Just when I thought I was done
talking about the Pentagon, they drag me back in.
It's good, yet belated news. News that makes you want to pull you hair out, or if that's not an option, scream really loud.
By all means, continue:
The Pentagon would like us to know that they've finished a study and have determined that
Saddam was no big threat. Yeah, I know, you're all shocked.
The report, entitled "Saddam's Delusions: The View from the Inside," was produced by the Pentagon's Iraq's Perspectives Project and written by Kevin Woods, James Lacey and Williamson Murray. It was commissioned by the U.S. Joint Forces Command, or USJFCOM, and it is based on previously inaccessible primary sources, Foreign Affairs magazine said. Extracts from the report are being published in an 8,500 word article in the May-June issue of Foreign Affairs.
Foreign Affairs Magazine really nailed this, but more on them later. Just this once, let's do dessert before the main course:
The article confirms recent assessments that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction before he was toppled, but it says that he wanted others to suspect he might. "In the last months before the war he realized that it was too dangerous to continue playing this double game and finally decided to cooperate fully with international inspectors. But at that point his track record of repeatedly lying meant that no one believed him," Foreign Affairs said.
It didn't help Saddam that he employed cronies to the highest positions of his governemnt either. Which meant despite his rep for being a liar to the world at large he didn't even have a charismatic, politically savy ambassador to cover his butt.
The report also rejected the widespread view in many Bush administration and neo-conservative circles in Washington that Saddam deliberately planned the current insurgency in Iraq.
"No. He thought the United States would never attack, and was confident that even if it did, the resulting war would follow essentially the same script as the first Gulf War in 1991, without a full-scale invasion all the way to Baghdad," Foreign Affairs wrote, describing the report.
I'd always had problem with that wacko-right-wing theory. Once again, BushCo gave Saddam too much credit. Why would someone let you invade and destroy their country only to engage you as an annoying resurgency? Where's the military avantage? The theory is just silly and impractical.
The report concludes that Saddam was so out of touch with events in the totalitarian bubble that he was convinced the war was still going brilliantly well when everything was collapsing all around him.
"How did Saddam think the war was going? Swimmingly. Because everyone knew that Saddam severely punished anybody who told him unpleasant truths, the entire regime was built on lies. During wartime, this meant that junior officers told senior officers that everything was going well, they reported it up the chain of command, and Saddam himself remained a prisoner of his delusions," Foreign Affairs said.
Call me crazy, but after reading this can't you make the argument that Bush has alot in common with Saddam?
You have to have either registered or have some kind of affiliation to see the Foreign Affairs report. But let me show some highlights:
MILITARY EFFECTIVENESS:
By 2003, the Iraqi military was reeling from 13 years of almost continuous engagement with U.S. and British air forces, the accumulating effects of sanctions, and the insidious impact of the regime's dysfunctional policies. These pressures had all helped drive the Iraqi military into a state of chronic decline. The Iraqi military's main mission was to ensure the internal security of the Baathist dictatorship. Concerned about everything except fighting wars, the Iraqi military, which had once aspired to a Western-like profession of arms, became focused on militarily irrelevant -- but nonetheless life-and-death -- issues.
The best example of this focus is the prewar condition of the Iraqi air force, which did not launch a single sortie against the coalition during the invasion. According to the commander of Iraq's air force and air defense force, Hamid Raja Shalah, Saddam simply decided two months before the war that the air force would not participate. Apparently, Saddam reasoned that the quality and quantity of the Iraqi air force's equipment would make it worse than useless against coalition air forces. Consequently, he decided to save the air force for future needs and ordered his commanders to hide their aircraft. This decision was yet another indication that Saddam did not believe coalition ground forces would ever reach into the heart of Iraq. He was sure his regime would survive whatever conflict ensued.
Would it be a stretch to say that Saddam's and the Pentagon had..."similar" military strategies here? Talk about the bare neccesities.
There's more; trust me. But I don't want to bore anyone more than I already have. Also, the site has rules about permissions (FYI: "Summary or excerpt up to 250 words,
accompanied by a link to http://www.foreignaffairs.org " are FREE).
The good news is that the Pentagon has embraced reality. The bad news is that they refuse to get Bush to do the same. I'm sure a book about his delusions is in the works.