Tidbits
Read this from the Financial Times:
Jonathan Eyal, an analyst with the Royal United Services Institute in London, says: “The Pentagon has spent the last 10 years trying to reduce the amount of time it takes to deploy. Unlike the last Gulf war, it can now take weeks rather than months.”
Just how many weeks is a tougher question. RUSI believes a substantial force could be assembled in little more than two weeks because of the amount of equipment already on the ground and the ability to bring in more by air or sea.
Ships pre-packed with tanks and other heavy equipment could have already left the Diego Garcia naval base in the Indian Ocean. Given that air strikes would probably last at least two weeks before ground troops were sent in, analysts believe the two phases could be carried out simultaneously.
“If they wanted to start a war they could start it next week,” concludes Mr Eyal.
Most of that is army equipment, pre-positioned in Kuwait, Saudi, and Diego Garcia. We have (I have to tread lightly here) other items from another service mothballed in another country fairly close by. Technically, the stuff belongs to them, but with the understanding that it
Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, I remain (perhaps foolishly) committed to my believe that it’s Never. Gonna. Happen.
Of course, if I’m wrong, it will be the most delicious serving of crow I’ve ever eaten.
So I guess it comes down to balancing the complaints of the Democrats about how nothing has been accomplished in the war on terrorism versus the complaints the Democrats will have about starting a war.
Not to mention a side order of “you’re doing this just to win elections” versus worrying about everything not going as planned–making your own party look bad– just before said elections.
I’m glad it’s not my decision, is all I’m saying.
Chris -
Boy, do I keep going back and forth on this question. But one thing I remember clearly, and I think Bush does too. In Bob Woodward’s WaPo series “Ten Days in September” (FABULOUS, hope they do it in a book) I remember one part about a week in when Bush called Pentagon chiefs and SpecOps leaders into the White House. He asked for generalities about an Afghan campaign, and they looked him in the eye, and said “Oh, please. We can take these bastards down, and hard. No problem.” Well, guess what happened.
I think that probably made an impression on our President.
It’s easy to forget there was just as much back and forth before the Gulf War and before Afghanistan. The press and the anti-war left bemoan the lack of a clear direction, but to give one would be showing our hand. The article Stephen links to is just one more piece of evidence that it will happen, and soon, and, as far as I’m concerned, the sooner the better.
after all of blogosphere and nro yelling “faster, please”, we’ll be seeing just how fast these boys can go… woo boy…
and the cool thing is that they generally tell us what they use when they pull it out from the secret toy box….
now if they could figure out how to control prisoners at a 1 – 100 ratio, we’d be set…
btw oil services companies should be making big big big money in the next few years… lots of oil wells to repair and build (everybody’s going to be pumping like crazy, as opec falls and we let the russians and iraqis compete… )
The two weeks figure is a fantasy for anything more than the handful of brigade sets of equipment in region. Also not accounted for are the stockpiles of ammunition and fuel. I don’t think we could get a useable force ( three full mechanized divisions – the 82nd doesn’t count ) in less than six weeks on intense airlift.
I’m with Spoons.
The problem for Bush got more serious this week. Now memmbers of his own party are questioning an attack and public opinion polls indicate a war unpopular. Perhaps this is why he seems willing to turn to Congress for support.
But the problem: if he atacks, many will be angered, at home and abroad; if he does not, many will be angered by what will be viewed as playing politics and indecisevness. In either case, he loses.
I’m with Spoons and Paul.
I read articles like this and I think to myself “Yeah, as long as we are playing nice….”
Personally, I think were going to go in. But whether we do or not, the Islamonazis really need to ask themselves whether they really want to fight the Genocide Wars with us.
If Allah were going to snuff us, He would have by now.
Guys and dolls, the time it takes for America to erase most of the life in almost (Russia, and possibly Britain, France, and China are exceptions) any given nation anywhere in the world is +- 30 minutes. T-launch + boost to orbit + orbit + re-entry = time to detonation.
I didn’t know about this, but we apparently tested a Peacekeeper in June I found the article looking for confirmation of a Minuteman III test that I heard about in the spring.
Whoa. A Peacekeeper! Somebody is thinking along the same lines I am.
The Leftists keep whining to us about how we need to be afraid of the Arab street. To which I reply “How many intercontinental ballistic missiles do they have? How many ballistic missile submarines?”
Fear the American street. If enough Americans get as pissed off as I am, the Arab street will simply cease to exist.
Carthago Delenda Est
Are we certain it’s Iraq? Especially w/this new al Queda info bubbling to the top?
Sorry, I’m with Spoons, Paul and Kat.
Save for a VERY small number of magnificent gestures in the aftermath of 9/11, Bush has utterly failed the test of war leadership. He hasn’t given us any more uplifting rhetoric in the manner of his Joint Session speech, or tried to ensure that the threats we face from Islamic fascism remain at the forefront of our minds (personally, I count on the Blogosphere for that).
He hasn’t held a single senior official of the government personally accountable for any failure leading up to 9/11, or indeed in the year since. After failing to place agents in an organization that was “penetrated” by a spoon-fed halfwit from Marin County, why does George Tenet still have a job? After failing to clean house in a bureaucracy that actively impeded field agents’ investigations of Arab terror plots – and then begging for the approval of an Islamic organization whose leaders have openly supported terrorism – why does Robert Mueller still have a job? After allowing a female staff judge advocate to veto the tactical judgment of men in the field, why does Tommy Franks still have a job? And after repeatedly undercutting the Administration’s foreign policy and war aims, why does Colin Powell still have a job?
Would Churchill have allowed a fifth-column news media to dominate the national discussion of the war? Would FDR told American women after Pearl Harbor, “go out and buy two pairs of silk stockings, or the Japanese will have won”? Would Harry Truman have allowed his subordinates to publicly espouse their own policy objectives, making his Administration appear rudderless and incompetent?
Not only do I think we won’t go to Iraq – I think we’ll be damned lucky if we avoid another mass bloodletting on American soil. We have irresponsible and inattentive leadership at the helm; the kind of leadership that can very easily LOSE this war.
Relax, fellas. We’re going in before the years out. Don’t ask me how I know.
They’d have to kill me if I told you.
In regards to the peacekeeper test, don’t read anything into it. I was in the 90th SMW, 90th Security Police Group at F.E. Warren AFB in the early eighties. It was standard procedure to pull a bird out of its hole and send it to Vandenburg for a test firing about every six months. A missle deterent isn’t much good if you can’t be sure they’ll fire when the keys are turned. I don’t disagree that there may be something to the timing, but the tests are routine.