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UNITED STATES NAVY VETERANS ASSOCIATION
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National Security Affairs Newstand
Including Breaking Chronological News and
Analysis
as a continuation of our Homeport Page National Security Affairs News
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We don't need to beg the rest of the world to support
us.
If we truly lead, they will follow.
We are the United States of America.
We don't need for them to call us
up and congratulate us on what we've done, or give us an award, a prize, or a red carpet. They won't anyway and, if you think
they will one day, don't hold your breath.
So we here at the United States Navy Veterans Association declare the United
States of America the winner. Because WE are the winner.
And always will be.
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The Association
believes there is a "New Frontier" for Americans. It lies in their newfound imagination as to where that imagination can take
this Nation in its Greatness.
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The United States Navy Veterans Association current Mission Statement, as it relates to this Newstand, says that
the purposes of the Association shall include:
"The provision of nonpartisan education, news and analysis pertaining
to the value of the goals of the Association, and other issues of interest to veterans, service members and the patriotic
public."
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USN@NavyVets.org |
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WE PICK THIS PAGE UP CHRONOLOGICALLY FOLLOWING THE LAST ENTRY IN THE NATIONAL
SECURITY AFFAIRS NEWS SECTION OF OUR HOMEPORT PAGE:
5-6-02:
The Bush Administration has
withdrawn all its support, and any membership the United States may have, in the U.N.'s International Criminal Court.
The
Association supports this move.
The U.N. court is mentioned nowhere in the U.N. Charter and therefore, as a matter
of international law, a good argument can be made that neither the General Assembly nor the Security Council has the authority
to institute one.
More importantly, the supporters of this court, including American liberals, openly maintain it
has the jurisdiction to try any American president or members of the U.S. Armed Forces for "war crimes." Such a jurisdiction
would truly, and inherently, sublimate American sovereignty in our foreign and military policies to a supranational authority
which could make up the rules as it went along. That is probably unconstitutional, since it would rip apart the powers given
to the Executive and Congressional Branches of government by the Constitution for the sake of adherence to an interpretation
of a treaty signed by the United States, the U.N. Charter.
But even if it weren't unconstitutional, it would still
be wrong.
The impetus for this court was pushed a long way when President Clinton, as Commander-in-Chief of our Forces
in Bosnia and Kosovo, gave the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, certain operational authorities over U.S.
Forces in KFOR.
You can probably tell what the Association thought of that.
One of the lessons of history
is that no great, mighty and free nation, and all true greatness among nations springs from their respect for individual freedom,
can, with impunity, allow its destiny to be decided largely by others, with different interests and outlooks, and those mostly
and naturally selfish, and still remain great, mighty and free.
5-12-02:
There is what amounts to a "war"
for President Bush's viewpoint going on in Washington currently between the "Powell" (Secretary of State Colin Powell) faction
(the "doves") and the "Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz" (Vice-President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy
Secretary of Defense (and former Cheney policy aide) Paul Wolfowitz) faction (the "hawks").
The doves want Israel
to make peace with Arafat at almost any cost to get the U.S. out of a sticky situation [See, our War on Terror Section, 1-29-02],
and for us to make nice with all our "foreign friends" so that we can continue to build coalitions. The hawks support Ariel
Sharon's policies, love Israel as the only democratic state in the Mid-East, and couldn't give a darn if nobody supported
us while we blew Saddam Hussein to kingdom come.
While generally this Association sides with the hawks, both sides
are American patriots, in our opinion, and the truth between these two general theories, if there is such a thing as "truth"
in foreign policy, probably lies somewhere in the middle.
Don't be surprised, however, if you see President Bush,
whose heart probably gravitates to the hawks, and whose head probably gravitates to the doves, tilting toward one of these
theories one day, and the other the next. Some may say that's vacillation, and others may say there's method to that madness.
Time will tell, as it always does.
One of the watersheds of this internal White House "war" is what to do about the
Saudis. As of date we'd like to update you on the Association's position:
The Saudis now openly operate in opposition
to the U.S. goal of dual containment of Iran and Iraq in the Persian Gulf. The Saudis have hammered out security and oil pacts
with their traditional Iranian competitors, and Crown Prince Abdullah, the ruler of Saudi Arabia, literally, at the Arab League
summit, kissed and made up with representatives of Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile, the Saudis have joined Iran and Iraq in lavishing
money, along with moral support, on Palestinian militants [See, our War on Terror Newstand, 4-4-02]. So the Saudis are fellow-travelling
with the Arafat/Saddam/mullah axis in the Middle East, while resisting U.S. action against Saddam, which is intended to strengthen
the moderate states of Jordan and Turkey with a liberalizing, reformist Iraq.
[When we speak of the Associaton's hopes
that we do in fact overthrow Saddam, don't get us wrong.
We're not in favor of establishing pro-American puppet governments
everywhere in the world. That would be imperialism, and it would be stupid, and it would be wrong. Let real democracies establish
any government they want.
But if that government decides to be our enemy, or seeks to destroy the United States, or American
civilization, or gives aid and comfort to those who would terrorize us, we need, in the name of self-defense, to destroy that
government. Period.
Then they can start all over again.]
Since a U.S. sponsored regime in Baghdad would threaten
the status quo in the Mid-East generally, and in Riyadh in particular (by increasing U.S. leverage and providing an example
of decent governance next door), the Saudis will have to be pushed hard to acquiesce in it. All signs from the Crawford Summit
[See, our War on Terror Newstand, 4-25-02] are that the Bush Administration is not yet ready to apply such pressure, as the
hawks want. The USG - and especially the doves at State and old hands from Bush I, including the former President himself-still
apparently buy the Saudis inflated self-image.
The Al Saud have long considered themselves, ridiculously, a budding
world power. In their view, the growth of the Jihadist movement around the world was a sign of Wahabi [WOT, 11-1-01] vibrancy.
In their opinion, the Al Saud helped bring down one superpower, the Soviet Union, and now holds the key to the economic health
of the remaining one.
Constant pandering from the U.S., intent on maintaing its oil "partnership" with the Saudis
[WOT, 4-25-02], only fuels this Saudi self-regard.
The Al Saud, in fact, maintain their vaunted excess-oil-producing
capacity not primarily to cushion the U.S. from volatility in the world market, as they claim, but to maintain their power
over OPEC. (Any potential surge of low-cost production is a threat to other OPEC countries, which could be swamped by it.)
In any case, the Saudis don't have quite the lock on the world market that they once did, with new production coming
online in Russia, West Africa and (after a U.S. invasion) Iraq. That's right, folks, you heard it here first and, although
you won't catch anyone in the Bush Administration ever saying so out loud, one of the key purposes of the U.S. overthrowing
Saddam is to get a regime which will produce more, thus lowering the world crude price for U.S. consumers and thus alleviating
to a significant degree the oil crisis we talked about in our first NSI News and Analysis Article.
Fully 50% of all
American oil imports now come from the Western Hemisphere, and the U.S. imports as much oil currently from West Africa as
it does from the Saudis. But the USG is not tip-toeing around the Nigerian junta, afraid they might unleash their "oil weapon."
By any reasonable standard the Saudis, in fact, are not an international power at all. Saudi Arabia has the national
income of the State of Connecticut [NSI First Article]. It has a bankrupt one-sector economy that is carrying almost $200
billion worth of debt. It is utterly incapable of defending itself either from its foreign or domestic enemies, despite years
of gaudy big-arms purchases from the West (which it can no longer afford). If this is not the picture of a regime the USG
can bend to its will, no such regime exists.
Crown Prince Abdullah, believing, like the rest of his brethren in
the Al Saud, that they are the center of the universe, surely wants nothing more than that that House continue to rule forever.
If it's clear to him that only by appeasing the U.S., and embracing its vision of a changed, anti-terrorist, liberalized Mid-East,
will that be possible, he may reluctantly make a turn. The Saudis, after all, have always had a strong streak of schizophrenia
in their foreign policy [WOT, 4-25-02]. During World War II, they flirted both with Hitler and Roosevelt at the same time,
and got away with it. Abdullah now is keeping his options open in the finest Saudi tradition, hoping he can help preserve
and ride out the status quo in the Middle East.
It's our opinion the USG should convince the Al Saud they have
only one option - our option.
5-13-02:
The Bush Administration has announced a new treaty with Russia,
to be signed in Moscow later this month, reducing over 10 years each sides' nuclear warheads from about 6,000 apiece today,
to about 2,000 apiece. This is exactly what Bush wanted, and what he campaigned on. He was opposed at the time by Clinton's
Department of Defense, which termed the idea "dangerous."
In fact, the reduction of the warhead levels, which
is the largest since the Reagan Administration's START II, substantially reduces the risk of nuclear confrontation between
us and Russia, while still leaving the U.S. with plenty of nuclear deterrence directed at any potential enemy. It is, acordingly,
a major achievement.
At USG urging, Russia will also simultaneously be brought into a joint NATO-Russia Council
so that Russia's voice can be heard in NATO's deliberations, the type of reward this Association called for in WOT, 11-1-01.
This Council is good for Russia, and good for the U.S. Russia is an oil exporter, unlike our 17 NATO European allies who kowtow
to almost everything the Arab and Iranian oil producers want, and has a government extremely interested in fighting Islamic
terror, which needs to become a new and important focus for NATO.
5-14-02:
Former President Jimmy
Carter denounces the USG, in Havana, for labelling Castro's Cuba a terrorist state [WOT, 1-24-02], because it distributes
biochem technology to other terrorist states and organizations.
Carter, who pretends to speak a version of Spanish which
more closely resembles Klingon, also specifically criticized the current USG for wrongfully imprisoning and executing people
on racial and economic grounds, and for denying U.S. citizens health care.
This former Commander-in-Chief never
liked America or America's military might when he was in the White House, and he obviously still doesn't today. This Association
cannot, and does not, endorse or oppose candidates for American public office. Perhaps Carter is running for President of
Cuba to succeed Castro. If he were President of Cuba, we doubt Cuba would be any more free of the lies about right vs. wrong
that it is subject to under Castro, or any more pro-American.
Apparently, also, the U.S. ban on travel to Cuba
doesn't apply to Jimmy Carter. If it doesn't apply to him, with his well-publicized anti-American remarks in Havana, we question
why it should apply to anyone.
As to Castro and the Cuba Embargo: Embargo - Sch-mar-go. Castro should have been
taken out a long time ago as the mad dog he is, and all his supporters are, as the last real Navy hero we had in the White
House (before the first President Bush), Jack Kennedy, wanted to do 40 years ago.
5-16-02:
President Bush received a National Intelligence Briefing (NIB) on
August 6, 2001 in Crawford [A NIB is a daily short briefing by the Intelligence Community to the President. In this case the
briefing in question was by the CIA; we believe that the story in question came from Agency humint; and that the pertinent
report was ranked low by the Agency on substantive probability] stating that Al Quaida operatives "might" try to hijack an
American airliner or airliners in the near future. The story lacked any further specifics.
Presidents going back at
least 20 years get NIB reports like this sometimes every other day. There is very little any Executive Branch can do, at all,
to react to a story like this, without any specifics to follow through on. Presidents can't go around holding news conferences
every time they get a NIB like this; that would drive the American people crazy. Polls show we're already complaining [and
this is post 9-11] about too many security alerts and find them confusing. The State Department for years has put out travel
advisories for Americans not to travel to certain countries; very few travelers, then and now, even bother to read them. All
this is as true today, as it was last August, and will still be as true next year, and the year after that.
William
Casey (President Reagan's DCI) was the first DCI to specifically tell the Agency he wanted to see reports based on rumors
no matter how vague or how much they lacked credibility.
Assessing those vague rumors has been a problem for Presidents
ever since.
[Were there "clues" in written intelligence reports prior to August 2001, and dating back to the Clinton
Administration, about possible Al Quaida hijackings and flying planes into Langley? Sure, there were a couple. There were
also clues, in the years building up to Pearl Harbor, in U.S. intelligence reporting, about a possible Japanese attack on
the West Coast. But there are masses of reports flowing both into and out of the American Intelligence Community every day
on every imaginable topic (We note that, in addition to NIBs, there are also NIDs, NIRs and special briefings for the President;
if it were up to the 13-Agency Intelligence Community the President would do nothing but listen to intell 24-7) and reports
of future hijackings are, after all, "old news." A computer program, by keyword, might be able to unite some of these stories
(and probably this is the only way to "connect the dots"), but even if that were the case, it wouldn't by itself lend linked
stories any greater credibility.]
[And, by the way, this Association never criticized President Clinton for failing
to prevent the 1993 WTC bombing by Al-Gama'a.]
The attempt by certain U.S. Congresspersons, especially when they received
the content of the same NIB, to utilize this NIB for partisan political purposes, like a bunch of jackals jumping up and down,
is despicable, in our opinion.
The Association's recommendation is that NIBs be delivered by the National Security
Advisor and not by the agency that developed the information, although all such agencies should be present for verification
and discussion. Moreover, the President should be automatically told (we doubt he is now) the credibility rating for both
the substance of the story and the original source, from the originating agency. The originating agency, in the case of a
potential threat to Americans, should also be required to recommend, or not recommend, that the threat be made public, with
the President having the final say.
None of this is going to cure the problem of vague reports, but it might stop
some of the backbiting, leaks, and partisanship about national security.
[President Bush, in contrast to one of our
recommendations above, has ordered, as of 5-18-02, for the CIA and FBI to deliver two separate NIBs every day. Each one still
lasts about 15 minutes on average.]
[Ed. Note: If you listened to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on PBS-TV's
News Hour with Jim Lehrer on 5-22-02, you would have heard him almost literally quote our comment in this Entry about the
Intell Community wanting the President's ear 24-7.]
5-22-02:
Unless the USG intervenes to keep the peace,
we warn our viewers that war between India and Pakistan is imminent. India and Pakistan together have 20% of all the people
who live on this planet. The cause of the conflict is Jamat-e-Islami [WOT, Terrorist Glossary] terrorist activities in Muslim
majority Indian controlled Kashmir, designed to force the Indians out.
We post this story in NSI because it has long-term
national security implications for the U.S. in the war against Muslim terror, our greatest enemy since Soviet Communism. Pakistan
has replaced its leaders after every war it has fought with India, and it has lost every one of those wars, and will utterly
lose this one too, with or without nuclear weapons. [India has about 200 nuclear warheads; Pakistan about 100 (the U.S. and
Russia, by comparison, apiece have about 6,000 today); 50 dirty warheads dropped on Pakistani cities would be enough to take
out a country the size of Pakistan, and when we say "take out," we mean "take out." The maniacs in Jamat-e-Islami (see, WOT
Terrorist Glossary) would love a nuclear war between India and Pakistan because "end day" fanatics like them love the notion
of martyrdom no matter how many innocents go down with them.]
Pakistani President Musharraf is basically pro-U.S.
and has gone far to crack down on Al Quaida activities in Pakistan since 9-11. If he is overthrown in the aftermath of an
Indian-Pakistani war, there are plenty of pro-Al Quaida Pakistani military officers, especially in Pakistani military intelligence,
ready to step in and take his place.
Nor will India solve its long-term problems in Kashmir by merely defeating Pakistan
in another war.
Based on what we've said about the possibility of Musharraf falling in the aftermath of an Indian-Pakistani
War, India knows it can pressure the USG to pressure Pakistan to eliminate Jamat-e-Islami incursions into Kashmir, which Indian
Prime Minister Atel Vajpayee [Remember when Candidate George W. Bush didn't know his name? He does now.] is doing.
Do
not underestimate the domestic Hindu nationalist pressure within India on Vajpayee to destroy Muslim Pakistan once and for
all.
5-23-02:
President Bush, in Moscow, tells India and Pakistan to back off, stating that India has
nothing to gain from an Indian-Pakistani war.
Of course, our viewers already knew what the President was going to
say, because they first read it here on this Newstand yesterday.
5-24-02:
The liberal-leftist establishment
media seems to be asking a number of questions, disguised as nonpartisan, about current national security issues as they pertain
to the War on Terror. In their own words and expressions, here are the questions:
(1) Is the Bush Administration overly
secretive?
(2) Did the Bush Administration know about the 9-11 attacks and do nothing about them, or do less than
adequate about them?
(3) Is the Bush Administration now making ridiculous warnings of future terrorist attacks so
that people won't accuse them of not doing enough?
(4) Have the FBI and the Intelligence Community hid information
from the public that the American public had a right to know?
(5) If so, is that a problem to be laid at the foot
of the Bush Administration?
Here are the answers:
(1) In its' less than two year history the Bush Administration
has shown itself to be no more or less secretive, overall, than the Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon,
Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I or Clinton Administrations.
Nixon was certainly the most secretive of the Presidents
in question and, compared to him, Bush doesn't even get close.
As Gloria Borger of U.S. News said on PBS-TV's "Washington
Week" 6-7-02, the reason the media think the Bush Administration is secretive is because "we don't get any leaks out of them."
(2)The Bush Administration, meaning the President and his top advisors and appointees, did not have any specific,
credible warnings of the 9-11 attack. As an Administration, there was nothing more they could do to prevent the attack than
they did.
(3)Dick Cheney and the other members of the Administration are quite accurate when they say that the Muslim
terrorists are among us already; that they can move about and select targets almost at will, and that there are a lot of targets
to select from; that they have a penchant for mass murder and destruction, which means, if they can lay their hands on them,
nuclear weapons or biochem; and that interrogated terrorists have specifically mentioned our nuclear power plants, national
monuments (including historic bridges and buildings), and crowd venues as planned targets.
It is reasonable to be
disturbed by the fact that there is very little, if anything, the average American can do to act on any of this information,
and this Association has already expressed its opinion that the USG is, as of the beginning of 2002, not acting aggressively
enough to ferret out the Islamic terrorists already in the United States.
Is there an element of CYA in these non-specific
warnings? Of course there is. If or when there is another attack, the Administration wants to be able to say, even if they
don't say out loud, "We told you so."
Any Administration, Republican or Democratic, would want to be able to do the
same.
(4) Always have; always will.
There is a mindset that sets in to all professional intelligence officers
after a while: Classify everything, just to be on the safe side. That's because they are intelligence officers first, second
and last. What the American people want to know, or what the domestic political fallout will be by not telling them, are both
concerns that do not appear on the professional intel officer's radar screen.
But there are really two separate
problems posed by the Question, but the way the Question is posed blurs, perhaps deliberately, those two issues, wrongfully,
into one.
One issue deals with this generic mindset among all intel officers in all agencies to keep as many secrets
as possible, which we have discussed above. But the second issue is what happened in the FBI's investigation of the Mossaoui
case, which in fact has nothing to do with penchants for secrets, other than in the now-failed coverup of the lack of aggressiveness
with which Mossaoui was originally investigated.
In the particular case of Moussaoui (the "20th hijacker"), FBI
higher-ups seem to be the culprits. As the Association has pieced together the story, FBI field agents within the Minneapolis
field office were gung ho to get Mossaoui pre-9-11 and get to the bottom of what he knew [and also made written speculations
about other foreign Muslims in the U.S. receiving flight training for some sort of a hijacking or use of a plane as a weapon,
speculations which were not passed very high up the chain of command], but were frustrated in their efforts to search or arrest
Mossaoui earlier by higher ups both in Washington, apparently acting out of timidity caused by fears of accusations of "racial
profiling." [Our viewers may recall numerous WOT entries in the aftermath of 9-11 expressing the Association's opinion that
what we needed was more profiling, not less, but specifically targetted at Muslims, Arabs and Persians, and not at Americans.]
Mossaoui was still arrested pre-9-11.
Had the FBI arrested him sooner, it is dubious they would have received
any information which would have permitted anyone to actually prevent 9-11. We say this because this fanatical Muslim hasn't
confessed or admitted anything since his arrest, nor has he provided any information about future terrorist attacks. But this
is, in fact, Monday morning quarterbacking. We didn't know, prior to Mossaoui's arrest, what he would or wouldn't do after
he was arrested.
There were also speculative memos from FBI agents in the Phoenix and Oklahoma City offices about
foreign Muslim flight training in the U.S. None of these reports made it to the Director of the FBI. (Robert Mueller, who
came in as Director one week before 9-11, is probably not the problem; in fact, he's probably the solution.)
The CIA
also knew in 2000 that two Arab terrorists, Al-Hazmi and AL-Midhar, who later hijacked the plane that crashed into the Pentagon,
were in the U.S. taking flight training, and did not tell the FBI. We point out no regulation required them to (neither of
the two had outstanding warrants or were in the country illegally), and no regulation probably requires them to today.
We
say: Same problem as the FBI's handling of the Mousaoui case: fear of ethnic profiling in terrorism cases, which is what we
need to get rid of (the fear part), and what law enforcement needs to prioritize (the ethnic profiling part) if we're truly
going to protect the American people from Islamic terror.
(5) Generic mindsets among intell officers to be overly
secretive is not a problem which is unique to the Bush Administration, as we explained in Answer 4. We do, after all, pay
our intelligence people in part to keep secrets, and if they didn't keep their sources secret (manytimes revealing the story
in and of itself almost certainly points directly to the exact source), many of their sources would never talk to them again.
Nor is Congress, with all its chest-thumping, going to legislate away this intelligence community mindset we referred
to.
If any fault lies here with the Bush Administration, it is in not getting rid of, pronto, those within the
Bureau who feel politically impaired from aggressively going after the Islamic, Arab and Persian terrorist threat that walks
amongst us currently.
5-26-02:
The FBI announces it will re-prioritize 1500 of its total force of 11,324 field
agents exclusively to counter-terrorism, bringing CT agents up to about 2000. Re-prioritization will come from, among elsewhere,
400 narcotics enforcement (not good; all narcoterrorists are murderers too; take the force from elsewhere, from stuff
that doesn't involve the viciousness and true evil of intentional violent crime and, believe us, there's plenty of current
agents in those areas to go around).The FBI is also bringing in CIA officers to train its agents in identifying terrorists
as a preventative, as opposed to a prosecutorial, function.
These are, however, speaking generally, good moves and
similiar, almost identical in fact, to many of the things this Association has been calling for in our WOT and NSI Newstands
and dating back to our original 9-15-01 Recommendations to the Nation contained on our 2001 News and Analysis Page. These new proposals from Director Mueller are still pretty vague, however, especially as to how specifically these agents
will be used, and the 2,000 figure is still too low. Mueller should re-read our WOT and NSI Newstand entries.
Moreover,
while there is precious little the average American can do about the vague terrorist threats we are currently receiving from
government, there is a lot more local law enforcement can do about those threats. All American law enforcement, not just the
FBI, needs to be re-prioritized off of the non-threatening activities they currently spend so much time on [the Portland,
Oregon Police Department flat out just refused to assist the FBI in questioning foreign Muslim suspects there last December],
and onto the real threats of the murderous individuals, terrorists, and drug dealers who operate openly in so many of our
towns, cities and counties.
One Pinellas County, Florida deputy sheriff was quoted on Tampa Bay's WABC-TV Channel
28 affiliate saying on Memorial Day:
"There is nothing more important we [as police officers] can do than ensure traffic
safety."
That attitude is what is wrong with local American law enforcement. And his statement is not true.
6-2-02:
President Bush proposes a new Department of Homeland security, with Customs, the Border Patrol (not the entire INS), FEMA,
the Secret Service and the Coast Guard as operational agencies under it and, also, as a central clearinghouse for CIA and
FBI information.
Legislation authorizing the new Cabinet-level post will be approved by January 2003 (our prediction)
with fine-tuning as to the operational agencies involved.
You heard about all this here first, on our this Newstand, on
5-2-02.
Now, this Association has made comments in the past on this Site, which we stick by, about our belief that the
USCG should be a new Branch within Defense. The President's total proposal, which we can accept, is important, though, in
protecting Americans from Islamic terror, and incorporates our important proposal, made here first on this Newstand before
the President's speech, for a clearinghouse for conflicting CIA and FBI reports, providing the new Department has unlimited
access in advising the President as to conflicts in reporting between the CIA and FBI (and provided both agencies "kick up"
more reports to all intel consumers than they have in the past).
In sum Congress, for petty bureaucratic reasons, should
not be permitted to derail, or not act on, this proposal, and should be urged to act on it by December.
What President
Bush has been trying to do incrementally since 9-11, not just with this step, but with others as well, can best be perceived
like a homeowner trying to burglar-proof his house. First, you fortify the seals on the windows, then you add deadbolts and
burglar bars, then security alarms and searchlights; you buy hardened doors and a dog. But no matter what you do, there will
never be an absolute guarantee "they" can't get in. If they "want to" hard enough, they will be able to get in and cause damage.
But, with prevention measures, you can make it so very, very difficult and time-consuming, that "they" give up trying. You
can't make it impossible, but you can make it more likely to be almost impossible.
In general, this Association supports
these measures of the Bush Administration, and we think you should too.
But don't forget, this is an American home we're
protecting, not a Dutch or Chinese or Canadian one. And the final measure of home security that may be suggested by all these
burglar bars is that the homeowner stay home 24-7-365 to protect his own house; that he in effect become a prisoner, a servant,
of all the exterior fortifications he has acquired.
That would be wrong. The price of the "hardening" measures on the
house should not include limiting that American's freedom of travel, and of his privacy while moving about and going about
his business, and we have been, and will remain, critical of measures with that proposed effect or consequential countereffect.
6-7-02:
India and Pakistan begin backing off from talk of war. Kudos are in order for
the Bush Administration.
You read it all first here, folks in NSI 5-23-02.
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OUR MAJOR MILITARY DEPLOYMENTS AS OF
2006
Howard Dean, listen up: As of August
2006 the U.S. has 1.4 million men and women on active duty with the Armed Forces, including 336,000 from the Reserves and
the National Guard (and another 1 million in the Reserves). This is approximately 2 million less on active duty than
at the height of the Vietnam War.
About 500,000 of our active duty service personnel are regular
Army.
Approximately 370,000 service personnel from the Air Force, Army and Marines
are actually deployed abroad, as of 2006, in approximately 120 different countries.
The U.S. Army has only 3 of its 33 regular Army Brigades not currently
deployed and currently available.
We had 5 million + on active-duty
during the Korean War, and 16 million + were on active duty during World
War II.
* CENTRAL AND SOUTH ASIA:
Since the Afghan War
began in 2001, the U.S. has set up bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. We have troops in Afghanistan and Pakistan (about 10,000
as of mid-2006) , plus warships in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea.
* CAUCASUS:
About 50 U.S. Special
Forces arrived in Georgia 5-02 to train that nation's army against Chechen terrorists aligned with Al Quaida operating in
the Pankisi Gorge area.
* EASTERN EUROPE:
Since December, 1995
the United States European Command has provided Forces in support of NATO-led operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Since June,
1999, U.S. peacekeeping troops have also been deployed in Kosovo, and , as of Spring 2004, the Army had about 3,000 troops
stationed in those two places.
* SOUTHWEST ASIA, INCLUDING THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE PERSIAN GULF:
In the aftermath of the
conventional war in Iraq, the United States has land and air bases, hundreds of thousands of troops and equipment
in Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen and Qatar. Friendly nations also provide port facilities for the
U.S. Navy. Bahrain, for example, is the HQS of the USN's 5th Fleet, the Navy's Fleet with the geographical overlap of the
boundaries of CENTCOM (See below.)
As of mid-2006 about 70% of total force available to
the U.S. Army is deployed in Eastern Europe, Southwest Asia, and the Middle East.
* PACIFIC:
In the Philippines, about 600 U.S. Special Forces are training
troops to fight Abu Sayef [WOT, Terrorist Glossary]. The USN's 7th Fleet also patrols the western Pacific and Indian Oceans.
37,000 Army troops are stationed in South Korea.
*
SOUTH AMERICA:
U.S. troops participate in joint training exercises and anti-drug
efforts in many countries. About 400 U.S. military trainers are in Colombia, where the government is fighting a war against
the FARC [WOT, Terrorist Glossary] guerillas.
* WESTERN EUROPE:
American troops are stationed at bases dating from the Cold
War. The bases are hubs for supplying Forces further afield.
*WHAT IS "CENTCOM"?
CentCom is the abbreviation for the U.S. Central Command.
The U.S. Armed Forces, from time to time, divide the world into major "Commands," or areas of geographical or functional responsibility
for military action, if necessary. Each Command has its own military commander, usually designated a Commander-in-Chief, or
"CINC," although that causes confusion because the Constitution designates only one Commander-in-Chief, the President of the
United States.
As of June 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld dropped
his original notion of permanently moving CentCom HQS to the Mid-East, opting instead, as the Association lobbied for, a dual
HQS structure with a "mobile" HQS capable of being in the Mid-East (currently Qatar), and a permanent HQS at MacDill AFB in
Tampa, Florida.
You're hearing so much about CentCom
in the news because it has responsibility for the Mid-East (the "central" area of the land world, if you will), and that is
where the action is, as of now.
CENTCOM's working poulation of DoD civilians
and U.S. Armed Forces members, as of September 2006 totaled 4,000, up from 800 in 1995. Due to its central responsibilities
for military action abroad in the War on Terror, NSA Newstand Editors predict the current population figure of CENTCOM will
double by 2016.
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, |
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| U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan |
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| Meets with President George W. Bush. His nickname in the Bush White House is 'Kofi Annoying.' |
7-12-02:
The U.N. Security Council votes to exempt U.S. Armed Forces peacekeepers from the jurisdiction of
the International Court of Criminal Justice (ICCJ) for one year. This will not be enough for the Bush Administration to accept
the jurisdiction of this so-called court.
| Presidents Bush and Putin |
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| Meet in Crawford, 2001 |
9-6-02:
Here's the deal on the coming invasion of Iraq, if President Bush is to pull it off in the international
community, as of today.
Supporting: 2 countries, the U.S.A. and Tony Blair's HMG.
Opposed: Almost everybody else.
Things that must be done, and can be done, to get allies on board, one by one:
(1) France: Chirac needs to be told France will be left out of any post-Saddam development (read:oil)
if France is not on board.
(2) Germany: Depends on which party, the Socialists or the Christian Democrats, win the upcoming
election. The Christian Democrats can be talked to; Shroeder will be more difficult, but the basis of the argument, in either
case, is the same as that with France.
(3) Russia: Money. Promises of more U.S. aid always sways the Russian government. Promises of a
larger voice in NATO will probably also be necesary.
(4) China: If France, Germany and Russia come in, the Beijing Communists will not want to be the sole opposition
of the Big 6. So their vote is dependent on what happens with France, Germany and Russia.
(5) Turkey: Money.
- If Bush can get all the above in, it will be enough, probably, in world opinion.
The rest:
(6) The Arabs: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (all currently opposed)
and Kuwait (undecided): If the above governments (1)-(5) come in, these princes need to be told point blank: There's a new
Arab world order coming, and it's not coming from fundamentalist interpretations of the Koran, so get on board, or else. They
will.
Keep in mind, the Bush Administration could still overthrow Saddam unilaterally, we point out, without the
support of any of the above, but the aftermath would, in that case, be a lot less pretty. And it would mean the USN would
do most of the heavy lifting, with a commitment of at least five carrier battle groups (close to half of the Navy's total
worldwide force). We cannot, however, occupy Iraq indefinitely just with U.S. troops. We don't have enough of them and, second,
we cannot pay for a major U.S. unilateral war on Iraq out of the U.S. Treasury alone; we need foreign assistance.
Ed. Note: Potential Mid-Eastern and vicinity bases for operations against Saddam include:
1. Incirlik Air Base: Adana, Turkey
2. Camp Doha: Ad-Dawhah, Kuwait
3.Ahmed al-Jaber Air Base: Kuwait
4. U.S. 5th Fleet HQS: Juffair, Bahrein
5. Sheikh Isa Air Base: Sitrah, Bahrain
6. al-Udeid Air Base: Qatar
7. al-Dhafra Air Base: Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
8. Seeb International Airport: Seeb, Oman
9. Djibouti
10. Diego Garcia Naval Support Facility: Diego Garcia, Indian Ocean
11. USN aircraft carriers and troop ships
| Saddam may have nuclear weapons |
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| within one year |
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| Saddam handcrafted his flag personally |
| Saddam Hussein |
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| Points his weapon at the U.S. |
9-12-02:
FLASH: The Association has learned from Pentagon sources that their best estimate
is that the land war with Iraq will start in the cooler months of January or February, because the Armed Forces are certain
U.S. ground troops will have to "suit up" heavily with their anti-biochem gear, gear which is extremely cumbersome, hot and
sweaty to wear.
You heard it here first.
| There would be no war against Saddam but for 9-11 |
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| U.S. trooper suits up with anti-biochem gear |
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"There is a clear line in world politics between those who believe in the liberty of all, even though someone
may disagree with them, and those who seek to master the minds and souls of others.
Our mission goes on. Our country is strong, and America is still the hope of mankind, a light that shines for
Freedom in the darkness.
...And that darkness will not overcome us."
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| President Bush told the U.N. on 9-12-02 |
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| To get on board against Iraq, or else |
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9-13-02:
Pentagon sources tell the Association that by November there will be present
in the "Iraq area" three USN carrier battle groups, a minimum of 45,000 U.S. ground troops, and a "temporary" or
"dual" movement of CentCom HQS to the Mid-East, probably Qatar.
| Some Mid-East Bases which could be used |
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| by U.S. Forces to strike at Saddam |
9-14-02:
14,000 Air National Guardsmen on Active Duty have been notified
their original one-year tour will be continued for another 12 months, the max allowed under current DOD rules.
War against Saddam is coming and, to boot, this country does
not have sufficient Air Force manpower to effectively patrol U.S. domestic airspace against the terrorist threat to the Homeland.
A frequently asked question this Association gets from anxious
military spouses and relatives is, "How many U.S. ground troops will be used in any coming war with Saddam?" The answer is,
after an air bombardment, a minimum of 100,000 and a maximum of 250,000 ground forces. Once you hear on the news that ground
troops in a buildup around Iraq have reached 100,000, fasten your seat belts.
|
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| Challenger waits to take off |
| Earth as seen from Apollo 11 |
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| 1969 |
9-14-02:
It may be a slight exageration, but we are beginning to lose the space
race again to the Russians, for the first time since the 1960s.
The U.S. is beginning to use Russian rockets to transport U.S. crewmen to the International
Space Station, because of decaying American infrastructure on our launch pads and shuttles. Just to bring the latter up to
par, we need about $600 million new dollars from Congress immediately, and this Association supports that request. President
Clinton's first budget in 1993, we point out, cut 7,000 jobs from the NASA workforce.
International cooperation in space is excellent, but in politics among the nations
on this planet, there should not be any doubt about who #1 is.
[UPDATE 4-28-03:
Under the circumstances of the destruction of Columbia,
we hate to say we told you so but, we told you so, right here on this date. It is only the Russians we can rely on
now for boosters to support the International Space Station.]
| Saddam's Presidential Palaces |
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| The USG needs only one. Saddam needs 78! |
9-18-02:
Lot's of updates to report today on Saddam, and a prediction:
After Bush's speech to the U.N., all our allies begin to tow the
line. Britain supported us all along, but after the Bush speech, Berlasconi's Italy immediately said it supported an
invasion of Iraq and regime change. Chirac's France began to fall into line, and the Chinese began to hint that they were
not going to veto U.S. initiated resolutions in the U.N. Security Council against Iraq. Then the Saudi Foreign Ministry
announced, in a major about-face, that the USG could count on Saudi bases if there were a U.N. resolution justifying force
against Saddam. That in turn meant no other Arabian peninsula state would oppose the U.S. At the same time, a new poll
showed 81% of Americans supported an invasion of Iraq if Saddam refused unfettered weapons inspectors. All this happened faster
than we or. we think, the White House, expected.
It also frightened Saddam. Keep in mind that Saddam is frightened
not just by a U.S. led war against him, but also the internal threat within his own Ba'athist party cronies and the military,
that if they feel his removal would avoid a conflict, they might just kill him and get it over with. His Ba'athist (the word
is simply synomous with Iraqi socialism) pals are all a bunch of thugs anyway, and Saddam himself, as well as Iraq's
dictator before him, both came to power by overthrowing and murdering their predecessor. In Iraq, politics is violence.
Because he's frightened, Saddam did what he does best: He began to play
for time. He sent a note to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan saying that Iraq accepted the return of special weapons inspectors
without conditions, and then said that he wanted to discuss the terms of their return in about ten days. Annan waved this
note around at a televised news conference in a scene eerily reminiscent of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain waving around
Hitler's paper pledge as he returned from Munich in 1938.
This Association's position on weapons inspectors for Iraq hasn't changed,
by the way, since we posted it on our Homeport Page prior to 9-1-01: It is almost impossible physically to detect special
weapons development in a country the size of Iraq, especially with a regime constantly calculating ways to keep those development
sites hidden. This would be true if the country were the U.S.; it's certainly true in Iraq's case. Vice-President Dick Cheney
repeated our remarks in a speech a few weeks ago.
Will Saddam be able to buy time with his offer? Yes.
What will Bush do now? He will go to the U.N., while the weapons inspection
negotiations with Saddam are going on on a separate track, and request a Security Council resolution or resolutions which
say the following, or versions of the following: (1) That Saddam allow the weapons inpectors back in unconditionally and immediately;
(2) that Saddam account for any missing Allied P.O.W.s from the Gulf War; (3) that Saddam declare where his special weapons
facilities are, and account for his destruction of such weapons or weapons-in-development; (4) that Saddam pay reparations
for his war crimes against both Iraqi Shi'ites and Iraqi Kurds and, most importantly; (5) that Member States of the U.N. are
authorized to take necessary measures against Saddam if he fails to comply (which the USG will interpret as meaning unilaterally
if necessary, and certainly without further consultation with either the Security Council or the U.N. General Assembly.)
The President will also ask Congress for an immediate resolution granting
him the authorization to use all necessary force to force Saddam to disarm. If this is granted speedily and there is no daylight
between the position of President Bush and Congress it will put pressure on the U.N. Security Council to grant the resolution
or resolutions the USG is seeking there.
9-29-02:
There are credits, $19 billion of them in the case of the Communist government
of China, and $470 million of them in the case of the Communist government of Vietnam, extended in the form of guarantees
by the USG to U.S. producers selling goods or services to those countries. No such guarantees are extended to Castro's dictatorship
in Cuba.
This Association is in favor of equality in these guarantees. No Communist or
anti-American government with any history of or current commitment to anti-Americanism, should be extended credit guarantees
by the Ex-Im Bank, or any other lending agency funded in whole or in part by the U.S. taxpayer.
We don't care how many people these dictators claim are starving in their country.
This money can be better spent on poor people in the U.S.
Period.
10-1-02:
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says the war in Afghanistan is
running the USG currently about $2 billion per month, and that a war against Saddam Hussein, for however long it might last,
would run us about $9 billion per month. The CBO, allegedly bi-partisan, is often influenced by the party which controls Congress.
What that means, when the Republicans control one house of Congress, and the Democrats the other, as is true going into the
November 2002 Congressional election, is anybody's guess.
After Saddam in Iraq, by the way, the Association's own intelligence estimate
is that approximately 75,000 U.S. troops will be needed there as peacekeepers for up to 10 years at a cost of $3 billion per
year.
10-3-02:
President Bush
intends to put together a vast coalition of countries that
understand the threat
of Saddam Hussein.
"Military option is my last choice, not my first," the
President said Thursday. "But Saddam has
got to understand
-- the United Nations must know that the will of this
country is strong."
Bush talked
about the economy and jobs, the need for
terrorist insurance, and the war against terrorism in an
address to Hispanic
leaders at the Eisenhower Executive
Office Building. "War on terror is more than just Al
Qaida," the President stressed.
"The war on terror has to
deal with nations who have terrorized their own people and
who have intention(s) to terrorize
us."
Bush said he has decided to deal with Iraq within the
international community. He has called on other nations
to
join the United States in the effort to disarm Iraq.
"My intent, of course, is for the United Nations to do its
job,"
Bush said. "I think it will make it easier for us to
keep the peace." The President said he wants the world to
understand
that its Saddam Hussein's obligation to disarm
like he said he would.
Bush noted that both House and Senate leaders
have
expressed their support for a strong bipartisan
congressional resolution against Iraq. He said these
leaders
have joined with the Administration to send a clear
signal that when it comes to defending the nation's
freedom, the
United States of America will stand united and
strong.
"The choice is up to the United Nations to show its
resolve,"
Bush said. "The choice is up to Saddam Hussein to
fulfill his word. And if neither of them acts, the United
States,
in deliberate fashion, will lead a coalition to
take away the world's worst weapons from one of the world's
worst leaders."
Along
with the threat from Iraq, Bush said, America
continues to confront the threat posed by global terrorist
groups. "There's
an enemy which still hates America," he
said, "and they want to hit us. That's the reality."
He said terrorists
hate America for its freedoms, its
diversity and the value Americans place on every life.
"They are willing to take
innocent life and at the same
time, hijack a great religion," Bush said. "And so long as
they are out there, we must
do everything we can to defend
the homeland."
The President stressed the need for a new Department of
Homeland
Security to consolidate the more than 100 federal
agencies involved with homeland defense. Bush said he needs
the authority
and flexibility necessary to succeed in the
critical mission.
"We've got to have the ability to put the right people
at
the right place at the right time in order to protect
America," he said. "We can't be constrained by work rules
that
prevent us from doing a better job."
The best way to protect America, Bush said, is to hunt down
the killers. The
war against terrorism involves an
international manhunt to bring the terrorists to justice
one by one. So far, thousands
have been hauled in, he
noted, including one who was going to be the 20th hijacker.
"He's no longer available for
action with the enemy," Bush
said.
Calling on Congress to get a defense appropriations bill on
his desk before
they recess, the president noted that he's
asked for the largest increase in defense spending since
President Reagan
was President. His goal is to provide
America's troops the best pay, training and equipment
possible.
"And I
want to send a message to the world," Bush said.
"When it comes to the defense of our freedoms, there's no
artificial
time line. When it comes to defending America,
civilization, (and) the ability for our children to grow up
in a free
society, it doesn't matter how long it takes.
This great nation will stay the course."
10-3-02:
In 2002, there have been more than 140 separate incidents
of Iraqi
artillery and surface-to-air missiles fired at
coalition aircraft in the northern and southern no-fly
zones.
| Apache helicopters will be used |
|
| for deep strikes into Iraq during any upcoming war |
10-4-02:
The U.S. Government remains committed to
achieving regime change in Iraq, regardless of recent Iraqi
offers to
allow U.N. weapons inspectors back into the country to look for weapons
of mass destruction, senior State
Department officials said yesterday.
U.N. envoy Hans Blix announced yesterday that Iraq agreed to allow in
U.N.
arms inspectors. Iraq kicked out the inspectors in 1998. The U.N.
personnel were charged with verifying that Saddam Hussein
was complying
with U.N. resolutions calling for him to eliminate his weapons of mass
destruction arsenal. Blix said
inspectors could be back in Baghdad
within two weeks.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday dismissed the
Iraqi
offer, noting that the Iraqis are singing the same old song. Any new
inspections, Powell pointed out, must be
backed with U.N. resolve that
all sites are subject to search, with clearly stated consequences if
Iraq doesn't comply.
"As
the Secretary (Powell) said yesterday, it's not so much what the
Iraqis say; it's what the Security Council says," State
Department
spokesman Richard Boucher noted yesterday, adding, "The Security
Council needs to take charge of this."
The
United Nations is now working to craft a tougher resolution or
resolutions to force Saddam to disarm and give up his weapons
of mass
destruction; if approved, it's expected that they would become active
upon any new inspections in Iraq.
During
a Sept. 30 interview on the Jim Lehrer News Hour television
program, Powell acknowledged, "Dr. Blix has done a very good
job in
pulling together a cadre of inspectors ready to go, and that team would
be expanded but I think also he will
have to wait and see whether or
not the United Nations Security Council comes up with new guidance or
additional resolutions
that might require him to modify his plan.
"I'm pleased that he is in that state of readiness, and we'll have to
see
how things develop over the next couple of weeks with respect to a
(new UN) resolution with new requirements," Powell added.
Powell
noted in the broadcast that he's "pleased with the way the
negotiations have been going" at the UN for new resolutions
against
Iraq. The United Nations Security Council, he pointed out, has to
examine three elements in any resolution or
set of resolutions:
Acknowledgement/agreement that Iraq has broken all of its previous
commitments under the 16
previous UN resolutions.
A much tougher set of conditions are required if there are going to
be renewed inspections
in Iraq.
Consequences: What should the international community do if Iraq
frustrates weapons inspectors again? Should
the United Nations then
take some action?
"The debate we're having with some of our Security Council colleagues
is
whether those consequences should be indicated or spelled out in
this first resolution, or whether there should be a second
resolution,"
Powell explained, adding that "the French and others believe that there
should be a second resolution."
This, he added, is an issue that is
being discussed at a political level.
The United States believes "it would be
better to put this in one
resolution. But since this is a consultation, we want to hear what our
friends have to say,"
Powell said.
In Vienna, the Iraqis agreed to allow UN inspectors back into their
country, but only under a prior
agreement that disallows searches at
Saddam Hussein's numerous palace complexes scattered around the
country. U.S. officials
think Hussein could be hiding weaponry outlawed
after the Gulf War at those complexes. Blix is slated to report results
of
conversations with the Iraqis to the U.N. Security Council tomorrow.
Blix and the inspectors "will need to have certain
procedural
understandings and arrangements made so that they can fly in and do
their work, but the instructions, the
authority and the confidence of
the Security Council is what they need most to carry out thorough
inspections," Boucher
added.
The main fly in the ointment, Boucher remarked, is the U.S. government
is fed up with Saddam Hussein. Due
to Saddam's dismal track record
regarding weapons inspections, the chances of success of any renewed
searches is "hypothetical,"
at best, he emphasized.
"Our stated objective is to achieve regime change," Boucher pointed
out. "The point that
we've often made is that the United Nations goal
is one of disarmament of Iraq, Iraqi compliance with the resolutions
that
require disarmament, as well as many other things, an end to the
behavior of the Iraqi regime vis-à-vis its own people
and accounting
for assets and Kuwaiti prisoners and things like that."
10-8-02:
Current polls, from a variety of U.S. sources, as of today, show:
* 38% of the American population support an invasion of Iraq even
if the U.S. does it absolutely alone.
* 48% support an invasion regardless of how high the casualties
are.
* 50-65% support a takedown of Saddam if the USG has any multilateral
support.
These polls compare with 80% approval, immediately after 9-11-01,
for an all-out U.S. unilateral war on Al Quaida.
It is the opinion of the Association that the issue posed by Saddam
and his regime should not be defined merely in terms of the direct and immediate threat of Iraq to the United States, for
Iraq threatens the U.S. by its capacity to threaten its neighbors, as it already has for about 30 years, and particularly
when it develops weapons of mass destruction, and it threatens the area symbolically by its continuing to build these weapons
in spite of U.N. resolutions to which it adhered, and in spite of the cease fire by which the Gulf War was ended, and by having
evicted the U.N. inspectors in 1998. International terrorism, which has emanated primarily of late from the same region in
which Iraq is situated, is only enhanced and re-inforced by the presence in that region of such a government with such weapons.
While Saddam may or may not be hated by this or that Mid-East terrorist
group, because of the internecine gang warfare these people constantly practice among themselves, the more important fact
is that he is a lightning rod, as an image, for all those anti-American Muslim fundamentalists wordwide who would use any
weapon available to cause destruction to, or in, the United States, and that those people, those people, need to be taught
the kind of permanent lesson, in violent terms, which seems to be the only lesson they understand. We waited too long to deal
with the terrorist threat growing in Afghanistan, and that wait cost us 3,000 lives.
It is a truism that violence begets violence, but it is also true, as with
Hiroshima and Nagaski in 1945, that there are acts of justice which speak with finality and which can bring on a long-term
new order in world affairs, at least as to certain issues. It is quite possible, as it was in World War II, that U.S.
Armed Forces, in their righteous might, can win through to an absolute victory over not just Saddam, but also the threat
of terror he specifically represents against the United States, and that this particular form of evil will never again directly
threaten us. This country has always striven for the universal freedom of man living in peace, and this Association sees
no reason for us to stop now. In the United States, and in the American rule of law, as it was in 1776, and as it is today,
are centered the hopes and aspirations and faith of the entire human race.
In order to plan a military operation against Iraq, however, America
needs a diplomacy that gets us into it, and that diplomacy should focus on the existence of weapons of mass destruction in
violation of U.N. resolutions and of the agreement which ended the Gulf War. If it were possible to devise an effective inspection
system which Saddam would accept, which it is not, and if it were possible to implement it and enforce it on him, that would
probably be enough by itself to bring about regime change within Iraq. But even if that were possible, it would not be
made possible without the threat of war. The questions of an effective inspection system and the threat of war are inextricably
linked.
The issue of multilateralism vs. unilateralism is equally complex.
There are several nations in the Mid-East which would be quite relieved if Saddam Hussein disappeared, or, at a minimum, if
he were really constrained, but are not willing to say this publicly. As long as the Bush Administration says it has not made
up its mind about actually going to war, those who might support us are afraid to say anything for fear they might be left
out in the open. So it is natural to believe that many of the Arab states act like they are unfriendly to the idea of a U.S.
invasion of Iraq, but would be relieved by it afterward. In Europe the situation is also complex. Several of our European
allies, like Germany, have center-left governments in which the debate as to how to deal with the United States has been endemic.
But at the end of the day, once there is a clear American decision, we believe most Europeans will ask themselves whether
they can really afford to separate from a country which has been assuring their vital security interests for 50 years on a
matter of vital national security to the United States.
Adding to these complexities is the fact that international support
is a process which cannot de decided in a day, or even at a fixed point in time. It is rather an on-going process, and even
if the USG does not have support in the beginning, other nations can still be invited to participate in the process of reconstruction
and governance that has to take place post-Saddam, and which the USG has so successfuly orchestrated in the Balkans,
and hopefully will be able to orchestrate long-term in Afghanistan.[This Association, by the way, in the interest of full
disclosure, points out that it opposed President Clinton's decision to put U.S. Forces in the Balkans on the grounds those
conflicts were Europe's problems; that there was no direct threat to U.S. national security involved (at least outside of
Slovenia and Croatia); and that his policy seemed mostly designed to establish on-going USG sublimation of the national interests
of the United States to multilateralism. We stand by that opposition, and those reasons, but none of that changes the accuracy
of what we have said about the success of USG orchestration of peacekeeping efforts in the Balkans under both Presidents Clinton
and Bush. (USNVA also continues to oppose ICCJ jurisdiction over war crimes, not because we believe there are no such things
as war crimes; quite the contrary, we believe there are, and that both Milosevic and Saddam have been guilty of them. But
"war crimes" need to be strictly defined, and cannot be defined merely by what a majority of the U.N. General Assembly may
or may not politically say today, or on some other day, as to what they are.)]
For all these reasons, the Association shies away from the notion
that the decision about what to do about Saddam Hussein should be decided based merely on media reaction to American
public opinion polls on any given day.
10-10-02:
Intelligence reports received today by the Association from high-level
State Department sources indicate that President Bush's diplomatic efforts have already put together a coalition of at least
17 nations from around the world, out of a total of about 155, ready to totally support a U.S. invasion of Iraq.
President Bush's fatther's coalition against Saddam in 1991 totalled
43 nations.
10-11-02:
Both the Senate and the House overwhelmingly pass resolutions supporting any decision by President
Bush to attack Iraq. Both resolutions , in simple English, authorize the President to use force, as he determines it to be
necessary, to stem the "threat" posed by Saddam Hussein, if diplomatic efforts, in his opinion, have failed to be successful.
Bush could not have asked for more, and he didn't. The texts give absolutely no daylight between the position of the President
as to what was necessary, and the resolutions themselves. The lack of that daylight now puts added pressure on Bush's opponents
within the U. N. Security Council who want a new weakened inspection regime in Iraq, instead of regime change in Iraq.
The vote was 296 to 133 in the House of Representatives, with 65 abstentions or absentees. [Abstentions,
according to House rules, can later add their vote one way or the other.] The vote was 77-23 in the U.S. Senate.
The majority in the House was 69%, a higher percentage than the vote Bush (41) got for a resolution
supporting the Gulf War in 1990. But a majority of House Democrats (126-81) voted against the House Resolution,
even though their leader, Representative Dick Gephardt (Mo.) supported the resolution. The House, in the percentage of its
votes on important matters, is generally felt by American political analysts to be quite close to the
grassroots will of the American people considered as a whole.
All Members who were present and actually voted, in the opinion of the Association, voted their
conscience.
10-11-02:
The Nobel Peace Prize Committee awards Jimmy Carter the Nobel Peace Prize, and
at the same time Commiteeman Gunnar Berge takes the opportunity to denounce all Bush Administration policies on Saddam Hussein,
saying that the award was designed to be " a kick in the leg to all those who support Bush's policies."
Carter, a notorious opponent of the 1991 Gulf War who wrote letters to every U.N.
member denouncing the liberation of Kuwait from Saddam, incorporated Berge's statements into his acceptance speech in Plains,
although a few days earlier, on the NBC-TV News "Today" Show, he seemed to express support for Bush's position on Iraq.
Then,a few days after the award of the $1 million prize (10-15-02) Carter said on the same show that he had "never heard"
Berge's remark. During the 1976 U.S. Presidential campaign, we point out, Carter was repeatedly criticized by his Democratic
primary opponents for changing his story about his positions.
We have two comments:
Barbara Walters did a better job of critical questioning of Castro on ABC-TV
News' "20/20" on 10-11-02, where she got Castro to admit he had asked the Soviets in 1962 for a first strike of IRBM
thermonuclear missiles in Cuba against the U.S., than Carter ever did.
Maybe she should have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Second, Jimmy Carter, there ya' go again, 78 years old, haven't changed a
day since 1980. Why don't you flip-flop a few more times?
"[Saddam's} continued existence threatens the
world."
- Senator John McCain (R-AZ),
during the Senate
Debate, 10-11-02
Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were the only other two U.S. Presidents
to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. They both deserved it.
| Tariq Aziz is Saddam's |
|
|
| Liar-in-Charge at the U.N. |
10-18-02:
Here's the latest from our intelligence sources at the U.N. as to what Bush wants
and will get on Iraq.
A brief explanation first: There are three countries on the U.N. Security Council,
in addition to the U.S. and Britain , which can veto any U.S./British resolution authorizing force against Saddam - France,
Russia and China.
The Chinese will not veto what Bush and Prime Minister Blair want. The Russians
will not either. Chirac's government in France wants a two part resolution (The French always want their own position.). The
USG and Britain want a one part resolution. The French are holding out for a resolution which first provides weapons inspections
in Iraq without hindrance, and then a second resolution which either (a) will provide that if there is a violation of the
first, which Saddam will violate, authorizing force to get him, or (b) a vote of the Council that a material violation
has taken place and then another vote authorizing force.
The Association prediction is that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair will
get what they want, and that the Bush Administration has already outmaneuvered its opponents on the Security Council,
just like they outmaneuvered their opponents in Congress.
A ground invasion of Iraq will probably begin in March, 2003. Saddam will have
forces numbering 400,000 against a primarily U.S. manned allied ground force of between 100,000 to 250,000.
There will be aspects of this war which will look like a cakewalk, but our
prediction still is that Saddam will use biochem, and there will be casualties, both short and long term.
10-18-02:
North Korea announces it has a nuclear weapons development program,
just as President Bush implied in his State of the Union address this year, making an open laughingstock of the agreement
it signed with the Clinton Administration in 1994 not to do the same in return for U.S. aid.
10-21-02:
President Bush repeats almost verbatim the Association's opinion piece on this Newstand 10-8-02
that if Saddam truly accepts unlimited weapons inspections in Iraq, that it would "signal regime change."
This isn't the first time the Administration has quoted from this website.
The major American media didn't even report the story and, as we said in the original opinion piece,
it is dubious Saddam will truly accept, so the change in postion probably, but not necessarily, remains moot.
10-30-02:
One non-American prognosticator favored by the show, on
the PBS-TV Lehrer News Hour this date, predicted that Saddam will accept any mandate for weapons inspection the U.S.
proposes in the U.N. Security Council.
Let's call this guy's bluff: If the U.S. and its allies
put 100,000 inspectors on the ground in Iraq to go anywhere at any time, do anything, to find Saddam's weapons of mass destruction
and his development programs for those weapons, which is what it would take to ferret them out (See the commentary on this
on our Homeport Page), Saddam would not accept it. Saddam will only accept what he can weasel with, just like a drug dealer
on American streets can accept a police presence there providing the law can't prove beyond any doubt that he was dealing
drugs, which is, in both cases, a difficult thing to do.
11-8-02:
President Bush has gotten what he wanted at the U.N. versus Saddam.
The U.S./U.K. sponsored resolution against Saddam, which Bush negotiated
and maneuvered through the other Permanent Members of the U.N. Security Council, France, China and Russia, was passed unanimously
by the 15 member Council. Not even Syria voted against. (To have effect, A Security Council resolution must be both passed
by majority vote and no Permanent Member may veto.)
The resolution provides that Saddam has 7 days to accept unfettered
weapons inspections, and 30 days to declare all his weapons of mass destruction and development programs. The inspection team
must report back to the Council by February 23, 2003, at the latest, as to "any obstruction" by Saddam of inspections.
(Member states may also independently report to the Council at any time of perceived obstructions.) Upon such a report by
the inspection team, the Security Council must take an "immediate" vote on whether there is a material breach of
compliance with the resolution. (The so-called "second" vote, pushed by the French, to which the Bush Administration objected).
If the vote is that Saddam is in breach of the inspection regime, today's resolution authorizes military force without
further ado or any more votes.
The pressure now swithces to Hans Blix, the head of the U.N. inspections
team. This guy has not been particularly pro-U.S. in the past, and is best known for promising in 1995 that he would see to
it that North Korea abided by its agreement with the Clinton Administration not to develop nuclear weapons. (Unlike in the
past, the USG cannot second its own intelligence people as inspectors in Iraq.) Look for the USG, behind the scenes, to put
pressure on Blix to report any obstruction by Saddam, and to do so prior to the February 23 deadline. ( Keep in
mind that in March in Iraq the weather is already warming up, which makes the dissemination of bio or chemical agents in warfare
easier, and at the same time makes the anti-biochem gear Allied soldiers would have to wear a lot more sweaty.)
Our prediction: Blix will take his time, but report non-compliance.
[UPDATE 3-17-03: Kofi Annan has puled the U.N. Inspection Team out of Iraq, as war with
the U.S. is imminent. We were right about Blix taking his time, but he never got around to reporting Iraqi non-compliance.]
12-11-02:
Yemen admits it wanted to buy unarmed North Korean Scud
missiles shipped to it, intercepted in the Arabian Sea by the Spanish Navy.
A number of things need to be said: #1: Yemen cooperated
fully with the USG in the investigation of the U.S.S. Cole bombing by Al Quaida in 2000. #2: There are almost 200 Al Quaida
operatives in Yemen today, operating near or about the Saudi-Yemeni border. #3: The USG is cultivating Yemen's socialist government
as a new ally in the Arabian Peninsula, an ally badly needed.
Given all that, we need to place the blame on the North
Korean sellers of these weapons. Scud missiles can be used either offensively or defensively. There is no evidence currently
Yemen intended these missiles to be used offensively against U.S. interests in the Mid-East, although it is a legitimate question
as to why the Yemeni government wanted these missiles in the first place.
12-26-02:
From our sources at DoD: Regardless of what the U.N. Inspections Team
does or doesn't do, U.S. ground troops in the Persian Gulf area are expected to hit the 100,000 figure we talked about in
our 9-14-02 newsline entry, on or about January 27,2003.
1-6-03:
Saudi emissaries meeting with Saddam have asked him to
go quietly into lavish exile in Gaddafi's Libya so that a pro-American regime could be peacefully installed in Baghdad. Our
intelligence sources have reported to us that Saddam told the emissaries bluntly that "they better return quickly to Riyadh,
or their heads would be sent home to the Crown Prince [Abdullah] in very small boxes."
Meanwhile, DoD sources have told the Association that they would like to see a total
U.S. ground force buildup in Turkey of 8 divisions (about 80,000 troops) for a northern assault on Kirkuk and Baghdad.
The Turkish government has said no U.S. ground forces will be permitted to attack Saddam from its soil, but that it will otherwise
support the war on Iraq.
1-9-03:
Special Ops Command (SOCOM), currently HQed at MacDill
AFB in Tampa, has received a new mandate from the DoD: to be substantively responsible for all military Counter-Terror Ops
worldwide and to be the primary advisor to the other CINCs on anti-terror ops.
This is a good job on military operational re-organization by the White House.
1-12-03:
We're not going to overtly comment on what's
going on in Venezuela today other than to, first, report the news that Venezuela provides
10-20% of all the refined crude used in the U.S. currently for gasoline and, given the total oil industry strike in Venezuela
against its pro-Castroite president Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's entire oil supply has been shut down (about 2 million
bbl per day), which accounts for the current spike at the U.S. gasoline pump and, second, to refer you to our predictions,
made in the opening article on this Newstand on our Homeport Page on oil, as to what's going to happen next in Caracas. We've
never backed down from our predictions in the past, and we certainly don't here.
OPEC voted this date to increase its total production by 1.5 million
bbl per day.
1-15-03:
We think that Kim Jong-Il, the murderous
dictator who runs North Korea (a "Stalinist sociopath," Senator John McCain (R-AZ) calls him), and who is now threatening
to use nuclear weapons against us and South Korea after Dr. Blix (yeah, that's right, the very same Dr. Blix who heads the
so-called U.N. inspection team in Iraq) told us Kim had no weapons of mass destruction, could spruce up his international
image by puffing up his dyed hair another 2 to 3 inches and then appearing in public with his arm around one or two of the
13-year old Filipina maids he keeps at his palaces in Pyongyang.
Seriously, folks, this guy Kim is as much a relic of the Cold War
and Soviet imperialism as Castro is and, if we refuse to negotiate with Fidel, we don't see why we should be negotiating with
this bum either.
To learn more about the current and past situation in Korea, click here to go to go to an excellent site sponsored by veterans from our sister service, the U.S. Army.
1-21-03:
Intel sources have told the Association that Turkey
has demanded $32 billion in additional USG aid to permit the U.S. to field U.S. trroops
against Iraq from Turkish soil. A few weeks ago the Administration predicted to a few key members of Congress that the entire
cost of a war against Iraq could be kept below $50 billion.
Look for the Administration to beat down Turkey's demand to maneageable
levels.
The total cost of the war against Iraq will exceed $50 billion, and that's
just the immediate costs through the initial ground operations; in a worst case scenario with occupation costs over a ten
year period, the total could go as high as $1.9 trillion.
1-21-03:
HEADS UP ON WAR WITH IRAQ:
It will be 4 weeks from today, more or
less February 17, before the Teddy Roosevelt Carrier Group
is in position in the Persian Gulf off
Iraq.
There will be no war before that date.
1-27-03:
The preliminary report of the so-called U.N. Inspection Team in Iraq delivered to the Security Council
this date said two things:
1. Of tens of thousands of weapons and weapons systems of mass destruction known to be there by
the previous Inspection Team, which left in 1998, Saddam has not shown how a single weapon or system has been destroyed; and
2. The Team could not find or discover a single such weapon or system in physical existence.
1-28-03:
Israeli voters overwhelmingly re-elect the Likud Party
of Ariel Sharon to deal with the Palestinian proble.
At the same time, the Palestinian Authority suspends
indefinitely plans for elections in their territory, because of "occupation by Israel."
The electoral problem for Sharon is that Israel has
a unicameral parliamentary government in the Knesset as opposed to the the United States, which has a tricameral government.
Likud got 36% of the vote; Shinui, an anti-orthodox
Jewish party, 14%; and Shas, a pro-orthodox Jewish party, 13%. Both Shinui and Shas would support the Sharon foreign policy,
but are diametrically opposed to each other on domestic issues.
Sharon must put together a government in the Knesset
which carries at least 51 out of 100 votes. Tough going.
Probability: New Israeli elections within 12 months.
UPDATE 2-26-03:
Sharon managed today to stitch together an impressive
68-vote majority coalition government in the Knesset, with Shinui as a partner, and without Labor. He was assisted by the
fact the district vote count gave Likud 40 of their own seats, even though the popular vote showed them at 36%.
2-1-03:
On the occasion of the tragic loss of our shuttle Columbia this
date, the Association refers you back to our 9-14-02 story on this Newstand.
The Columbia, 22 years old, and the oldest shuttle of four, was lost with all her 7 crewmembers:
- CDR William C. McCool, USN, Columbia's pilot, a graduate of Annapolis, and the father of
3 young sons;
- CPT David M. Brown, USN, 46 [Prior to the flight, Brown had been asked what would happen
if the mission failed: "This program will go on."];
- CDR Laurel Blair Salton Clark, USN, 41, a Navy doctor, a nuke, and a flight surgeon, the
mother of one 8-year old son;
- Rick Husband, USAF, Columbia's commander, and the father of two young children;
- LTC Michael A. Anderson, USAF, shuttle science officer, the second African-American to
be killed in space ["If this mission doesn't come out right, don't worry about me. I'm just going on to something higher."];
- Kalpana Chawla, U.S. citizen, born in India, the first Indian born woman in space, had
previously logged over 400 hours in space;
- COL Ilan Ramon, Israeli Air Force, 48, mission payload specialist, married with 4 young
children [Ramon was the Israeli pilot who destroyed Iraq's first nuclear reactor in 1981.]
They did not return safely to America, but we can pray that they are all safely home.
Columbia was on the 113th shuttle flight of America's space program, and was traveling at 12,500
mph at an altitude of 39 miles, and facing underneath heat of 3000 degrees Fahrenheit at the point of her destruction at approximately
9:16 a.m. Eastern time, although ground video show fragments of the shuttle breaking off over California and Arizona
as early as 8:56 a.m..
Columbia was about 15 minutes from touchdown at Cape Canaveral when she was destroyed.
May God Bless Columbia and the men and women of courage and grit who flew aboard her.
"When we reach for the stars, sometimes we fall short.
We must pick ourselves up, and press on."
- President Ronald Reagan, on the occasion of the destruction of Challenger,1986.
 2-2-03:
Pro-Saddam Iraqis react with glee on the streets of Baghdad,
dancing and celebrating the destruction of the Columbia.
Saddam's Foreign Ministry immediately issues a public statement: "This is Allah's
vengeance on America. We are happy it broke up."
God help any terrorist nation if this tragedy should be laid to rest at their door,
which neither this Association, nor anyone else, has any evidence of this date.
It is more likely that insulating foam broke off on takeoff and hit and damaged the
heat protecting tiles on Columbia's underneath left wing.
We point out here, as analysis, what is now obvious to many NASA scientists, and has
been since Challenger disintegrated on January 28,1986: America's shuttlecraft are "coated" with tens of thousnds of small
square and rectangular tiles, which are their primary protection against the immense heat of exiting into, and re-entering
from, space. It's really not about the O-rings or the foam, it's about these insulating tiles.
These tiles can have a "zipper effect." Rip off one of them, and one is presented
with the danger that many more will rip off, in which case a shuttle can be destroyed in micro-seconds, especially on exit
or re-entry.
New technology for the next generation of shuttles, replacing the anti-heat tiles,
is at least ten years away. America's scientists are working on it, and that's about the best we can report.
Three shutles left in our inventory is at least one too few to bridge that time gap,
and therefore this Association supports supplementary funding to immediately build a replacement for Columbia.
2-2-03:
Push our estimate of the earliest start of a potential
ground war against Iraq back to March 20 because of military reasons:
and,
- the Administration is going for 250,000, as opposed to 100,000 minimum
ground troops on hand for an invasion [High level sources within the DoD, speaking on condition of anonymity, have told the
Association that the Commander-in-Chief wants a "shock" campaign against Saddam, with overwhelming force, and won quickly
and decisively, if not instantaneously - No street fighting, street by street, in Baghdad.] and
- the combination of the two will not occur until or around 3/15/03 at
the earliest.
2-3-03:
The U.S. Navy Bell was rung 7 times
at the national ceremony this day to commemorate all 7 astronauts who died on board Columbia.
We note in closing this piece on Columbia today that the belief
of this Association is that space is America's final frontier, and that our challenges there, in conquering that frontier,
are many and dangerous, and extend far into a future beyond which none of us alive this date will see. Nevertheless that journey
is a journey America must make, and is also a matter of America's national security, and will forever remain so.
Prior to the crash of Columbia, President Bush had proposed in
his newest budget a 13% increase for NASA funding, including shuttle upgrades, as well as increases in military pay. E1s currently
make about $13,000 per year.
On this same day, 17 Americans declined to assist American veterans
in need, when we asked them for help.
2-6-03:
The Association has learned President Bush will go for a second U.N.
Security Council vote authorizing force against Iraq, asking France to abstain rather than veto.
The way the Security Council works is this: A resolution needs 9 votes out of 15 members to
carry, plus no veto ( a "no" vote) from any Permanent Member (The U.S., U.K., France, Russia or mainland China). The other
ten current members through 2003 are: Germany, Bulgaria, Spain, Mexico, Chile, Angola, Guinea, Cameroon, Pakistan and Syria.
For a variety of reasons (many of which have to do with money), we predict the Bush Administration, in addition to the votes
of the U.S. and the U.K., can count on the votes of China, Bulgaria, Spain, Mexico, Chile, Angola, Guinea and Pakistan.
Our current prediction is that the war in Iraq will cost
the U.S. $200 billion long-term, including stationing U.S. Forces there to ensure a stable post-Saddam regime.
2-7-03:
Turkey announces it
will permit U.S. ground troops to operate and deploy from its soil against Iraq, if it is paid.
As we said earlier on this Newstand, Turkey will
be paid handsomely by the USG for this privilege. Going back at least to the USG-Turkey base negotiations of the 1970's, Turkey
has always wanted exorbitant sums for the U.S. to be able to station troops on its soil.
Most of the Arab Muslim states
on the Arabian peninsula secretly or semi-secretly agree to do the same. Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa ( WOT 8-15-02 ),
the emir of Qatar, for example, has become a strong supporter of the U.S. position in the Mid-East and has permitted Doha
to host the forward HQS for CentCom, though Qatar does not border Iraq. Hamid actually funded, after he deposed his own
father in 1995, Al Jazeera TV, although that network is today independent of him. Qataris will be, within the next 5 years,
the richest per capita people in the world because of oil but, more exactly, because of the natural gas fields under
their soil and seas. Qatar is one of the few countries in the conservative Arab world where women actually do have rights
to participate equally in their society. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, still says it is opposed to USG "independent"
action against Iraq, but U.S. troops are already positioned in Saudi Arabia, as we speak, to invade Iraq.
France and Germany
agree they will oppose the U.S. proposed 2nd Security Council resolution for military force against Iraq. Russia and China
are on the fence.
These situations change daily. Stay tuned.
2-8-03:
The U.S.S. Carl Vinson
carrier group has been deployed to Korean waters.
North Korea's nuclear threats need to be
taken seriously.
North Korea has a 1-million man army. Starting
in April, they will have enough plutonium to start producing one atomic bomb per month. The U.S. can take out their reactors
with air power, but Kim Jong-Il can move his plutonium prior to that.
There is no way to take out Kim Jong-Il
totally without, first, taking out his reactors
and, second, an airborne/seaborne invasion of the North by U.S. and South Korean troops to destroy his regime. We have
not tried that since MacArthur's time and the major problem now remains the same as then: China.
2-10-03:
SPECIAL REPORT
-
OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM 
The Association wants, with the help of some anonymous friends at the Naval Postgraduate
School, in the Administration, and in the Intel Community, to go out on a limb and predict what a war
in Iraq would look like, in broad terms, and based on current U.S. plans.
[Those of you who read this article on its original posted date know that the
"green" updates were added at the war's end, as an analysis about our original predictions, and as a wrapup to the war. Our
original predictions were left intact in "yellow."]
1. The invasion will occur between March 20 - April 20.
[UPDATE: The war began on March 19 (USA time) and March 20 (Iraq time), 2003, with
a surgical strike by U.S. F-117 aircraft and Navy Tomahawk missiles, at dawn's early light in Baghdad, in an attempt to kill
Saddam Hussein, whose location in southern Baghdad was picked up by NSA telephonic intercepts, and with airstrikes on Iraqi
anti-aircraft facilities in southern Iraq and communications facilities in northern Iraq.
May God Bless America.]
2. There will be no month long bombing campaign preceding an invasion, as there was
in 1991. Softening up bombing, using primarily USN carrier group jdams, will last a week or less, but be just as important.
USAF and USN planes using smart weapons will accompany attacking troops and will be used for simultaneous air support.
[In the Gulf War, there was a 38-day air bombardment campaign which preceded a 4-day ground combat
campaign.]
3. Assuming the USG meets Turkish demands for money, between 2 and 8 armored,
paratroop and/or airmobile divisions will descend on Kirkuk and Baghdad from Turkey, and on Iraq's oil fields in the north, blitzkrieg
style, in conjunction with up to 220,000 U.S. armored and mobile troops invading from Kuwait and the south.
If Turkish soil is not used for deployment, the timetable of the invasion will be slowed down, there will be more U.S. casualties,
and the Iraqis will be much more capable of undertaking a street-by-street defense of Baghdad.
[UPDATE 3-20-03: The Turks refused the use of their country for combat troop staging
operations, deciding to just grant us overflight permission instead. For this , they will lose significant amounts of USG
dollar aid, and will not be permitted to occupy Iraqi Kurdistan.]
4. Blitzkrieg (Overwhelming air and ground force used in conjunction, coupled
with high speed designed to cause shock and confusion among the enemy) will be the order of the day. These assaults will be
preceded by masses of Apache helicopters, USAF and Naval Air launching deep into Iraq attacks against Iraqi armor, anti-aircraft
installations, and massing of Iraqi reserves. Simultaneously with the first
border crossings elements of the 82nd and/or 101st Airborne Divisions, or troops landed by air, will land on the oil
wells inside Iraq in order to secure them from Saddam attempting to blow them and their resoirvoirs up, which he will attempt
to do.
[UPDATE:
"Blitzkrieg" was our term. The Bush Administartion prefers "shock and awe."
The U.S. Army 173rd Airborne Brigade landed in northern Iraq on the sixth day of
the war in order to seize those oil fields.]
5. There will be three major
initial movements of allied troops north from Kuwait. A combined Navy SEAL, USMC MEU, British and
Australian force will be dispatched northeast to seize Umm Qasr, Basra and its Rumalia oil fields. A major U.S. force
will drive sraight up Kuwaiti Highway 80 on the shortest route to Baghdad. Another major U.S. force will swing westward, attempting
to outflank Iraqi forces on their right, and to attack Baghdad from the west. One way or another, whether we use
Turkey to stage or not, U.S. airborne forces, or forces landed by air, will have to drop on the Iraqi oil fields in the
north, to prevent Saddam from blowing them up. Elements of at least one airborne division will also descend on Baghdad
immediately before the arrival of U.S. ground troops.
UPDATE: The Force driving westward was primarily the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry Division;
the Force driving up the center was primarily the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division; and the Force driving to the east was
primarily the USMC 1st Marine Expeditionary Force of the 1st Marine Division.
Frontline Forces in Operation Iraqi Freedom Phase I:
| 173rd Airborne Brigade, U.S. Army |
|
 |
Home fort: Caserma Ederle, Vicenza, Italy
Nickname: Sky Soldiers
History:
US Army Infantry Regiments have fought in every one of the nation's major and minor conflicts. From Concord to the Gulf, Gettysburg
to the beaches of Normandy, the Infantry has led the way. As the Army's basic combat fighters, infantrymen fulfill the oldest
role on the battlefield. America?s infantry units, some of which trace their history back to the 18th Century, stand prepared
today to perform their traditional mission, that of closing with and destroying the enemy. |
|
|
| 101st Airborne Division, U.S. Army |
 |
|
Home fort: Fort Campbell, Kentucky
Nickname: Screaming Eagles
Motto:
Rendezvous with Destiny
History: This Division is stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The 101st Airbone Division on Nov.
2nd 1918. The airborne division received its baptism by fire in the invasion of Normandy, where it secured the exits to the
beachhead and destroyed German artillery-emplacements that threatened the landing of the 4th Infantry Division. The 101st
also parachuted into Holland in Operation Market Garden. |
|
| 3rd Infantry Division, U.S. Army |
 |
|
Home fort: Fort Stewart, Georgia
Motto: Nous Resterons La - We'll Stay There
History: Activated at Camp Greene, N.C., the 3rd Infantry Division fought bravely in World War I, World War II, Korea
and Operation Desert Storm. The Division earned its nickname during the Battle of the Marne in World War I, when it held its
position even as surrounding units retreated. Among the distinguished soldiers from the 3rd Division in World War II was Lt.
Audie Murphy, the most decorated U.S. soldier of the war. |
|
| 1st Marine Division |
 |
|
Motto: The Old Breed
History: The 1st Marine Division, "The Old Breed",
was activated aboard the battleship Texas on February 1, 1941, consisting of the 1st, 5th, 7th and 11th Marine Regiments.
The division first saw action at Guadalcanal in the invasion of 7 August 1942. Later in World War II, it invaded Peleliu and
Okinawa. In the Korean Conflict, the 1st Marine Division landed at Inchon, Korea, on 15 September 1950. The Old Breed faced
seven Communist Chinese divisions in the battle of the Chosin Reservoir, accounting for some 37,500 Chinese casualties as
it fought its way out of the frozen reservoir. Deployed to the Republic of Vietnam in 1965, the 7th Marines participated in
Operations Starlite and Piranha, the first major engagements for American ground troops in South Vietnam. By March 1966, division
headquarters was established at Chu Lai, with the entire division deployed by June, operating in Quang Tin and Quang Ngai
provinces. After nearly two years of intense combat operations, the division fought both Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army
elements during the 1968 Tet Offensive. The 1st Marine Division finally returned home to Camp Pendleton in April 1971. The
1st Marine Division's next combat action was in Operation Desert Storm. In the early morning of 24 February 1991, the 1st
Marine Division pushed into southern Kuwait, successfully breaching the first obstacle belt, which in turn triggered a timed
sequence of attacks by coalition forces arrayed along the entire northern border of Saudi Arabia. Elements of the division
served in Somalia in 1993. |
|
| 1st Infantry Division, U.S. Army |
 |
|
Motto: Victory
History: The 1st Infantry Division was organized in May 1917
from other regular active Army units and quickly deployed to France for action in World War I. The Division served with honor
in both world wars, Vietnam and Desert Storm. During Operation Desert Storm, the division advanced 260 kilometers into enemy-held
territory in just 100 hours. Today, the 1st Infantry Division is a mechanized division based in Wurzburg, Germany.
|
|
Although U.S. Army Special Forces were inserted to the north of Baghdad immediately
preceding the arrival of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division's arrival there on April 2, 2003, and the 101st Airborne Division
helped take that airport, there were no airborne drops by parachutists.
Army Special Forces Unit 574 touched down at Baghdad Airport on April 2 to hunt
down Saddam and his lieutenants. As of late fall, 2003, it is the opinion of the Association that there are not enough Special
Forces in the Army, in Iraq, or in the DoD. As of that time, for example, Special Forces units in Iraq wre being called upon
to do policing missions, when their primary capability is counter-insurgency.
The 900 oil wells of Rumalia due north of Basra (the largest fields in Iraq) were
reported secured on April 10, 2003.
British Forces of the 7th Armoured Brigade were officially given control of operations
to take Basra proper. As of April 3, 2003, they were in the city, but had not taken it. Although Basra basically had been
surrounded on the Iraq side within 5 days after the commencement of hostilities, the decision was made to "sit it out,"
rather than risk house-to-house fighting by immediately storming the city. Basra was later taken.
6. Baghdad, a city with a population of 5 million, will be blown to bits by U.S. armor, artillery and air power if
the Iraqi Army or the Republican Guard effectively attempts to fight a small-unit infantry campaign in
it street-by-street or house-by-house.
7. If Saddam chooses to use bio or chem against allied troops, or to bomb Israel or
Saudi Arabia with missiles, both this timetable, and the scenario of this prediction in this entry might change. God help
him if he does any of the above.
[UPDATE:
Saddam chose not to. Smart man, assuming he had the capability to use them, but
he may not have.
Intelligence sources reported to the Association in the immediate aftermath of the
War that Saddam had destroyed most of the physical stockpiles of his chemical and biological weapons so that Hans Blix's weapons
inspectors couldn't find any, but kept small amounts of prototypes as well as the research and development plans and formulas
so that he could immediately restart these weapons programs once the inspection regime was over.]
[UPDATE 6-1-03:
We stand by the accuracy of the previous Update. There is not, and should not be,
any 'embarassment' to either the Bush or Blair Administrations, because Saddam destroyed his WMD to avoid detection, but kept
his formulations. It takes about 1/2 hour to develop biological or chemical weapons like anthrax, uremia, plague, smallpox
or Marburgh virus, from a formulation and one microscopic prototype, to wipe a city like New York off the map with proper
delivery, with every man, woman and child killed. In fact, as little as 100 grams of a biological weapon like anthrax
powder might be able to achieve the exact same effect.]
8. The Battle for Baghdad will begin within 1-2 weeks after the commencement of hostilities,
and easily could also be over by then. Retreating troops, if they refuse to surrender and/or lay down their arms and just
"go home," will not be "let go," as they were last time.
[UPDATE : Elements of the U.S. Army 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division
and the 101st Airborne Division took Saddam International Airport in western Baghdad, as a major staging area, on
April 2, 2003, 14 days after hostilities began. At the same time , other U.S. forces encircled the city. We consider this
to be the beginning of the Battle for Baghdad.
The implication in our original prediction was that Baghdad would quickly fall after
hostilities began, which did not occur, because of a required delay in the "blitz" schedule of the original U.S. military
plan, which in turn was caused by stiff Iraqi resistance on the road to Baghdad.
On April 10, 2003, Iraq's U.N. Ambassador, who was actually Saddam's second-in-command
at the U.N. after Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, announced that "it is over," and that he would flee for asylum to...where
else?...France.
On April 14, 2003, CENTCOM Announced that both the Iraqi regular army and the Republican
Guard were "finished" as organized fighting forces, and that U.S. Forces had occupied at least 1/2 of Baghdad as of that date.
On 5-1-03 President Bush
declared the major conventional conflict in Iraq over, on the deck of
the USN Carrier Abraham Lincoln in San Diego.
Accordingly, as of that date, this Newstand will return to reporting the Iraqi,
and Middle Eastern situations as they affect U.S. National Security, in our usual chronological fashion, with continuing updates
to this Special Report, as well as other Special Reports like this one, as necessary.]
9. Saddam will go down fighting or as a suicide, with
the male members of his family, or will immediately flee to seek asylum in Libya.
[UPDATE:
On April 13, 2003, CENTCOM Commander Tommy Franks announced that Saddam was "either
dead or running like hell."
As of 7-9-03, it looks like our original prediction was completely wrong.
Credible U.S. inteligence sources today have told the Association that it is believed Saddam is alive and well, and inside
Iraq. We will say this about both Saddam and Usama: they are masters of fugitivism, and could clearly teach John Walsh a thing
or two.]
UPDATE 12/2003: Saddam was captured this month in northern Iraq. We were completely
wrong as to our prediction.
10. If the "blitz" nature of the campaign is successful, within 1-2 days there will
be massive defections, surrenders and flight of Iraqi troops, at all levels, hastening the overthrowal, death or departure
of Saddam.
[UPDATE: There were 9,000 Iraqi POWs taken by April 3, 2003, much less than had
been expected, and likewise unexpected stiff resistance was put up by Iraqi forces on the road to Baghdad, at An Nasiriyah,
at An Najaf, and at Karbala, where house-to-house fighting was required (Karbala is the place where thr last known descendant
of the Prophet Muhammed, Hussein, was killed. It is a holy city, therefore, and will forever remain so, to Shiites especially,
but also to Sunni Muslims), as it was at Umm Qasr, on the road to Basra. All four cities were, to some degree, blown
to bits , albeit primarily by specifically targetted jdams.]
11. Immediate U.S. casualties will be below 7,000 total. ( Our WOT Newstand originally predicted, on 4-28-02, U.S. casualties would be greater than 10,000, primarily because of their predicted
use of biochem by Saddam. )
UPDATE:
As of 6/16/2005, there were:
Approximately 11,220 U.S. wounded (On 9/17/2004 this Newstand no longer included
in this figure those claiming only psychological injuries or disabilities as a result of the war, on the grounds of the
subjective difficulties in assessing such claims. As of that date, such psychological disability claims included approximately
20,000 U.S. personnel);
141 U.S. KIAs as of May 1, 2003, the day President Bush declared major conventional
operations over (and 1624 since 5/1/03) (1765 total);
0 POWs; and 1 MIA.
Improvised rodside bombs account for a large percentage of U.S. Armed Forces casualties
in Iraq since 5/1/2003:
And the USG, as of the date first above, has spent approximately $200 billion on the war
in Iraq.
British Forces, as of that date, had suffered a total of 50 KIAs, 18 since 5/1/03.
In comparison, as to KIA figures, there were 382 U.S. KIAs in the Persian Gulf War
of 1991.
In another comparison, British forces that created Iraq in the aftermath of World War I suffered 2,000 KIAs
from tribal reprisals, guerrilla attacks and a jihad proclaimed from the Shi'ite holy city of Karbala, before conditions stabilized
in 1921.
KIA is a term that has many definitions. The Association uses a definition, here in the
21st Century, of any service person who dies in the combat theatre, including "accidental" deaths, which are not accidental
at all, because they would not have occurred but for the fact they were in the combat zone, unless the death is from
natural causes.
We were wrong (on the low side) in our original prediction of casualties for
the conventional conflict, because this Newstand underestimated the overwhelming power of our precision weapons,
and because we thought Saddam would use chemical or biological weapons against our troops. Thank God we were wrong. And Thank
God for our jdams. These smart bombs, e.g. the Textron weapons, are designed to operate well against primarily enemy armor
or fortifications, based on their infra-red systems. They cannot, and do not, in most cases, target individual enemy infantrymen.
We still need bullets, and our own infantry, to do that latter job. There are jdams which can, however, upon radio command,
video assess a particular target, and then be ordered to attack that target.
Remember also, Patriot, in speaking about American casualties, that each American
life, all life, in fact, is precious, and that every one of our Coalition personnel killed in action
in Iraq was, and is, someone who is still here with us, but whose mother and father
will never see them smile again in this life, and that no greater love hath man than theirs: that he would lay down his life
for his fellow man.
These American young men and women, America's bravest heroes, died for us, to keep America
safe and free. Let's not forget that while we, all of us in the media, and in government, are calling them 'KIAs.' And, by
the way, Patriot, when someone asks you to help our veterans, and you say you can't, remember that the living comrades
of these men and women who died in Iraq continue to put themselves in harm's way overseas, and in America, everyday, for that
very same cause.
As of 4-21-03, Iraqi Forces had 6,000+ KIAs and 13,000+ POWs captured
by Allied Forces. Approximately 3300 Iraqi civilians were killed in the conventional war, probably 2500 in Baghdad alone.
Since May 1,2003, and as of the date first above, an additional 100,000 civilians
have been killed, most by the anti-American terrorists.
We also want to further analyze here the situation in Iraq of technological weapons versus
boots on the ground: In fact, we won the conventional war in Iraq with 100,000 combat troops against 400,000 Iraqi combat
troops. These are unheard-of odds in conventional warfare, going back to World War II for offensive operations, where conventional
military wisdom has always held that one needed offensive odds of at least 3:1 conventionally on the battlefield to
prevail. In Iraq Allied Forces prevailed with offensive odds of 1:4.
The making of the peace in Iraq, nation-building, if you will, may, however, re-inforce
the older and more conventional military wisdom. Many of the Saddamites are still armed at the war's end, and still
will fire on our troops. This Association is nervous, very nervous, about attempting nation-building in either Afghanistan
or Iraq with too few U.S. troops on the ground. We feel there are bumpy days ahead, at the conventional war's end.
But we also feel we will prevail.
12. U.S. troops will be welcomed into Baghdad by Iraqi children waving Iraqi and American
flags, assuming we did not have
to bomb Baghdad into dust in order to take it.
[UPDATE:
As U. S. Marines entered Baghdad proper on "VI" Day (Victory in Iraq Day), April 10, 2003,
Iraqis waved signs saying "Welcome U.S.A.", defaced pictures of Saddam Hussein, children hit the head of the fallen Saddan
statues with their shoes, a sign of utmost disrespect in the Muslim world, and welcomed our troops. Children greeted
them, but we found it difficult to find photos of anybody waving flags, or throwing roses, as we predicted. The love of the
United States as liberator obviously does not run deep in Iraq, which is understandable in any country where an anti-American
dictator has flooded the education system for 20 years with his propaganda, which is why dictators everywhere seek to control
public education; that control is a fundamental cornerstone of their political power. The mark of a brutal dictator
is brutality, and a school system controlled by him will inherently instill brutality as part of its character training.
Meanwhile on April 10 , Kurdish forces cheered the fall of Khaneqin in northern
Iraq.
After VI Day, Iraqi cities began falling like a house of cards. Kirkuk fell to the Kurdish Pesh
Murga, assisted by U.S. Special Forces on April 11, 2003. Anti-Saddam riots here were greater than anywhere else in Iraq.
The U.S. assured the Turks (remember them, see above on this piece) that the Kurds would not remain in charge of Kirkuk or
its surrounding oil fields, and the Pesh Murga evacuated Kirkuk as of midnight on April 11.
|
(Iraq is 15% Kurdish; 55% Shia Muslim; and 29% Sunni Muslim.) |
Fighting continued throughout Iraq on VI day.]
We could be wrong, but at least we put our original
predictions in writing here in yellow and, if we are wrong, we'll tell you so, and analyze
our own mistakes right here, on this news analysis entry, so you can read it side by side with the original prediction, as
a green update. This feature, which the WOT Newstand uses on its updates on the status of the Al Quaida leadership, has proven extremely popular with our mutual readership.
We will also go out on a limb and hypothetically make some predictions about possible outcomes
from here on out in the U.N. Security Council.
If France, Russia or China vetoes a 2nd U.S. resolution against Iraq, there will be icy relations
between the USG and their government(s) until there is "regime change" in one or the other state(s). If France or Russia vetoes,
they will not participate in the supervision of a post-Saddam Iraq, nor will France benefit from any lowered oil prices as
a result of Saddam's overthrowal. If Russia vetoes, NATO will turn a cold shoulder to Russian-NATO cooperation. If there is
a veto, the relevance of the U.N. will be significantly minimized by the Bush Administration and U.N. funding will drop.
U.S. relations with Germany, which does not possess a Security Council veto, will be icy until either Bush or Chancellor Shroeder
is gone, under any circumstances.
[UPDATE 3-17-03: We can say with certainty, there will be no second Security Council
resolution.]
2-15-03:
Anti-war demonstrators, perhaps as many as 10
million worldwide, stream through world capitals, especially in old Europe, but also in the United States, led by leftists.
For those of you who are hawks, don't get discouraged by the size of these crowds. When Bobby Kennedy first ran for U.S. Senator
in New York State in 1964, he was mobbed incessantly by overwhelming, adoring crowds, one numbering over 1 million in New
York City. On Election Day, he barely squeaked through, beating incumbent Senator Kenneth Keating by just a few votes, prompting
his son, Robert, Jr. to say: "Crowds don't mean anything when it comes to elections in a democracy."
5 million Americans have already signed letters of support for U.S. troops in the
Mid-East. (You can too, by just going to our Veterans' Outreach Programs Page.)
The United States offers Turkey a package of
$6 billion in long term loans, and 420 billion in grants, to secure Turkish support for the deployment of U.S. Forces against
Iraq from Turkiskh soil, almost exactly what we predicted would happen on on this Newstand, 1-21-03. You heard it here first.
The USG will also certainly protect the territorial integrity of Turkey if it is attacked by Iraq, with or without the military
assistance of NATO. The Turks, as usual, always want money, and this offer still may not be enough to satisfy their greed.
This Association also has this to say about the French. Since 1960, France
has repeatedly sent its troops unilaterally into various black African francophone states to ensure regimes which would protect
French commercial interests. Never once did the United States say these interventions needed to be taken before the U.N. Security
Council and be subject to a U.S. veto.
2-21-03:
As of today, there are about 200,000 U.S. ground troops in the Persian
Gulf region. 50,000 more to go.
Read our war prognoses above.
Stay tuned.
2-22-03:
The Association has learned from credible sources that the
anti-American mullahs who run Iran
as a junta, have made a firm decision for Iran to
acquire nuclear weapons.
[UPDATE 5-12-03:
The Iranian mullah junta announces for the record today
that they have no such intention.
Our Newstand editorial staff doesn't believe them.
The USG implies to them, this same date, through diplomatic
channels, intelligence sources tell us, that if they don't develop the weapons, the USG might open official diplomatic relations
again in Teheran. (This reflects Powell's influence in the Administration, but nobody can change the fact these Iranian mullahs
preside over an evil empire which exists primarily in their own heads, with such support on the ground they can generate through
propaganda, total control of public education of the young, and the fanatical support of a vicious, anti-American minority.)
A lot of these pro-Ayatollah Shiites, both in Iran and
Iraq, we remind the USG, sound a lot like, not just Khomeini, but also Castro in 1959: "We're nationalists; we're neutral;
we're not anti-American; we just believe in 'Iraq for the Iraqis,' 'Iran for the Iranians,' 'Cuba for the Cubans.' "
Nationalism which masks a platform for the destruction
of the universal values of freedom, constitutes a threat to American freedom, in our opinion. "He who challenges the
freedom of one man," Dr. Martin Luther King said,"challenges the freedom of all men."
And that nationalism, be it Nazi nationalism, Soviet nationalism,
Arab or Persian nationalism, in that context, has constituted, and does constitute, a threat, not just to the Freedom of Man,
but also to American national security.
We watched once, with our breath taken away, as the Shah,
denounced as a dictator in Iran, was replaced by one of the greatest and evil creeps who ever lived, the Ayatollah Khomeini,
the original terrorist, all in the name of
freedom. Freedom, we say, does not mean the freedom to replace one dictator with an even worse one.
Since this story touches also on the currently displayed
wave of anti-Americanism by Shiites in Iraq, largely sponsored and financed by the mullahs in Tehran, we also point
out here that reconstructing Iraq is not going to be a girl scout picnic. We never promised it would be. But we need to live
up to our part of the bargain: and we have to pay the price, not just physically, but also in the worldwide consistency of
our purposes and American values. Very few things would be worse for U.S. national security in the Mid-East than to have ousted
Saddam only to have him replaced with a Hamas-style, Taliban-style Shi'ite regime in Baghdad. The source of the anti-American
Iraqi Shi'ite movemnt lies not in Iraq but in Tehran. Never mind what some of the other talking heads are saying.
To get rid of a problem, you have to get rid of its source.]
[UPDATE 5-25-03:
Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT)
echoes our words in the foregoing Update, saying that there is a small group
of Iranian mullahs at the top of the Iranian government, out of touch with the Iranian people, just like the Soviet Politboro
was out of touch with the Russian people. This on a day where the Bush Admisnistration floated for the American people its
desire for a CIA destabilization program to drive those same mullahs from power prior to the end of Bush's first term....
Go for it, we say. (No invasion likely, we predict.)]
2-23-03:
Following our prediction on this Newstand earlier
about icy relations with German Bundeskanzler Gerhard Schroeder, the USG has floated the idea that U.S. NATO forces can easily
be rebased from Germany into the territories of our new NATO
 allies in Eastern Europe (the "new Europe").
Such a move would cost the German economy
not fatally, but dearly, but it would also add value to the economies of any country or countries to which these bases were
moved.
3-1-03:
The Turkish parliament, composed in large measure of Islamic fundamentalists,
has basically said no to U.S. deployment in Turkey against Iraq on a northern front, giving up in the process $26+ billion
in U.S. aid.
What does this mean? U.S. equipment will be re-deployed through Suez to Kuwait.
That will take about 3 weeks.
Could Turkey change its mind? Yes, but after march 8 it will probably be too
late for U.S. equipment, once it was on the move, to re-deploy backward, although troops could still do so.
3-3-03:
Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del.) says on the "Today" Show this
morning that the "uniformed military" does not support "regime change" in Iraq. That is distinctly NOT
the informed impression of this Association, and it is certainly not the position of this Association and its uniformed members.
3-11-03:
The Bush Administration is working the U.N. Security Council member states furiously
to secure 9 votes authorizing force against Saddam for a vote on or around March 17, the date the Council has now given Hans
Blix for a new report on Iraqi compliance with Resolution 1441. The current thinking of the Administration is to try to get
that majority even if France and Russia veto the U.S. sponsored resolution, as they will both now certainly do, thus being
able to say France and Russia stand against the will of the Council, and the U.S. will not be dictated to by them. France
is working the same members, especially its former African colonies, to vote against the U.S.
Our original prediction ( 2-6-03 ) was that the USG would get the 9 votes, and we made
no predictions at that time about veto votes. If the U.S. determines it does not have 9 votes, it may not even try to get
a second resolution authorizing force.
This situation changes almost daily. stay tuned.
3-12-03:
There is a notion being floated today by certain international law lawyers,
that if a new U.S. sponsored U.N. resolution authorizing force against Saddam is either voted down or vetoed in the Security
Council, than any war against Iraq would be "illegal" and President Bush should be tried in the World Court in the Hague,
if the U.S. goes to war.
This notion assumes the U.S. signing of the U.N. Charter meant it gave
up its sovereignty, and our right of self-defense. That was not our intent.
If they want to try the President in the Hague, we volunteer that they
try this Association, and its members, first.
Bring them on. We are not lawyers. We are combat veterans. And we are so
ready.
3-13-03:
Our WOT Newstand originally predicted it would take 5 USN carrier groups to sustain an Iraqi invasion.
There will be 6 in place by March 20.
3-14-03:
Two nations, Australia and Great Britain, have troops poised next
to U.S. Forces in the Mid-East, to take down Saddam, as of today.
Prime Minister John Howard of Australia and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain both believe their countries should stand shoulder-to-shoulder
with the U.S. in opposing the prospective terror threat to the West posed by Saddam. Australia does not have a vote on the
current U.N. Security Council.
3-17-03:
Lots of news and analysis on Iraq this past
weekend from President Bush's meeting in the Azores with our allies, Britain, Spain and now, Portugal, and we're going
to try and keep it all as simple as possible:
The USG has probably decided to pull any second
U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing force against Saddam, telling the U.N. instead that the burden is on them to
do something immediately about Saddam or the U.S. will. Pity those who opposed us in the U.N. like France. Those states, in
our opinion, are like the Americans who decline to help our troops and veterans when asked. The latter, no matter what
they call themselves, or what their silly and smoke-filled excuses they use, have forgotten Franklin Roosevelt's call
to participate in the warm courage of national unity, the kinship of American grief and the steadfast resolve to prevail against
our enemies. If they're weren't with us, our opinion is that they are with Saddam and international terrorism. No maybes.
The U.S. will use Resolution 1441 instead as our major justification for disarming Saddam through regime change.
Second, as this Association called for on
this Site as far back as early 2002, Kurdish rebels, over 40,000 of them, are being armed to help U.S. Forces in Northern
Iraq. Turkey's refusal to date to allow U.S. ground troops to stage in southern Turkey for the invasion is responsible for
this new policy: Turkey's loss, along with about $26 billion in aid. Our gain with the Kurds, who are the Nortern Alliance
of Iraq, although U.S. paratroops, because of the current Turkish position (which could still change, though it's getting
late), now face higher casualties in capturing Saddam's oil wells in northern Iraq intact.
Third, the U.S. and Great Britain have decided
to publicize Arafat's appointment of a "prime minister" without Palestinian elections as an important and substantial step
in an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, when it in fact is no such thing. The real analysis of this situation was explained
recently on our WOT Newstand. The current USG position is probably a temporary sop
to build up last minute Arab support for the war on Iraq. President Bush personally believes that Arafat is a terrorist, although
this Site's Newstands correctly predicted as far back as 2002 that we could expect flip-flops on this subject from the Administration.
The latest non-USNVA poll shows 47% of the
American population supports war with Iraq this date only if it meets with U.N. Security Council approval, although the validity
of the poll is in question because it was carried out by the Vietnam Veterans of America, a group many veterans, and others, consider to be left-wing and dovish. Our own poll shows that 53% of the American population
back the President's position on Iraq and, of the remainder, some have qualifications, but only a small minority are adamantly
opposed. Our polls can likewise be challenged because this Association generally has supported the foreign policies of
President Bush. Both polls have a margin of error of 2.5% - 5%. Regardless of which poll you do or do not accept, both polls
show a remarkable drop in public opinion approval for the President's position on Iraq since the last polls reported on this
Newstand but that, under the circumstances of war and its vagaries, does not mean an awful lot.
Protection of the United States from its foreign
enemies should not be decided by polls or referenda.
Fourth, U.S. anti-war demonstrations this
past weekend, promoted by the anti-war groups as the largest this country was ever going to see, fizzled. Only 25,000 demonstrators
turned out for the largest one, in Washington, D.C. At MacDill AFB in Tampa, CENTCOM HQS, where promoters promised over a
million would turn out, about 1,000 did, met by an equal number of pro-American demonstrators. The anti-war crowd there, attempting
to shout down the louder chants of "U-S-A, U-S-A," chanted over and over again their apparently new anti-American slogan:
"We're not interested." What is it, exactly, we wonder, they're not interested in?
There are, as of today, 250,000 U.S. ground troops in the Persian Gulf area poised to strike
Iraq.
The USG today advised the U.N. Inspection Team in Iraq to leave.
3-17-03:
Saddam has begun to flood the desert with oil let loose from some
of his oil wells. What does this mean?
As we predicted on this Newstand earlier, Saddam is likely to try
to blow up his oil resoivoirs. Flooding the oil is his way of saying he's about to do that, but he's not blowing up the resoivoirs
yet. If he blows up the resoivoirs, it's like saying: if I can't have it, nobody can. If he were to succeed in blowing up
all his resoirvoirs by sinking deep explosives, it would be an economic catastrophe for oil supply to the West, and the average
price of gasoline at the U.S. pump would jump substantially higher from its already sky-high levels. As the war is reported,
keep a sharp eye on this situation, especially because, if Saddam is successful in destroying a substantial amount of Iraq's
oil reserves, the U.S. military will clamp a tight lid on reporting of the same.
- Temperatures in the Iraqi desert are now in the high 80's, making
it difficult for U.S. and allied troops to function in their biochem gear.
- U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said today that a war against
Iraq without a second Security Council resolution "might be" illegal. Yeah, so what! President Bush reiterated that pithy
remark, and some of the other analysis on this Newstand previously made about the Security Council in his address to the Nation
this evening, calling eloquently at the same time for Saddam to leave Iraq with his sons to avoid war. The American people,
he said, are a peaceful people, but we are not a fragile or fearful people. As this Association has said elsewhere on this
Site, America's honor does not lie in cowering under a bed waiting for bombs to fall.
- The Bush Administration has gone out of its way in the past three
months to conduct what used to be called "psywar" to get Iraqi army officers and soldiers to simply give up and walk away
from the fight, in order to save the lives of U.S. troops.
- George Stephanoupolos of ABC-TV News predicts this night that
British Prime Minister Tony Blair will lose a vote of confidence tomorrow in the British House of Commons on war with Iraq,
in effect, deposing him. We predict he will win with Conservative support but that the larger issue for him is still whether
a majority of his own Labour Party is ready to vote aginst him as Party Leader.
[UPDATE 3-19-03: Blair won his vote of confidence,
as we predicted. 100 Labour Party M.P.s voted against him, not enough for any substantial concern about him being kicked out
as Party Leader at this moment.]
- There are now about 1,000 aircraft (about 1/3rd of the U.S. total)
stationed in the Persian Gulf area, all armed with smart weapons. Iraq has 300 tactical aircraft. The U.S. will quickly dominate
the sky.
- Of the 250,00 U.S. ground troops poised to strike Iraq, only
about 100,000 are combat troops (including 1/3rd of the entire USMC combat force), facing an Iraqi army estimated at 400,000.
There are also 50,000 USAF and Navy personnel in the region, as well 2,000 Australian and 15,000 British combat troops on
the ground. The latter will be used to drive northeast from Kuwait to seize Basra, Iraq's second largest city, and
its oil fields, while U.S. ground troops drive direct up Highway 80, with a second column driving westward to outflank
Iraqi forces facing the Highway 80 movement, both columns fixing as fast as they can to get to Baghdad.
3-18-03:
Denmark and Portugal both announce they will send
military or naval forces to the Persian Gulf to support the U.S. effort against Iraq. There are now about 35 countries lending
active and concrete support to USG goals.
3-20-03:
The war against Iraq has begun. This Newstand is going to refrain reporting minute by minute tactical
operations in Operation Iraqi Freedom because you can get that service at the bottom of this Newstand already, and because
any up to the minute specific reporting we might be tempted to do on troop or naval movements might endanger the security
of those missions.
See our major 2-10-03 Entry above for analysis of the major military movements and short term
implications, both as Updates after those military missions were completed, and in comparison to our explicit
predictions we made about military action on February 10, 2003.
4-12-03:
The Abraham Lincoln and Kitty Hawk Carrier
Groups have been ordered back home from the Persian Gulf Theatre. The Constellation will probably go next, and then
either the Roosevelt or the Truman.
4-14-03:
Let's not forget, while our eyes are on Iraq,
what's been going on in Castro's Cuba.
While the world's attention was focused on Iraq,
Fidel
arrested hundreds of Cuban dissenters and, in
the space of one week, bringing new meaning to the term "hanging judge," tried, convicted and murdered three of them by firing
squad.
Freedom of Speech? Libertad? Or a maniac in power,
long after his time is done? If an American President did this 90 miles from Cuba, you go ahead and tell us what the media
response would have been.
No wonder Cuban-Americans in Miami protested in
the street to prevent President Clinton and Janet Reno from turning over Elian to this murderous dictator.
After
Saddam and Usama, this Association hopes Fidel's time will soon be next.
"The rights of free men should be taken,
not requested."
- Jose Marti
Father of Free Cuba
[Update 4-29-03:
Castro has just been elected by the U.N. General Assembly to the U.N.'s
Human Rights Commission! This makes a further mockery of USG support for the U.N.
Castro shouldn't be on the Commission; he should be indicted by it, for
capital murder.]
[UPDATE 7-19-03:
Castro, in a deal with the Iranian gangster mullahs, begins jamming the U.S. Government Telstar
12 satellite over the Atlantic, which beams uncensored U.S. TV and radio broadcasts into Iran. These broadcasts are designed
to appeal to Iran's growing, and heretofore student based, democracy movement against the Shi'ite mullahs.
There is nothing that Anti-American gusannos like Fidel hate more, doesn't matter who they
are, what country they're from, including the U.S., what their religion or race is, whether they're in government or not,
or common drug dealers, than Freedom of Expression.
The USG has also begun a policy disturbing to this Association, in an unnecessary attempt
to say it's acting consistently toward all terrorists, of returning Cuban hijackers who reach our shores to Castro, even though
nobody was hurt because of their acts.]
UPDATE 1/14/04:
Castro's government announces unilaterally that it is now a major crime punishable by death
to go onto Internet sites unauthorized by the Cuban government. (We assume Fidel has included ours in the list.)
U.N. Human Rights Commission? Huh? Whatever!
Hey, but to be fair to Fidel: It's a "law" passed by a "democracy."
Yeah, right, Fidel.
No Freedom = No Justice = No Peace.
4-15-03:
President Bush announces he won't be able to meet with Prime
Minister Jean Chretien of Canada
May 5 in Ottawa, as previously scheduled, because he will be attending to more pressing
affairs of state in Washington.
Chretien 
refused to support
Operation Iraqi Freedom. Chretien immediately turned around and said he'd be meeting to "confer" with former
Chretien has also had wonderful things to say about Senator Hillary Rodham-Clinton
in, of all places, the Dominican Republic, on that date.
While Bush  was quite proper to cancel his meeting with Chretien, Chretien's decision to "confer"
with Clinton gets very close to Canadian interference in the domestic politics of the U.S. Bush did not agree, we point out,
to meet with leaders of the Canadian opposition parties.
Although we have attempted to use a little pictorial humor in this piece, we also
point out one Canadian- American (a dual citizen) died as a KIA member of U.S. Forces in Iraq, and silent majority support
for the U.S. in Canada, this Assocaition reminds Prime Minister Chretien, remains high.
4-18-03:
We said elsewhere on this Newstand, before the Iraqi war, that it would cost $3
billion annually for U.S. troops to occupy Iraq. That figure is still accurate, but it is only for the maintenance and operations
of the troops.
Intelligence sources now tell the Association that it will cost a total of $20
to $25 billion annually, and for the forseeable future, (including the $3 billion), to rebuild and reconstruct the economic
and political infrastructure of Iraq.
Iraq's oil revenues are worth, max, only about $15 billion per year, so the USG
will try to get other countries to foot large portions of the rebuilding fund. If not, the U.S. taxpayer will bear most of
that burden.
4-18-03:
France
...get this... have now concocted a scheme in the U.N. Security
Council to continue the anti-Saddam economic embargo (based on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction program) on Iraqi oil
sales on... the new interim regime in Iraq!!!
Huh? What?
The fact is Chirac and Putin had lucrative oil industry
development contracts with Saddam, and they are now threatening to blackmail the U.S. that, if those contracts are cancelled,
if they're not paid, AND if they don't at the same time get new contracts from the new Iraqi regime, they'll use the
U.N. to block the sale of any Iraqi oil.
It will take the Bush Administration 5 minutes, maybe
less, to see through this threat. If they won't buy the new regime's oil, the U.S. will (the U.S. could snap up all the oil
immediately, if it wished, and, even during the Clinton Administration, U.S. refineries were buying amounts of Iraqi oil in
violation of the embargo, sold via intermediaries disguising the country of origin), as will many other nations, with or without
U.N. sanctions, which are meaningless anyway without the cooperation of the U.S.
Chirac's government, in our opinion, wants the U.S. to fail in Iraq in the arrogantly
misguided notion that if the U.S. fails, France will emerge and take over her rightful place as the leader of western Europe
and of the free world. Chirac suffers from the very same Joan of Arc delusions that DeGaulle did.
Chirac and Putin have made a stupid opening ploy post-war,
and they're going to lose this one too and, in the process, further weaken the U.N.
So be it. the choice was theirs.
[UPDATE 4-22-03: Just as we predicted, Chirac,
realizing the untenability of his position, told his ambassador to the U.N. yesterday to reverse course and to support
the immediate lifting of the economic embargo. He also left Russia out in the cold.]
[UPDATE 5-7-03: The USG simply unilaterally lifted its own economic
sanctions on Iraq this date, just as we originally predicted.
And it did, in fact, take the Bush Administration 5 minutes or less
to see through Chirac's opening post-war ploy.]
[9-7-03 UPDATE TO OUR 9-6-03 CALLOUT PIECE ABOVE:
Secretary of State Colin Powell,
in an interview on ABC-TV News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," as a prelude to the President's address to the Nation
this night on Iraq, in carefully rehersed remarks, uses language directly drawn fron this Website on U.S. policy against terror,
using the phrase long contained on our Homepage about the U.S. being opposed to those who were "the enemies of little girls going to school" (a codephrase this Association
coined to mean jihadists) and urging the American people to "Stay the course," a phrase he repeated twice in this interview for
emphasis. Powell also followed the lead and language of the callout in pointing out the achievements of the Bush Administration
abroad in the War on Terror, mentioning the exact same examples we posted the day before. In talking about the consistency
of the Bush foreign policy (the hardest argument both Powell and the President had to make) he also said
the U.N.ization in Iraq merely meant "more international involvement," which is only just. He also pointed out that the Command
in Afghanistan is officially international (NATO's, actually, with clear U.S. dominance) under a U.S. commander, and that,
in Iraq, the British (with responsibility for Basra and environs) and Polish-led forces (with responsibility for
a wide swath from the south of Baghdad to the British area of responsibility) both have their own separate commanders.
4-29-03:
SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) has always been NATO's military arm.
| General Dwight D. Eisenhower |
|
was the first SHAPE Commander |
France, although continuing its political membership in NATO, seceded from SHAPE under the presidency of
Charles DeGaulle in the 1960's.
Now, Chirac and German Bundeskanzler Gerhard Schroeder are up to it again. They have proposed, along with
Belgium and Luxembourg, a new European Armed Forces system for their four countries. Neither Germany, Belgium or Luxembourg
(in the case of the latter, no one would actually care) has specifically proposed leaving SHAPE.
These proponents are, in our opinion, vindictive, and also slightly nuts, but their proposal does weaken
NATO, and NATO and its strengthening, is still very important to U.S. national security, and the U.S. needs to address this
threat effectively.
We'll throw out this example and that's all it is, just an historical example: between 1946 and 1949, the
Central Intelligence Group and the Central Intelligence Agency threw a lot of U.S. taxpayers' money into West Germany, to
insure the electoral success of the German Christian Democratic Party
and in Bavaria, the Christian Socialist Party.
Bottom line: The USG needs to mend some fences in western Europe, to address their concerns effectively
and, by that, we don't mean going to war with them. At the same time we should not under any circumstances kowtow to their
innate jealousy of the United States as the world's only superpower. If they truly want to be left behind in NATO, or in SHAPE,
then they should be left behind.
[UPDATE 6-2-03:
The President has apparently been reading our Newstand
again, because he went out of his way at the Evian G-9 Summit to say exactly the right things to
Chirac, Schroeder and Putin. Specifically, being generous in victory, he played nice and deferential to Chirac, assuaging
him, although France will still be punished by not receiving lucrative oil industry contracts in the new Iraq. By getting
Chirac to be nice to him in return, Bush in effect isolated both Germany and Russia, both of which don't know what to do next
if France (which has always been the head instigator against USG policies) won't take the lead in uttering anti-Americanisms.
Taken by our threats to move NATO out of Germany, Schroeder is now emphasizing how much Germany welcomes U.S. NATO bases there,
and Putin has promised, for whatever it's worth, that Russia will not help Iran get nuclear weapons.
It's a start, a well-played deliberate start, at re-building
our alliances in Europe, where media pundits had predicted a fiasco at Evian with snub after snub occuring.
UPDATE 8/18/2004:
With the war on terror in Iraq becoming sour and turning more dangerous, the
'making nice' policies, on both sides, did not last.
4-30-03:
As our WOT Newstand correctly predicted in its 1-16-02 Entry
on our Homeport Page, all 5,000 U.S. Forces in Saudi Arabia will shortly be pulling out of that country, and
transferring to Qatar  .
5-1-03:
The conventional conflict in Iraq was in effect declared
over by President Bush today.
For a summary history of the war, and our original predictions of
how it would turn out, go to our 2-10-03 Special Report above: Operation Iraqi Freedom.
11/15/2005:
IRAQ'S 55 MOST WANTED
AND THEIR STATUS
|
|
For larger unmarked one-on-one cards of Iraq's 55 Most Wanted , click on the DoD's Deck of
Cards on our 7-16-03 Entry below.
PROMINENT UPDATES SINCE ORIGINALLY POSTED:
ALSO CAPTURED:
5 of Hearts (Huda Ammash, "Dr. Germ") 
Jack of Spades (Air Force Chief of Staff
Muhammed) 
Army Commander of the Republican Guard Sultan 
King of Diamonds (Head of the Baath Party) 
Ace of Diamonds (Chief of Saddam's personal security
General Abid Hamid Mahmud 
Barzan Abd Al-Ghafur Sulayman Majid, Head of the Special Republican
Guard, captured July 22,2003
KILLED:
Saddam's sons, Uday  and Qusai  , both major Iraqi anti-American military and political figures, both vicious murderers, both dead in a fierce six-hour
long gun battle with the soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division, in Mosul, in northern Iraq, July 22, 2003. Saddam is still
believed alive and in Iraq by Association sources, but this Association also believes his days are numbered, as are all the
days of all the enemies of Freedom, regardless of what country they live in.
"Sic Semper Tyrannis."
**************************************************************
COMPLETE
LIST OF THE STATUS OF THE 55 MOST WANTED AS OF 3/2/2005:
|
No. 1:  Saddam Hussein , president. Captured in Ad Dawr by U.S.
Army Rangers on 12-13-03. [See full story on the NSA Newstand's 12-13-03 entry.] There was a $25 million price tag
on his head.
No. 2: Qusay Hussein, Saddam's son. Killed July 22, 2003
No. 3: Uday Hussein, Saddam's son. Killed July 22, 2003.
No. 4: Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, presidential secretary, Saddam's cousin. Taken into custody June 17, 2003.
No. 5:  Ali Hassan al-Majid, presidential adviser, Revolutionary Command Council member. Also known as "Chemical Ali." Captured 8/15/2003.
No. 6: Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, RCC vice chairman,
longtime Saddam confidant. Killed, November, 2005. The last of the 55.
No. 7: Hani Abd al-Latif Tilfah al-Tikriti, director,
Special Security Organization. Captured.
No. 8: Aziz Saleh al-Numan, Baath Party Baghdad
region command chairman. Taken into custody May 22, 2003.
No. 9: Muhammad Hamza al-Zubaydi, retired RCC member,
a leader of 1991 suppression of Shiite rebellion. Taken into custody April 20, 2003.
No. 10: Kamal Mustafa Abdallah Sultan al-Tikriti,
secretary of the Republican Guard, Saddam's son-in-law. Surrendered May 17, 2003.
No. 11: Barzan Abd al-Ghafur Sulayman Majid al-Tikriti,
Special Republican Guard commander, Saddam's cousin. Captured, 2003.
No. 12: Muzahim Sa'b Hassan al-Tikriti, who headed
Iraq's air defenses under Saddam. Taken into custody April 23, 2003.
No. 13 Ibrahim Ahmad Abd al Sattar Muhammad, armed
forces chief of staff. Taken into custody May 15, 2003.
No. 14: Sayf al-Din Fulayyih Hasan Taha al-Rawi,
Republican Guard chief of staff. Captured.
No. 15: Rafi Abd al-Latif Tilfah al-Tikriti, director
of general security. Captured.
No. 16: Tahir Jalil Haboush, chief of Iraqi intelligence
service. Captured.
No. 17: Hamid Raja Shalah al-Tikriti, air force
commander. Central Command: he's in Coalition custody as of 6/14/2003.
No. 18: Latif Nusayyif al-Jasim al-Dulaymi, Baath
Party military bureau deputy chairman. Taken into custody June 9, 2003.
No. 19: Abdel Tawab Mullah Huweish, deputy prime
minister. Taken into custody May 2, 2003.
No. 20:  Taha Yassin Ramadan, vice president, RCC member. Arrested by pro -U.S. Kurdish forces in Mosul 8-19-03. [10 of Diamonds]
No. 21: Rukan Razuki Abd al-Ghafar Sulayman al-Majid
al-Tikriti, head of tribal affairs office. Captured.
No. 22: Jamal Mustafa Abdallah Sultan al-Tikriti,
deputy head of tribal affairs, Saddam's son-in-law. Taken into custody April 20, 2003.
No. 23: Mizban Khadr Hadi, RCC member. Taken into
custody July 8, 2003.
No. 24: Taha Muhie-eldin Marouf, vice president,
RCC member, only Kurd in Saddam's hierarchy. Taken into custody May 2, 2003.
No. 25: Tariq Aziz, deputy prime minister. Taken
into custody April 25, 2003.
No. 26: Walid Hamid Tawfiq, governor of Basra.
Surrendered April 29, 2003.
No. 27:  Gen. Sultan Hashim Ahmad, defense minister. Surrendered to U.S. Forces in Mosul September 19, 2003.
No. 28: Hikmat Mizban Ibrahim al-Azzawi, deputy
prime minister, finance minister. Taken into custody April 18, 2003.
No. 29: Mahmoud Diab al-Ahmed, interior minister.
Taken into custody July 8, 2003.
No. 30: Ayad Futayyih Khalifa, Quds forces chief
of staff. Taken into custody June 4, 2003.
No. 31: Gen. Zuhayr Talib Abd al-Sattar al-Naqib,
director of military intelligence. Taken into custody April 23, 2003.
No. 32: Lt. Gen. Amir Hamudi Hasan al-Saadi, presidential
scientific adviser. Surrendered April 12, 2003.
No. 33: Amir Rashid Muhammad al-Ubaydi, presidential
adviser, oil minister. Taken into custody April 28, 2003.
No. 34: Gen. Hussam Mohammed Amin, head of monitoring
directorate, chief liaison with U.N. weapons inspectors. Taken into custody April 27, 2003.
No. 35: Muhammad Mahdi al-Salih, trade minister.
Taken into custody April 23, 2003.
No. 36: Sabawi Ibrahim Hasan, presidential adviser,
Saddam's half brother. Turned over to Iraqi authorities late February, 2005 by Syria, which had been harboring him.
No. 37: Watban Ibrahim Hasan, presidential adviser,
Saddam's half brother. Taken into custody April 13, 2003.
No. 38: Barzan Ibrahim Hasan, presidential adviser,
Saddam's half brother. Taken into custody April 16, 2003.
No. 39: Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, reputedly scientist
in biological weapons program, first woman elected to Baath Party's national command council. Taken into custody May 9, 2003.
No. 40: Abdel Baqi Abdel Karim Abdallah al-Sadun,
Baath Party regional command chairman. Captured.
No. 41: Mohammed Zimam Abdul Razaq, Baath Party
regional command chairman. Captured in Baghdad, 2/15/2004.
No. 42: Samir Abd al-Aziz al-Najim, Baath Party
regional command chairman. Taken into custody April 17, 2003.
No. 43: Humam Abdul-Khaliq Abdul-Ghafoor, minister
of higher education and scientific research. Taken into custody April 19, 2003.
No. 44: Yahya Abdellah al-Aboudi, Baath Party regional
command chairman. Captured.
No. 45: Nayef Shedakh, Baath Party regional chairman,
Najaf governorate, reported by Iraqi television to have been killed in battle for Najaf.
No. 46: Sayf al-Din al-Mashadani, Baath Party regional
command chairman. Taken into custody May 24, 2003.
No. 47: Fadil Mahmud Gharib, Baath Party regional
command chairman. Taken into custody May 15, 2003.
No. 48: Muhsin Khadr al-Khafaji, Baath Party regional
command chairman. Captured.
No. 49: Rashid Taan Kazim, Baath Party regional
chairman. Captured.
No. 50: Ugla Abid Saqr, Baath Party regional chairman.
Taken into custody May 20, 2003.
No. 51: Ghazi Hammud, Baath Party regional command
chairman. Taken into custody May 7, 2003.
No. 52: Adilabdillah Mahdi al-Duri al-Tikriti,
Baath Party regional command chairman. Taken into custody May 15, 2003.
No. 53: Brig. Gen. Husayn al-Awadi, Baath Party
Regional command chairman, senior officer in Iraqi military's chemical weapons corps. Taken into custody June 9, 2003.
No. 54: Khamis Sirhan al-Muhammad, Baath Party
Regional command chairman, militia commander. Captured.
No. 55: Sad Abd al-Majid al-Faysal, Baath Party
Regional command chairman. Taken into custody May 24, 2003. |
|
As of the date above, all of the 55 have been
captured or killed.
|
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5-10-03:
Bush has stuck to his principle of "Your'e either with us, or your
against us," in the aftermath of the war against Saddam.
The Administration has told Canada and Mexico, both free trade partners
who opposed us in Iraq, that they are going to face (probably minor) problems at our borders for a while. Bush has told France
and Russia, both of which opposed us in Iraq, that they're out, period, in controlling Iraqi oil and that, for the time being,
the U.S. and Britain will. Bush has told Turkey, which wouldn't give us staging rights for Iraq, no occupation of Iraqi Kurdistan.
He has told the U.N.: you may advise us in Iraq, and provide a co-ordinating role (especially when it comes to welfare assistance
to Iraqi civilians), but that's it, in simple English.
There should be a price to be paid for opposing the cause of freedom
and justice in the world, in our opinion, and these are reasonable,and not exorbitant, prices to exact. We are also reminded
of the words of Andrew Jackson, who beat British power
coming down the Mississippi cold in 1815 at Chalmette Field outside New Orleans, and thus secured the westward drive of the
American Republic: "To the victor, belongs the spoils."
Secretary of State Colin Powell rephrased General
Jackson into diplomatic speak on 5-22-03, when he said: "... You do some analyses about why people disagreed with
you, you draw some conclusions from that, and there are consequences that flow from those conclusions."
Maybe these regimes will learn their lesson; we doubt it; but one
thing is certain: George Bush has true grit for saying what he meant, and meaning what he said.
UPDATE 9-4-03:
Reporting bad news along with the good, which is what
this Newstand has always done, we report today that Secretary of State Colin Powell and the USG have officially retreated
from the Statements of 5-22 we reported above, in Secretary Powell's statement to the U.N. today that the U.S. will
"listen and adapt" to statements of other governments on the Security Council in order for the USG to secure more international
troops in Iraq, a condition made necessary by insufficent U.S. combat arms manpower to do the job there effectively without
large numbers of international troops going in.
This new USG policy clearly represents a U-Turn from prior policy of the
Administration vis-a-vis the U.N. on Iraq.
5-11-03:
Mary Matelin, former Special Assistant to Vice-President Cheney, and one of
the most well-connected Republicans in the country, on NBC-TV's News Show "Meet the Press" today: President Bush "says what
he means, and means what he says."
And you say they don't read our website! (Story above, 5-10-03).
And for those of you who are following the self-flagellation in the New York
Times on plagiarism and inaccurate reporting, our Newstand Editors don't understand how you can plagiarize a quote unless
it is both of sufficient length and originality; as to our factual reporting on this Newstand: the accuracy of all our
raw facts are professionally investigated before we print them, and we stand by that factual reporting, and the accuracy of
those facts, as and when they were reported. We do not use the New York Times Syndicate as a verbatim base
for any of our stories. And, of course, we always stand by our opinions and commentary as of the date they were presented.
5-11-03:
The Association has said repeatedly on this Newstand, and on our WOT Newstand,
long before the war in Iraq started, that the USG needed to line up both the Iraqi Kurds and the anti-Saddam Shiites there for
its efforts prior to the commencement of hostilities.
The Kurds were the easy part, and the Administration, although belatedly, has made
great headway with them, but almost nothing was done with the more important, and more difficult, Shiite problem.
As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has said, we cannot permit Saddam to be
replaced in Iraq by an Anti-American Shiite fanatical theocracy like the one that rules Iran, any more than we could have
permitted Hitler to be replaced by a neo-Nazi party in Germany in 1946. The difference is that in Iraq, as opposed to post-war
Germany, that that prevention is going to cost us more, in both dollars and the lives of our service personnel.
If we are committed, then we should remain committed.
5-14-03:
Like the U.N.'s War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague, Belgium also has a similiar jurisdiction for its very own courts, little Belgium,
claiming jurisdiction over civil and criminal actions wherever in the world they occur and regardless
of who the parties are!
U.S. General Tommy Franks, CENTCOM Commander, has been named as the latest "war crimes" defendant under Belgium's
supra-jurisdictional statute.
It is a notion of American constitutional law that there must be "significant contacts" between a state
asserting jurisdiction and both the subject matter of the dispute and the parties to it. Anything else is a moral and intellectual
outrage, as is the Belgian jurisdictional statute.
After France left SHAPE in the 1960s, NATO moved SHAPE's HQS from Paris to Brussels.
It might be time for another move now, eastward.
[UPDATE 6-12-03:
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announces in Brussels
that senior U.S. military officials will no longer travel to, or meet in, Brussels, and that the USG will block any further
expenses for expansion of NATO HQS facilities in Belgium, because of the claimed jurisdiction of the Belgian courts we featured
in our piece.
He also threatened to move NATO HQS.
Since we filed our original story, additional war crimes
suits were filed in Belgium against former President Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, and former Army General Norman Schwarzkopf.
These are private lawsuits and anyone can file one.
Sources within the Pentagon have confirmed to the Association
that Secretary Rumsfeld takes seriously the sometimes predictive advocacy the Association makes on this Newstand.
In any event, you heard it here first.]
5-19-03:
As of today, the Taliban has regrouped, under arms, on the Afghan-Pakistan border, and its
spiritual imam vows that they will fight a guerilla war in Afghanistan "for as long as it takes" to oust the U.S. and the
new regime from power. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says major military operations in Afghanistan are over. He also
dismissed comments of the U.S. Army Chief of Staff to the effect that 200,000 U.S. ground troops would have to remain in Iraq
indefinitely to provide security for the reconstruction effort there. Meanwhile, last week, Iraqi looters openly broke into
the facilities of Baghdad's main electric power plant and stole equipment preventing electricity from effectively being turned
on in many sections of the city, and armed, former fedayeen openly patrol and wander around many Iraqi cities. The U.S. administrator
of the plant said, if you give me security, I can give you electricity.
There's an old saying in American boxing: "It's O.K. to strike the first blow, but don't stick
around for the counterpunch." In this situation, we have to stick around in the world of the Mid-East street, for the counterpunch.
If we're committed, we're committed, just like we were committed with troops in the 45 year twilight war (1945-1990) with
the Soviet Empire.
And, as to looting, we hate to refer to Hollywood on this subject, but we will: If you
watch "Lawrence of Arabia," made in 1962, you will see , accurately portrayed, that the
first thing the Arabs did when they took Damascus in 1918 at the end of World War I was
to start to loot the
place. Water and electricity immediately went down throughout the city. American troops,
we point out, are combat infantrymen; they are not trained in domestic police functions, and an effective police force
is needed in Iraq immediately.
[UPDATE 5-22-03:
The USG announces all Iraqis will be required to turn in all automatic arms and heavy
weapons.
An NBC-TV poll yesterday shows the American people disagree with us strongly on reconstructing
Iraq: 57% saying they are opposed to spending "up to $60 billion to reconstruct Iraq." Well, we don't know if it will cost
$60 billion over the long term, but current projections certainly show that figure as a probable one, and certainly possible.
We stand by our original opinion. You can't just cut and run after striking the first
blow: winning the peace is a tougher job, most of the time, than winning the war. Commitment means commitment. We won World
War I, then we cut and ran by refusing to aggressively police Germany through the League of Nations. We know where that led.
If we cut and run in Iraq, we will, in
Iraq, see the EXACT same situation developing there.
The same NBC-TV poll also showed many more Americans are fearful about the economy, than
are fearful about terrorism here.]
[FURTHER UPDATE 8-8-03:
National Security Advisor Condi Rice, repeating exactly ideas
first raised in our original piece and original Update above, says that our mission in Iraq is part of a larger struggle
to transform the entire Islamic Middle East, just like we were committed to transforming Europe after World War II. She called
this a "generational struggle" (a generation is 20 years) involving "many" years, with the ultimate goal of transforming these
socieities into ones which were tolerant, "free," with "democratic values" and "free economies." In such a transformation,
we point out, lies the best hope for the national security of the United States. Rice compared the current struggle in Iraq
to the Cold War years 1945-1949, which she correctly called especially challenging for the U.S.]
[FURTHER UPDATE 9-4-03:
The USG 5-22-03 regulation that Iraqis turn in their weapons
has completely disintegrated as of this date, since U.S. Forces do not have sufficient manpower to enforce it. A variety of
known, armed Iraqi militias are springing up, openly displaying their weapons on a daily basis.]
5-19-03:
How the Europeans organize themselves
politically, economically and socially is ALWAYS a matter affecting U.S. national security and this Newstand has been
in the forefront of the U.S. media in bringing you both news and analysis on these subjects.
In the latest move, U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair today
has ruled that Britons will not be permitted to vote by referendum on a new European Union (EU)  constitution, a constitution to be drafted by a former French president, Valery Giscard d'Estaing (although Britons
will be able to vote on whetther they want to join the Euro currency system). Britons are expected to vote against the latter,
and would probably also vote against the former if given a chance.)
The creation of a new, powerful EU president, or executive,
in this new constitution, would represent one more layer of government in Europe which would be given the new political opportunity
of challenging U.S. security interests in Europe and in the world. The question is who would be pulling the strings on such
an executive and, our best guess at this time, is that it would be the French and the Germans.
Situations change.
Governments change.
Stay tuned.
5-21-03:
France, Russia, China and Germany announce they will
support the Bush Administration's U.N. Security Council resolution lifting all economic sanctions against Iraq, and appointing
the U.S. and Britain, not the U.N., as the countries in charge of reconstructing Iraq (for 1 year at a time).
5-29-03:
As of today U.S. Forces number 163,000 on the ground in
Iraq, 42,000 of which are in Baghdad. Britain has 23,000 forces there and a Polish led peacekeeping force of 7,000 will
shortly arrive.
You may remember that in our Operation Iraqi Freedom Special
Report, at the end of the war in Iraq proper, we said the President declared, as he did, the conventional war in Iraq "in
effect" over.
Well, in reality, for a while, this war will go on. U.S.
Forces will be attacked and killed by both fedayeen and Iraqi army "dead enders." But there are not sufficient American boots
on the ground today to control this on-going war, or to provide security for the reconstruction of Iraq. And we know that
this fight will not be carried out, in large measure, by our Air Force or Navy personnel. It will be our grunts, our Marine
Corps and Army men and women, who will bear the burden, as they have always had to do on the ground, where all wars are won
or lost.
But this much is clear. The United States needs to live
up to its commitments.
6-6-03:
Did U.S. Intelligence falsely state, prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, that Saddam had WMD?
The answer is, without qualification, no, and you won't find any
statement on this Site, prior to the war, otherwise:
We KNEW Saddam had WMD because he used them on his own people,
and because our satellites and SR-71s photographed WMD production and delivery facilities which could have had no other purposes.
None of that means that biological or chemical specimens could have
been found on the ground at any point leading up to the war, or subsequently.
For what Saddam did with these specimens,which you read here
first, see our 2-10-03 Special Report analysis of the aftermath of the war.
6-16-03 UPDATE:
The Army is about 70% committed as of today to the Iraqi,
Afghan and Eastern European theatres, with another 10% committed to Korea, so there is not a lot of flex left in the Army
ability to deploy into another action elsewhere.
The Administration would like to reduce U.S. ground troops in Iraq to a figure of
75,000 (from approximately 145,000 today, with too much armor and mech infantry, and not enough light infantry and MPs), but
if the Iranian mullahs are able to hijack the Iraqi Shiite movement into daily, widespread, and huge displays of anti-Americanism,
which they are clearly trying to do, getting that ground troop figure down to the Administration-desired level will be difficult
- VERY difficult.
| Our casualties in Iraq, from VI Day to today, |
|
|
| have been approximaly one soldier per day |
6-20-03: SPECIAL ANALYSIS REPORT
What is the best, long-term, the USG and
the United States can expect in Iraq?
The best, the very best, if we are successful, we
can expect in Iraq is the "Philippine Model." And, as you will read, it will not be easy, nor will it be short, nor without
cost in lives and treasure.
In 1898-99, the United States invaded the Philippines,
and took it away from imperial Spain, which had conqured it in the 1600s. (For Dewey at Manila Bay, see our History of the U.S. Navy Page). The Spanish were quickly driven out, but a Philippine insurgent and indepensdence
movement, violent in nature, deeply opposed to any form of colonialism, aggressively nartionalist, and pre-existing from Spanish
days, drew itself up against the U.S. and U.S. occupation of the islands. (The Philippines consists of over 7,000 islands,
about 5 or 6 of them fairly large.) The U.S. had to maintain sometimes as many as 45,000 ground troops in the Philippines
between then and 1941, when we were defeated there by the Japanese, in order to deal with the anti-American insurgency. It
was a bloody insurgency, with over 4,400 U.S. soldiers killed (See America's KIA link) just in the first few years. During all the years of the U.S. occupation,
the U.S. Administration in the Philippines, no matter who was in charge, worked ardously to create an elite in the Philippines
which would be educated and pro-American, something they succeeded, in the final analysis, in doing. They achieved this
in the face of a population which was then , and is now, 90% impoverished, extremely nationalistic and anti-American, although
many of the same are ambivalent, wishing at the same time they could emigrate to that same United States they
show so much hatred for when they're in their own country. That population is also about 30% Muslim, mainly in the southern
portion of the country, feeding even further, along religious lines, into the anti-Americanism of which we spoke.
In those years, 1898-1941, 43 years to be exact, the United
States created in the Philippines, in the continuing face of that adversity, and U.S. deaths almost every day, the pro-American
elite we spoke of. It still exists today, in 2003, and you can see it exemplified in every modern President of Republika Pilipinas,
including the current one. We also did much more: We created a free press, mainly in Manila, with a number of newspapers
which gave voice to differing points of view, but established the notion in our First Amendment that conflicting political
views in a true democracy needed to be permanently heard, not quashed by a dictator whenever anyone disagreed with him. We
created, by teaching it in the education system we set up, the value of freedom of worship, unknown in Spanish times,
whereby Christians and Muslims were expected to live side by side without automatically trying to kill each other. Most importantly,
by raising up public perception of the force of the United States to "do the right thing," and in the popularity of the political
establishment we created and by ensuring an electoral process where those most violently anti-American, one way
or another, would not be able to seize power, we created basically long-term stability in an on-going government, and process
of government, which is basically pro-American in its top echelons, to this day.
The electoral process we created was fundamentally a two-party
system, because we knew that competing parties would foster a "checks and balances" integral in which, if successful, no dictator
would be able to emerge.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt promised independence to
the Philippines, and its then Commonwealth President, within ten years, in 1934, a promise which was delayed by Japanese occupation
of the islands until 1945. The United States granted full independence to the Philippines on July 4, 1946, but this is not
Philippine Independence Day (The Filipinos preferring to call that Phil-Am Friendship Day). They celebrate Independence
Day instead on a date in June which marks some minor rebellion of Philippine insurgents. Anti-American and nationalist
sentiments still run high among the still impoverished people of the Philippines. A violently anti-American Muslim insurgency
still exists in the southern Philippines, and an active anti-American communist insurgency existed in the main island of Luzon
as late as the 1970s.
In the final analysis, though, we prevailed in what we
set out to do. But it cost us. We did it with an iron hand, albeit often displayed in a velvet glove. And perhaps because
our casualties were not widely publicized in the Americam media of the time, continuing American Administrations, from McKinley
to Franklin Roosevelt, continued to have the stomach to carry out those policies.
All comparisons between Iraq and the Philippines are inexact.
The Iraqi people, for example, today, are much better educated than the Filipinos ever were. More Iraqis are in what constitutes
a middle class in the Third World. The Iraqi population is overwhelmingly Muslim, although still split into two sects.
But the comparison still applies, as you can see, for the
basic reasons dealing with in-bred anti-Americanism, and because of the lesson of the cost of America's history in the
Philippines.
The Philippine Model is the very best we can expect in Iraq. the very worst
we can expect is to cut and run tomorrow, like we did in South Vietnam, and in Lebanon in 1983, when over 200 of our Marines
were killed in one blow, by fundamentally the same crowd who now violently oppose us in Iraq. In that case, all hell will
break loose, followed by another anti-American dictatorship.
If that's what the Bush Administration decides to do, because of our casualties,
we will stand by them. But we think it's a bad idea.
In any event,you heard about the "Philippine Model" here
first, right here on our Newstand. When you start hearing about it a few days or weeks from now in the national
mainstrean media, and in the Administration, tell them so.
UPDATE 5/28/2004: Based on current events to date, the "Philippine
Model" is not going to happen in Iraq, and we're going to be the first ones admit it.
We are going to propose a different model, for the sake of U.S.
national security, and that is an independent Kurdistan, knowing that that proposal here will draw immediate protests from
both the Turkish government (an ally of the U.S.) and the Iranian government (an enemy of the U.S.). An independent Kurdistan
in Iraq challenges both those governments because both currently claim Kurd inhabited border areas which would want to be
part of such a Kurdish state.
But the Kurds are pro-American. And they have a right to own their
own oil in Iraqi Kurdistan, although we have no current idea how they would get those oil exports to a seaport.
Iraq has been divided in the past, between the Sunnis, the Shiites,
and the Kurds.
The war in Iraq is a mess as of today. The Shiites and the Sunnis
have made it a mess, not us, not the Kurds. We should give these bums, these anti-Amerrican Shiites and Sunnis, what they
deserve, and what they deserve, ids to have Iraq split up.
Something like this is probably going to happen anyway, unless
we have a new USG that stands by, as a new anti-American central government in Baghdad carries out a new genocide against
the Kurds.
This Association would oppose that, as a policy matter.
6-20-03:
The Bush Administration is actually paying for, out of
the U.S. Treasury, the creation of free media in Iraq. We support this idea, though when governments
create "free" media, it's a little like the cart pulling the horse.
Our sources tell this Newstand Iraqis are delighted by
the explosion of free media, including anti-American media, for the first time in Iraq.
Freedom of expression is , in the words of President Franklin
D. Roosevely, a "fundamental freedom," and lies at the essence of the American way of life. If it's good for us, it's good
for people everywhere, and serves the cause of long-term democracy in Iraq well. "Words won't kill you, man, hell they're
only words," a famous American comic once said.
Debate, the exchange in the marketplace of ideas, not violent
disagreement, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter once said, is one of the things that fundamentally distinguishes
a democracy from a dictatorship.
This Association supports Freedom of Expression, both in
this country, and abroad in foreign lands. The more of it, the better. It is an American value.
| Khatami (right) and |
|
|
| Khamenei (left) |
6-21-03 SPECIAL REPORT
How is Iran really governed?
There is a supreme spiritual leader
- Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - "God's appointed representative on earth," part of Khomeini's clique, who can veto any act of the
President or of the Majlis, and can issue "spiritual" edicts (read political edicts) which have the force of law and must
be followed. Khameini is surrounded by a coterie of mullahs (the "guardians' council") subscribing totally to the same
fanatically dictatorial, fundamentalist and anti-American ("The Great Satan") viewpoints Khomeini had.
Real power, total power, in both domestic,
foreign and military affairs, vests exclusively today with the latter group of mullahs.
6-22-03
SPECIAL ANALYSIS REPORT: THE RECONSTRUCTION
OF IRAQ
It is obvious, in the words of former Army General
Wesley Clark, that not enough pre-Iraqi war thought was put into exactly how to politically restructure
post-war Iraq. (In the military, this is commonly referred to as "p--- poor prior planning").
Prior to the war, this Newstand put forth opinion
pieces as to how to prepare for this aspect of the war, advice which was not successfully followed, although half-hearted
efforts were made. (See our numerous pre-war articles on preparing the groundwork among the Kurds and the Shiites for a post-war
regime.)
The good news is there's still time left. But
a political infrastructure, with competing democratic parties, needs to be brought forward. The Kurds need to have a political
party capable of maintaining a strong northern minority in a national Majlis and a decentralized central government which
guarantees that no one group dominates national institutions, including any reconstituted Iraqi army. Absolute
de-Ba'athification needs to stop, and qualified pro-coalition individuals, former Ba'athists or not, need to be brought forward
and put in political charge of local administrations outside of the Kurd areas. A constitutional convention needs to
be convened, and any constitution needs to set aside specific numbers of parliamentary seats for key minority groups. Competing
political parties need to be funded, as many as possible among the Shiite population, including a women's party. There also
needs to be an adequately funded secular party. The political structure must permanently ensure checks and balances.
An Iraqi police force (call it an Army , or call it anything you like)
of at least 80,000 (There were 400,000 men in Saddam's army) needs to be created ASAP (we almost said immediately), swearing
allegiance to a new Constitution (see above), just like U.S. troops, and even certain local police departments, are required to swear to preserve and defend our Constitution, to relieve
pressure on U.S. troops.
Then, elections for a Majlis and prime minister.
The USG needs to ensure that the first act of that prime minister, as Karzai's was in Afghanistan, is to ask for continued
U.S. troop presence to prevent any pro-Saddam terrorism directed against a truly democratic and constitutional state.
Militarily, the biggest tactical problem with U.S. casualties
in Iraq since May 1 is that, in simple English, our ground troops ar getting picked off by guerillas. We do not treat our
ground movements there as though we are facing a very dangerous guerilla war from deadenders; we treat those movements , instead,
as though we are police officers walking or driving down a "friendly" American street, which we are not. We do not have the
anti-guerilla light infantry agressive manpower to do the former and that is borne out by the fact that, of those Iraqis who
have killed Americans since May 1, very few have been chased down, killed or captured, either on the spot or with aggressive
preventive operations in areas like the Sunni triangle or in Falluja. Most of those Iraqi terrorists live to fight another
day. To do the military job, we need both that manpower, and that perception of this new phase of the struggle.
Politically, the biggest problem that the U.S. faces in a new Iraq
is that a lot of Iraqis confuse nationalism with democracy. It's possible to be a nationalist without being a democrat, as
in the case of both Hitler and Saddam. It's possible to be a democrat, and not be a nationalist, as in the case ot today's
one-worlders. It's also possible to be both nationalists and democrats, as in the case of this Association. The latter group
would say, e.g., that it is impossible to believe that in any Third World society that, given free expression, there was not
a segment of the population that was not pro-American and, being democrats, we would say those people should openly and politically
be permitted to express their opinions without any intimidation. When we say we have a Manifest Destiny to spread the light
of Freedom for all the world to see, that is exactly what we mean.
PREDICTION: Large numbers of U.S. troops will have to
remain in Iraq for at least 5 years.
[UPDATE 7-16-03:
The USG Administrator in Iraq, Paul
Bremer, begins talking about "elections" in Iraq for the first time, today. He also said , at the same time, that the
U.S. should pull out of Iraq as soon as a democratic parliament was elected. The latter statement may be politically palatable
for a U.S. audience, but our Editorial Staff considers it to be more than a bit bizarre from a U.S. national security standpoint.
A new, democratic and pro-U.S. Iraqi government would not last 6 months without the protection of a U.S. or international
security force. Bremer may have been influenced, in making the last statement, by the fact that France and India turned down
today USG requests made to both of them to provide peacekeepers for such a force.]
[UPDATE 7-20-03:
Bremer redacts his "bizarre" statement
today, after it drew criticism from sources like the Association, saying now that when an elected parliament is in
place, the job of "his office" is done, but that security forces may have to remain.]
[UPDATE 7-25-03:
Bremer announces that there are 32,000 men now in the Iraqi police force (the "Civil Defense Force"), and that the new USG figure as to what we want there
is 75,000, remarkably close to the figure this Association called for in its original piece above. This Iraqi force is designed to provide domestic security to free up U.S. troops for
aggressive light infantry actions against the fedayeen, again, almost exactly what this Association asked for in our original
Special Analysis Report above. Bremer also predicts on the same date that there will be a new Iraqi constitution and
an elected majlis within 18 months.
HINT: Former Secretary of State James Baker may soon take
over from Bremer, if he accepts the job, which Baker may not because of its difficulties. The White House is just not
satisfied with the pace of reconstruction in Iraq. If Baker is brought in to replace or oversee Bremer it will be the
third appointment of a real American shogun for Iraq within three months.]
[UPDATE 8-27-03:
Tom Friedman, N.Y. Times syndicated columnist and talking head summa cum laude, who of late has become more insightful on the Middle East, writes
a column for the Times (that's the same Times of recent plagiarism fame) proposing, remarkably, most of the specific
things we proposed in our original 6-22 article above.]
[UPDATE 9-1-03:
The end to total Ba'athification
we called for in our original piece above became official USG policy today, with the DoD now saying that only "top echelons"
of Saddam's Ba'ath Party would be forbidden official positions in a reconstructed Iraq. On this same note, the
Association would like to point out that we are currently paying about 240,000 of Saddam's former soldiers $150 or
so per month to sit around and do nothing, when many of these could be used in the new Iraqi Civil Defense Force.]
[UPDATE 9-4-03:
Tom Brokaw of NBC-TV News reports tonight
(major news story for them) that there was a secret Pentagon report saying the Bush Administration did little prior planning
about the reconstruction of Iraq after the conventional war, something we first reported on this Newstand in the original
piece above on 6-22-03! Brokaw needs to work more on getting his attributions done more appropriately, while he's spending
so much time getting his shoes shined at every airport he visits on a salary of $8 miilion a year.]
[UPDATE 10-4-03:
This Newstand staff said, in
its original opinion piece above, that there should be an elected Majlis and government in Iraq as soon as possible and that
its first act should be to ask U.S. troops to stay.
We stand by the first part of the equation. We made a mistake
as to the second part, although we remain proud of our specific forthrightness in making predictive advocacy on national security
affairs in the face of the cowardice of other commentators to do so, and also equally proud of our forthrightness to
admit our mistakes in the face of the cowardice of others to do so.
An elected government in Iraq should take over responsibility
for its internal order, which it looks like today they might eventually be able to do effectively. But the United States,
and its Government, should be prepared to go back in on a moment's notice on request if that Iraqi government is seriously
threatened internally by anti-American terrorists poised to seize power by force. After the French army coup d'etat'd and
took over the government in Algiers in 1961 and threatened to take over France, President Kennedy offered U.S. troops to President
DeGaulle to prevent the latter. We should do the same, certainly, if asked to, by a new, democratic, Iraq.]
[UPDATE 10-6-03: Baker never took Bremer's job, so the White
House did something else around the first of this month to make clear its dissatisfaction with the reconstruction of Iraq
we reported to you here first in our 7-25-03 Update: It placed National Security Advisor Condi Rice in charge of coordinating
stabilization efforts in Iraq. Heretofore, Bremer had reported to SecDef Rumsfeld and Rumsfeld pretty much made stabilization
policy in Iraq. Bush's message to Rummy is that the White House is now truly in charge.
How this all plays out on the ground in Iraq remains to
be seen. And how it plays out inside the Beltway, we may never know, but this Newstand will continue to try to get you the
answers on both topics.
6-23-03:
The USG has announced quietly today a policy of paying up to
$720 million per year to former Iraqi soldiers ($150 per month per soldier). The payments are announced as "continuing."
These payments will be made to the former soldiers to quieten their
motivation to rise up against the U.S. occupation. The payments are morally wrong, in the Newstand's Editorial Staff's opinion,
but may be necessary to protect U.S. troops' lives from these deadenders.
$720 million per year is a lot of money. These payments will not,
we predict, continue indefinitely, and will probably be limited to less than the full 400,000 soldiers who served under Saddam.
The USG also announced today that it will create an Iraqi Army of
12,000 within one year to carry out basically military police functions, and plans to expand it to a force of 75,000 within
3 years. Each man in this "civil defense force" will be paid about $125 per month, 3 times what Saddam's Army paid.
[UPDATE 9-3-03:
As we correctly predicted in the original piece, the
DoD put out figures recently showing that only about 240,000 of these former Iraqi soldiers are receiving the pay, not the
full 400,000]
7-10-03:
Are we fighting a "guerilla war" in Iraq today?
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says we're
not, and he relies heavily, in saying that, on the writings of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, who was an expert at it, and defined
guerilla war into three classic stages.
But Secretary Rumsfeld knows there's a new, even
more modern, and asymmetric, defintion to some of these terms.
Certainly, in Iraq today, we are not in even the
classic Phase I of guerilla warfare Mao wrote about. We are, instead, in a pre-Phase I of a guerilla war. That pre-phase is
exemplified in a French movie, made in the sixties, about the rise of guerilla warfare in Algeria, to be carried out
there eventually by the FLN (Front de la Liberation National) against French forces.
It is a film still shown today today to incoming
CIA officers in Virginia not far from the Pentagon, in order to help them define the pre-stages of a guerilla war.
Meanwhile, attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq have picked up
currently to about 25 per day, and are becoming more "sophisticated," intelligence sources tell the Association.
7-11-03:
A Pew Poll shows that only 23% of Americans feel the
war in Iraq is going "well."
7-11-03:
Current USG expenses for the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq are running $4 billion per
month. In our last estimate on this Newstand (NSA 4-18-03) we predicted a figure of $25 billion per year, based on U.S. intelligence
estimates. We were low, and we were wrong, and we will be the first ones to admit it.
In a related story, outgoing CentCom Commander General Tommy Franks testified before the U.S.
House Armed Service Committee yesterday that a current U.S. Force size of about 145,000 may have to remain in Iraq for up
to four years. This statement, and you heard this here first, although made in an answer to a question by a Congressman, was
pre-approved by the DoD, and marks a shying away from previous DoD positions that a U.S. Force of 75,000 was a desirable and
do-able figure in the short term. The USG announced the same day it had hired a contractor to build temporary housing
for at least 100,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. This Newstand has, in many past articles, gently nudged the Bush Administration
into moving away from the 75,000 figure as an achievable target.
We can see they finally took our advice.
The bad news: As we said in NSA 5-29-03, a U.S.figure of 163,000 is probably still too
low to get the current job done effectively.
[UPDATE 7-13-03:
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announces that the
current figure of U.S. troops in Iraq, 147,000, will probably hold "for the forseeable future," but that it may be increased
"if necessary." He also added that a hypothetical projected figure of 300,000 still "seemed high" to him.
He also proposed a new SOP of a one-year average tour for
all ground troops in Iraq (exactly, we point out, what it was in Vietnam.)
He also added that he "assumed" Saddam was alive and in
Iraq.
Rumsfeld made the remarks on NBC-TV News' "Meet the Press"
with Tim Russert.]
7-12-03:
"How did the reference to Saddam
buying fissionable uranium in Niger get into the President's last State of the Union address?"
The original story was reported by MI.6 to the CIA. MI.6 is a friendly
intelligence service and its shared intelligence is accepted, and has been accepted, as generally reliable since 1946. The
MI.6 report was largely the work of a British intelligence asset who was presenting what now appears to be a forged document
about Niger sales of enriched uranium to Saddam.
The CIA did not force feed false intelligence to the President and tell
him to put it in the speech, nor did the White House create false intelligence and then tell the CIA to approve it, and those
who are implying otherewise are making ridiculous. Nor did the Agency invent or shade false intelligence in the first place.
[For the perils on intelligence gathering and reporting in the age of terror, see the Association's showcase piece on the
subject in the Left hand margin Section of the WOT Newstand.]
Her Majesty's Government stands by, today, the original conclusions of
this MI.6 report.
President Bush is an honorable man, and he is not one to blame an honest
mistake in a speech on the British.
DCI George Tenet has taken full responsibility for the sentence (actually
it's only one word which was objectionable, as you will read below) getting into the President's Address, and said that the
sentence should not have been cleared because of doubts about its credibility. Tenet, a Clinton appointee, who wanted to keep
the job, was not forced to resign in 2001, as would have been usual, in large measure because the current President remembered
that his father, who had been DCI in 1976, had asked President-elect Carter to keep the same job, and Carter refused. George
H.W. Bush, even given his short tenure as DCI, is still remembered within the Agency as one of the best DCIs, while his successor
is not perceived by Agency veterans as falling into that same category, and that is an understatement.
The objectionable sentence, as stated by the President, said that the
British Government has "learned" that Saddam attempted to acquire uranium in Africa. (Emphasis added.)
Our Editorial staff's opinion is that the President probably should have
said that the British Government "reported....," instead of "learned."
This Newstand has never reported what we considered to be questionable intelligence
to our viewers as fact, and we neither reported the Niger story nor, we remind everyone, did we present any excerpts
whatsoever from the 2003 State of the Union Address when it was made. In contrast, the Association's WOT Newstand widely excerpted from the President's 2002 Address.
[UPDATE 8-3-03:
HMG announces today that Sir Richard Dearlove, current Head of MI.6,
Codename "C," will resign one year early.]
7-13-03:
"How is the morale of U.S. troops
in Iraq holding up?"
Our reports from the field indicate it's holding up very well
to date, thank you, as opposed to, say, the morale of U.S. troops on the ground in Vietnam in 1970.
Certain leftist media reporters are also harping currently, we've
noticed, on low morale among service wives waiting for their husbands to return from the Middle East. Those reporters should
read, not that they're going to, some of the Association's commentary on American history on this Site, pointing out that
American wives and mothers have always been anxious for their sons and daughters serving overseas in America's wars, and that
this is only natural. This phenomenon today is not a political anti-war or anti-Administration policy story; it's a compassionate
story. If that were otherwise, and it might be for a small minority of service wives, then the DoD has got to make a better
effort, especially among Reserve families, of explaining the risks and extent of service, when duty might call.
The anti-war promotions of these leftists in the media are eerily reminiscent
of what theses same folks were doing during Vietnam. During Vietnam, however, the U.S. went at it, year in and year out, from
1961 through 1975, 14 years. In Iraq, these media types are now talking about quitting and running after three months! In
Vietnam, our opinion is that we could have won there with enough patience, and enough firepower.
The opinion of this Association is that we need to get a grip on the Iraqi situation,
that we have a long way to go, and that, as Ronald Reagan said, we need to stay the course.
"The rebels will hold us here forever. They will never give up. We are discouraged."
- A Union soldier, writing home to his wife, after the Battle of
Cold Harbor, Virginia, 1864.
General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to General
Ullysses S. Grant in April, 1865.
UPDATE ON TROOP MORALE 10-30-03:
Stars and Stripes, a private military
media organization, is showing new, and different, poll numbers on morale of U.S. tr
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