NYT: Panel Describes Long Weakening of Hussein Army

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/11/international/middleeast/11MILI.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

The Senate's report on prewar intelligence about Iraq, which asserts that warnings about its illicit weapons were largely unfounded and that its ties to Al Qaeda were tenuous, also undermines another justification for the war: that Saddam Hussein's military posed a threat to regional stability and American interests.

In a detailed discussion of Iraq's prewar military posture, the report cites a long series of intelligence reports in the decade before the war that described a formerly potent army's spiral of decay under the weight of economic sanctions and American military pressure.

The main risk of an attack by Mr. Hussein against the United States and nations in the region was his unpredictability, these reports indicated. The reports found it especially hard to predict what he would do if threatened by the likelihood of American military action. But the Senate Intelligence Committee called this analysis relatively weak.

The committee's report implies that war opponents were essentially correct when they argued that Iraq posed little immediate threat to the United States. Before the war, those who held this view, both in Congress and at the United Nations, argued that continued containment was preferable to an invasion.

[UpInArms]

1. the criminality of this maladministration

is beyond the scope of anything any living person has witnessed.

The rush and push for war that was unending from the moment that they stole their way into office was relentless.

The complete abuse of the attacks of 9/11 (whether LIHOP or MIHOP) and the insistance that anyone who spoke against any of the policies or plans was disgusting.

To be a member of 14 million people standing tall and demanding debate only to be called a "focus" group and be dismissed was insulting.

I only hope that the people of this country can get a clue before its to freakin' late.

[stickdog]

2. An imminent theat to collapse, not to the region. (nt)

[underpants]

3. This was a NO BRAINER argument against the war-the junkyard analogy

Tanks and APCs eat up parts. Saddam wasn't allowed to buy the parts he needed and yeah they might have slid some in through the back door but not nearly enough to keep whole armor units running. They had to cannibalize the fleet of vehicles.

A great analogy for this is having a junkyard and trying to keep cars running with no parts from the outside. You take a carburetor from this vehicle and put it in this vehicle (assuming all the cars are the same). So now that one vehicle is out of commission, strip anything you can use out of it........eventually you have less and less workable vehicles and far less fully operational ones.

10 years without outside parts-oh and don't forget how decimated they were after Gulf1.