a simple, limited cease-fire and have extended to a longer, more open-ended truce." This is simply untrue. Several member of the IGC wanted to see if they could negotiate a peaceful end to the Fallujah hostilities. Since we are trying to instill the IGC and any future Iraqi government with legitimacy, we allowed them to pursue this approach, but always with the understanding that we expect there to be results -- militants turned over to the US or to the IP -- or the Marines would be free to pacify the city (i.e., kill or capture the militants). |
| Posted by: Tibor 2004-04-16 1:37:26 PM |
| #12 What you are talking about are justifications -- things that might make this war a LAWFUL one to wage. Lawful, as in Thanks in advance. |
| Posted by: Raj 2004-04-16 1:12:41 PM |
| #11 As much as I like Stratfor, they seem to have gone down the Road of paranoia. It seems like each report is a 3 page essay on how the sky is falling. There are a few good points in there (ie, better communication from the Administration in terms of justification for the war), but I also think it would be BAD to telegraph our punches. I'm still waiting on a build up of force and a hard charge into Iran, Saudi and Syria. But that's just me. :D |
| Posted by: Anonymous4021 2004-04-16 12:35:44 PM |
| #10 Sorry Aris. I'm not buying your bull. Your not at war. saddam was our enemy. Moral my ass. |
| Posted by: Lucky 2004-04-16 12:22:13 PM |
| #9 Aris wrote: Many countries have broken many resolutions. Nobody gives a damn about them I couldn't have said it better myself. Is there any further reason needed to just disband the UN? How can an institution with no resolve pass a resolution that anyone would care about? |
| Posted by: eLarson 2004-04-16 12:09:05 PM |
| #8 I agree with both #3 and #4. BUT, The battle to take out saddam is over. This is a new battle and I'm not happy about the PC explanation Bush is giving. Thats the thing I get out of the post and I agree. The idea of bringing democracy to Iraq is an ideal but thats not going to happen as long as our enemies are allowed to interfer. Bush said that Iraq was a battle in the WoT. The new battle is underway. But damn-it, it's time to quit talking about freedom of the Iraqies and instead talk about the targeting of those responsible for the WoT. And that isn't AQ. AQ is just a bunch Quantrils Raiders. Bush needs to name names regarding Iran, SA money men, and Paki beards. I wrote last year, right here in Rantburg 101, that the WoT isn't going to be won in the dust of Afganistan or the slums of Iraq. I was slamed as a spegetti thrower. I'm not for cutting and runn'n. We can't. But to have to clean Iraq's dirty carpet, no way. Kill sadr, treat faluja as a pocket of resistance from the invasion, start killing SA money men and start to prepare the toppling of Iranian mullahs. And say it out loud so I don't have to read between the lines. Screw the PC crap. Thats why 43 didn't do as well as he could have in his press conference. The American people are ready for the end game. I know I am. My point is that no new carpet in Iraq until SA money men are dead and Iran is put into a defensive position ready to fall from within (Ideally). |
| Posted by: Lucky 2004-04-16 11:56:14 AM |
| #7 "Sure Bush could do a better job of pushing his message, but to claim there isn't a coherent strategy just because Joe Six Pack doesn't know what it might be, well, that is more the fault of the media than Bush." Amen to that. It's also the result of a political opposition that wants to make damned sure Joe Sixpack doesn't understand that strategy, because if he did he'd be far more likely to approve of it. Combine this with the administration's need to avoid "telegraphing our punches" to the enemy, and it's no surprise that very few people have the slightest idea what we're doing in the WoT. The problem with understanding what we are doing in Iraq, and why, is not that there aren't enough good reasons for us to be doing it- it's that there are so many good and plausible reasons--literally dozens of them, by my own reckoning--that it's difficult to get a handle on which ones have been foremost in the administrations's thinking, and which are not. I agree with JB's comment about the "whining" in Stratfor's analysis. This piece isn't what I'd call "idiotic," but it's certainly less than insightful. Sometimes, Stratfor seem to fall madly in love with their own "analytical" skills, and lose sight of what ought to be a sharp distinction between what they know, and what they can only suspect. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2004-04-16 11:43:54 AM |
| #6 to #3 and #4> "Bush and friends have noted that Iraq repeatedly and with impunity broke the cease fire, and the 17 UN resolution violations" Many countries have broken many resolutions. Nobody gives a damn about them, and nobody thinks for a minute this was the *reason* for the war -- not even Rantburgers think that the whole problem was that Iraq broke some UN resolutions. What you are talking about are justifications -- things that might make this war a LAWFUL one to wage. But they don't tell anything about whether the war was a RATIONAL, a GOOD, a NECESSARY, a SANE war to wage. ----- The WAR was initiated to enforce UNSCR 1441 passed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter which authorized the use of military force to bring target nation -- Iraq -- into compliance with international community's demand for free and unfettered inspections. Then it had nothing to do with the War on Terror, nor about democratic change, nor about having a foothold in a central location of the middle east? It was all about enforcing compliance to the UN's resolutions? Is the USA nothing but a UN puppet then, wasting American lives to enforce UN resolutions? If the UN had never existed the war on Iraq would have been immoral but now that it exists it suddenly becomes moral? Bull. |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2004-04-16 11:42:39 AM |
| #5 Strafor is lamer and more windy than ever. Talk to the press more.... jeez. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-04-16 11:36:10 AM |
| #4 I agree with comment #3. Criticism for lack of a coherent strategy makes no sense to me. Bush and friends have noted that Iraq repeatedly and with impunity broke the cease fire, and the 17 UN resolution violations, but since the media ignores these things, the public debate becomes all the dumber for it. Sure Bush could do a better job of pushing his message, but to claim there isn't a coherent strategy just because Joe Six Pack doesn't know what it might be, well, that is more the fault of the media than Bush. And the idea that Bush could have gotten away with selling a war based on a high-minded "strategic changing of the terrorist landscape" premise is a bit goofy. He would have been eaten alive by political opposition, and the press (but then that's redundant!). We don't even have the stones, as a nation, to admit that Iran runs Hezbollah. We are not a serious people. I find the whining in the piece to be unrealistic - under what scenario in our over-politicized media would Bush's case be presented fairly anyway? There is no such scenario. As long as the real strategy is in place, and it is, and it makes sense, and it does, I'm ok with all of it. My $.02 anyway. |
| Posted by: Jeff Brokaw 2004-04-16 11:16:27 AM |
| #3 The article is LONG and it is IDIOTIC. The WAR was initiated to enforce UNSCR 1441 passed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter which authorized the use of military force to bring target nation -- Iraq -- into compliance with international community's demand for free and unfettered inspections. Those inspections are now being conducted in the absence of Saddam and the Ba'athist Party. Could not have happened any other way. Of course, the old government must be replaced with a new government. Only a Stratfor dupe would maintain a dictator should replace a dictator. The beauty of the Iraq WMD inspections as a cause for war is it gave the USA and allies the excuse to eliminate an ISLAMIC-FASCIST TERRORIST and ally of USAMA BIN LADEN. God bless the US military for greasing half the Ba'athists, offing the male heirs of Saddam, and for putting Saddam into a cage. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2004-04-16 10:53:42 AM |
| #2 well whats problem with long if it's good? I prefer a long good article than wasting my tme with 10 small s*&% ones. |
| Posted by: Anonymous4075 2004-04-16 10:38:10 AM |
| #1 this article way to long. |
| Posted by: muck4doo 2004-04-16 10:07:49 AM |