licentious radio

Sunday, February 23, 2003
[4:05:05 PM]

A tidbit from Schwarzkopf's book.... He's meeting with an Iraqi general for the first time after the war. The general asked for the number of Iraqi POWs.

Schwarzkopff: ' "As of last night, sixty thousand," I replied. "Or sixty thousand plus, because it is difficult to count them completely." His face went completely pale: he had had no concept of the magnitude of their defeat.' (It doesn't take a hero, page 489.)

When you read that, it sounds like the general was upset at the high number of POWs. But if you think about it, it's more likely he was upset that the number was so low. He probably had a rough idea of how many Iraqi soldiers had escaped. The people who didn't come home were either dead or captured. If he was missing 150,000 soldiers, learning that there were only 60,000 POWs would be very sad.

In the same meeting, Schwarzkopf made the impromptu decision to allow Iraqis to fly helicopters in the no-fly zone -- including military helicopters. The Iraqi used the helicopters (made in France or Italy, delivered with American help) to slaughter the rebels in Basra and the south.

Schwarzkopf lamely says the helicopters didn't make any difference, considering the size of Iraq's remaining army. But that's not entirely plausible. The US army *could* have defeated Iraq without air power, because our army was so superior. But air power makes a huge difference. I'm not saying the rebels would have won, but maybe not so many of them would have been killed as quickly.

It's amazing that a mistake made in about fifteen seconds can leave the blood of thousands on your hands. This is the kind of thing that takes planning to be sure you get it right. I would hate to have made that mistake.

Somewhat ironically Powell's book mentions reading a book called "Every War Must End". Clearly they didn't think *enough* about the end of the war.

Another bit on Iraqi casualties.... When Schwarzkopf discusses the idea of letting Iraq leave Kuwait without a fight, he acknowledges high casualties on the Iraqi side. This is *before* the invasion:

Schwarzkopf: ' "It comes down to lives," I told Powell. "We have probably inflicted a hundred thousand casualties on the Iraqis at the cost of one hundred for us. Why should we inflict a hundred and fifty thousand casualties at a cost of five thousand for us? We could lose that many in the first two days of the attack." ' (page 442)

The estimate of a hundred thousand casualties is killed and wounded, I suppose, not just killed.

Interestingly, reading between Powell and Schwarzkopf, you see Schwarzkopf say that they agreed to propose a one-week deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, but when Powell actually *made* the proposal, he shortened it to two days -- specifically to be sure Saddam wouldn't accept it. At the White House, they didn't only want to liberate Kuwait -- the UN mandate -- they also wanted to kill lots of Iraqis, destroy lots of tanks, and make a military victory so the country would feel good about using the army again. Plus, think how bad it would have looked to assemble the army in Saudi Arabia, and then not use it. Schwarzkopf thought Saddam wouldn't expect a one-week deadline, but it's important to understand that Bush purposefully avoided any chance of liberating Kuwait without an invasion.

[2:04:52 PM]
Behind-the-scenes foreign policy is always shrouded in secrecy and lies.

I wonder if George H. W. Bush didn't sucker-punch Saddam in the first Gulf War, and then make up for it by urging Iraqis to rebel, and then letting Saddam slaughter the rebels in the south.

I was always skeptical of this story that Bush told Saddam to go ahead and invade Kuwait, we wouldn't mind.

Here's Colin Powell (from page 461 of My American Journey in hardcover):

'During a meeting with Saddam Hussein five days earlier, our ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, told him, "...we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts like your border disagreement with Kuwait." '

I guess you could give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was saying it was OK to rough Kuwait up a little and seize a little territory, but she didn't intend to give a green light to complete conquest.

Nevertheless, the United States *could* have said: "You know what, Saddam, it sure looks like you're about to invade Kuwait with that big army of yours. You should think again, because we might just turn that big army into a little army and send it home again." That sort of thing has been known to work.

So what do you say? Was Bush a disasterous failure? But doesn't it make you suspicious when people get ahead after an apparent mistake? Bush doesn't argue against invading Kuwait, but then he gets to go to war, he gets to destroy Iraq's offensive military capability, his popularity rises dramatically, and the Kuwaitis are *grateful*. Then Bush's choice gets the oil contracts. *And* he gets to base a lot of US troops in the area -- something some Americans had wanted for twenty years.

In chess, you might sacrifice a knight to trap your opponent's queen. Are we sure Bush isn't smart enough to make a play like that?

And why urge Iraqis to rebel if you aren't going to keep them from being slaughtered? Was that a disasterous mistake, too? Or was it a bit of a sop to a former business partner? It was sure convenient for Saddam to get all his enemies out in the open so he could quick kill them. You could say "surely Bush wouldn't do this", or "how dare you suggest Bush would do this", but I'm really just saying "how do I know he *didn't* do it" -- and if it was a failure, not a plan, why didn't he pay a price for the failure?

Of course the answer is there. There are papers that George W. Bush recently kept secret that would answer this question.

[1:11:18 PM]
"Containment" of Iraq sounds silly. Literally, it would mean opposing Saddam's expansionism. The opposite of supporting his mega-war against Iran, or Poppy Bush telling Saddam we wouldn't get involved with border disputes.

I'm sorry: who is Saddam supposed to attack? Israel? March through Jordan or Syria? Kuwait or Saudi Arabia?

Containment is hardly worth talking about. Of *course* we should oppose any future wars. Just like we *should* have opposed previous wars.

Deterrence is relevant. We deter bad behavior generally, with the threat of retaliation. Considering that we already *crushed* the Iraqi army, Saddam isn't going to attack anyone, anyway.

Having said that, there's also that -- rather obviously -- threats of pre-emptive conquests send bad guys scurrying for horrible weapons that might deter the invasion. *Bush* may want widespread proliferation, but the rest of us would be happier if we didn't make countries all over the world desperate to get nukes.

[10:32:37 AM]
Seymour Hersch explains that Rumsfeld and/or White House let Al Qaeda escape [pbs.org].

The story is that when we had Al Qaeda, Taliban, and their Pakistani trainers and support team trapped, Pakistan made a deal to fly its people out. But the Pakistanis evacuated Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, too -- while our soldiers watched.

We'd all like to think this is just bureaucratic/political bungling -- that the Pakistanis were just twice as smart as the Dim Bush team. But there was that other episode where we had Bin Laden trapped -- except for the order that came down not to block one escape route... the escape route Bin Laden used.

[10:19:17 AM]
Dean plus Graham: Explicitly put Graham in charge of fighting terrorism. Let Dean run as a Democrat, and all you need is to win Florida. Graham gives the Democrats the best shot at Florida.

You have to start with the understanding that the elections are rigged against Democrats -- the media and big-money donors go to Republicans. Sure, Democrats need to raise money, but if they will never raise enough money to level the playing field.

Instead, Democrats have to win by fighting. In fact, it's not so hard, because most Americans are in tune with Democrats. Gore won both the popular and electoral vote -- even after more than 100,000 votes for Gore were illegally denied and/or technically invalidated.

So give us a fighter -- and not someone who keeps saying "I'll fight for you" but then gives up without a fight.

I had a moment of clarity last night watching Apocalypse Now. Kurtz said after they innoculated the children of a village for polio, the Viet Cong chopped off the innoculated arms. What a horror. You have to mean business to do something like that. The Republicans mean business. Top to bottom. Think of the K-Street project -- demanding organizations not hire lobbyists who are Democrats. The Democrats have to wake up and fight for real.