posted March 27, 2003 at 12:14 p.m. MDTWhy such haste?
Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz have been scheming for empire over a decade, Cheney, fresh from his position as CEO of Halliburtion has his eye squarely on the ball (contracts to be let; business to be done), and Bush since a year ago at least has been inspired by "F___ Hussein; he's done", so there actually was not reason to involve the international community. The many benefits that could have, would have arisen from such a development were entirely surplus to requirement, if not actually an impediment. Even good, sage, sound, experienced military advice was scorned and dismissed!
Analysts Say Threat Warnings Toned Down [washingtonpost.com] -
"Intelligence analysts at the CIA and Pentagon warned the Bush administration that U.S. troops would face significant resistance from Iraqi irregular forces employing guerrilla tactics, but those views have not been adequately reflected in the administration's public predictions about how difficult a war might go, according to current and former intelligence officials."
Maybe the same analysts who pointed out that Iraq was attacking Iranian troops when the used chemicals in their attack of Halabja? Apparently Bush, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz are driven by an agenda that doesn't require or rely on actualities of history or facts concerning military dispostion ... so long as there is a US military administration in the Persian Gulf, and lots of reconstruction contracts for Cheney's Halliburton and such, the details are just liberal bullshit, right?
"CIA analysts "thought there was a good chance we would be forced to fight our way through everything," said one intelligence official who sat in on many briefings. "They were much more cautious about it being an easy situation."IMHO the narrow coalition fit perfectly well with the agenda ... the new age of robber-barons is past, now is the time for the carpet baggers of the Eagle Empire.
With U.S. and British troops being forced to defend a more than 200-mile supply line from the Kuwaiti border to U.S. troops 50 miles from Baghdad and to fend off small-scale attacks by the Iraqi irregular forces, analysts at the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency are complaining that their reports would be softened as they moved to the White House. "The caveats would be dropped and the edges filed off," the intelligence official said.
"The intelligence we gathered before the war accurately reflected what the troops are seeing out there now," one military intelligence official said. "The question is whether the war planners and policymakers took adequate notice of it in preparing the plan."
Woe to those who were not with this gang, because they have been marked as "unhelpful". (Interestingly, while Canada is scheduled to be spanked, while the Ambassador was insulting our independence he allowed that our regular peace keeping [troops in Afghanistan and ships in the area] was actually more assistance than most coalition members had given ... but he still threatened our business interests, because it's about obedience and unquestionning loyalty and not about democracy, principle, or doing the right thing.
A time of real shame for the US republic ... the new millenium greets a nation predicated on complacent consumption that will punish independence of any sort.
