[Peace] Fwd: Bush backs off Iraq invasion

[manni at snafu.de]

Forwarded Message:
> To: portside at yahoogroups.com
> From: "portsidemod" <portsidemod at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Bush backs off Iraq invasion
> Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 15:07:17 -0000
> -----
> Bush backs off Iraq invasion (???????????)
> 
> Military leaders recommend postponing mission after
> warning president of heavy casualties
> 
> Matthew Engel in Washington
> 
> The Guardian - May 25, 2002
> 
> www.guardian.co.uk
> 
> Senior American military leaders are believed to have
> turned sharply against any idea of invading Iraq to
> overthrow Saddam Hussein, and have started to gain the
> upper hand in persuading the White House that such a
> mission should be postponed, preferably indefinitely.
> 
> The joint chiefs of staff have assured the White House
> their forces could successfully invade Iraq - or
> anywhere else - if instructed. But they have warned
> that such an invasion would be extremely fraught, given
> the resources depleted by the war in Afghanistan.
> 
> One of the factors most alarming the generals is the
> possibility that their troops could be drawn into
> street fighting in Baghdad, without support from the
> local population, leading to heavy US casualties. This
> ties in with longstanding fears that Saddam might use
> such a moment to unleash biological or chemical
> weapons.
> 
> Their instinctive caution has been strengthened by
> Operation Prominent Hammer, a highly secret war game
> recently played by senior officials, details of which
> have begun to leak out. It revealed that shortages of
> equipment could seriously hamper the operation and
> endanger the lives of Americans and Iraqi civilians.
> 
> The air force is the most alarmed of the services,
> according to analysts, because they are short of
> planes, trained pilots and munitions. A third of their
> refuelling planes are reported to be under repair.
> 
> But there are also concerns about the ability of
> special forces, currently being used in the Philippines
> and Yemen as well as Afghanistan, to operate
> successfully in Iraq at the same time, especially
> bearing in mind the intelligence services' need to
> concentrate on homeland security.
> 
> It is understood that the country's senior generals -
> the heads of the army, navy, air forces and marines -
> agreed with the chairman of the joint chiefs, Richard
> Myers, and his deputy, Peter Pace, in their assessment.
> 
> General Tommy Franks who, as head of the army's central
> command, would be in charge of any invasion of Iraq,
> has told the president that an invasion to overthrow
> Saddam would require at least 200,000 troops, a number
> that would seriously stretch even the American
> military, given the near impossibility of mounting an
> international coalition.
> 
> At a Pentagon briefing yesterday, General Pace sounded
> what was, by military standards, an uncertain trumpet.
> 
> Turning to his boss, the defence secretary Donald
> Rumsfeld, he assured him: "Your military is ready today
> to execute whatever mission the civilian leadership of
> this country gives us to do." But he added: "The fact
> of the matter is, the more time you have to prepare for
> that kind of mission, whatever it is, the more elegant
> the solution could be."
> 
> The head of the air force, General John Jumper, was
> blunter. "We never sized ourselves to have to do high
> force-protection levels at home and overseas at the
> same time. We're stretched very thin in security
> forces," he was quoted as saying by the New York Times.
> 
> The military assessment backs up the messages pouring
> into the White House from elsewhere. The dangerous
> situation involving India and Pakistan, as well as
> Israel and Palestine, unnerves diplomats. World opinion
> ranges from the wary - in Britain - to the vehemently
> opposed.
> 
> Even Turkey, regarded by the Iraq-hawks in Washington
> as a crucial and loyal ally on this issue, is said by
> government sources there to be "very nervous indeed"
> about the idea, mainly because of fears of the
> political instability that would result. Officials are
> also getting bleak assessments about the quality of the
> Iraqi opposition to Saddam Hussein, and about the
> likely reaction of the Iraqi people should the
> Americans invade.
> 
> "The Iraqi people hate Saddam," said Judith Kipper, the
> Iraq expert [? - Kipper's expertise is the Israeli-
> Palestinian conflict -- NY Transfer] at the Centre for
> Strategic and International Studies, "but they blame
> the US for their problems. Nobody likes foreign troops
> marching through their country, especially the Iraqis."
> 
> The cost of American military ambitions is mounting.
> And, with the mid-term elections only five months away,
> analysts believe an invasion is impossible before 2003,
> and that the White House is already starting to look
> for a way of reconciling its declared policy of "regime
> change" in Iraq with the need to back away from what
> looks increasingly like an untenable position.
> 
> Some military sources believe that, even though special
> forces are now thinly stretched, the US will switch to
> covert operations to try to loosen Saddam's grip on
> power.
> 
> This ties in with what President Bush said after his
> meeting with the German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder,
> in Berlin on Thursday: "I told the chancellor that I
> have no war plans on my desk, which is the truth, and
> that we've got to use all means at our disposal to deal
> with Saddam Hussein." The president added that there
> would be full consultation with allies and that any
> action would be handled in a "respectful" way.
> 
> It remains possible that the US will feel its hand
> being forced if the Iraqis, sensing American weakness,
> emerge from their recent quiescence.  The Pentagon says
> Saddam's air defence forces have attacked American and
> British planes three times in the last three weeks, as
> they patrolled the southern no-fly zone.
> 
> General Pace played this down yesterday: "It's
> consistent with what's been going on for the past
> several years," he said.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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