Iraq by the Numbers - or how to be dumb.

[tw]

Originally Posted by NoBoxes

Former Republican President Richard M. Nixon was viewed by many as a domestic crook; but, was regarded as a foreign policy genius in some circles (he opened relations with China).

Nixon and Kissinger regarded Vietnam as a proxy war with China. Nixon was desperate to get out of Vietnam without a defeat on his legacy. Nixon saw his trip to China as separating China from Vietnam. But Nixon did not understand the historical animosity between Chinese and Vietnamese. Nixon was doing anything to get out of Vietnam - to save his legacy.

Nixon even negotiated a thorn that plagues us today. Nixon essentially negotiated away Taiwan. Taiwan remains an only serious reason why US and China may end up in military conflict - because of that Nixon blunder. But then Nixon was doing anything he could to save his legacy.

This became doctrine and was actually taught in the military. Even when George Sr. blew the opportunity to invade Iraq (its invasion of Kuwait being the best rationale we ever had), he at least restricted our military action to containment of their military rather than trying to depose the government when ...

The US did not have to go to Baghdad to remove Saddam. It simply required Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfovitz, etc to understand basic military science 101. What is the purpose of war? The settlement at a peace table. Where were those conditions? When Schwarzkopf asked Washington for those conditions (that should have been defined immediately after 1 Aug 1990), instead, Cheney, et al were too busy drinking champaign.

Schwarzkopf had to make up conditions for surrender ad hoc. But what is worse, Schwarzkopf was told to end the war before it was over - by those same fools in Washington. Schwarzkopf begged for just one more day to get the 101st Airborne in position. Those fools in Washington ignored Schwarzkopf. And they did not do their job: define conditions for surrender.

Well Saddam was left fully in power with American blessing. As the US Army watched from 5 miles away, Saddam may have massacred 20,000 Iraqis in Basra. Had these idiots done their job, then Saddam would have been removed by a unity of other religious groups. We let Saddam massacre his own people after we told them to rise up against him. Notice who that is directly traceable to.

Well, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc hope their legacy did not last - so that you would ignore their failures in 1992. "Mission Accomplished" needed any excuse to fix their mistake. No, we did not have to go to Baghdad in 1992. Had Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc done their job, then Saddam would have been removed by Iraqis. They stopped Schwarzkopf before he was ready. They did not plan for the peace.

So what did those same fools not do in "Mission Accomplished"? Again, they made the exact same mistake. Again, they did not "plan for the peace". A Frontline documentary makes this woefully obvious:
The Lost Year

This is military science 101 stuff. Notice where failure keep arising every time. No planning for the peace. People who still don't understand military science 101 principles - planning for the peace.

The Iraq Study Group has a comprehensive plan for ending "Mission Accomplished". The fact that so much MUST be done demosntrated how "Stay the Course" or "Way forward" is clearly a lie from the same mental midget administration. They did not even plan for the peace - a military science 101 blunder.