Protesters

Our domestic Stalinists of ANSWER are revving up another weekend of protests. Many will answer the call, including one quoted Texas attorney. So the attorney doesn’t care who organizes the rally? Nazis, or League of Women Voters, or the American Legion, it just doesn’t matter to him. He values the Stalinist ANSWER’s ability to organize. Well, that’s what Stalinist do, being the vanguard of the proletariat and all. They organize the useful dunderheads and lead them to storm the parliament. While the communists of ANSWER will never shoot their way to power—I don’t mean to imply that—that is their goal, albeit a hopelessly unrealistic one. But that ability to hope against reality is consistent with their economic, political, and social ideas.

This ability to ignore who you side with is consistent with that mentality that leads to human shields in the service of Saddam Hussein. I don’t care how much I disapproved of the actions of our government on a particular subject, I could not march, and chant, and hoist a sign condemning our government in the service of some organization that advocates the violent overthrow of our democratic government.

And it is funny, too. These protesters demonize our government yet freely speak to reporters and mass in our capital, unafraid of being whisked away, tortured for the names of their friends, and executed in the public square as a warning to others. American bombers will not wreak vengeance on their home towns as pay back. They will not lose their jobs as the government seeks to silence them. They live in a free country where they can vent their anger even on the eve of war without fear of reprisal.

How they fail to see how this reality of tolerance and freedom contradicts their fevered image of an American dictatorship is beyond me.

On to Baghdad. The protesters have my scorn and disgust for their display of Saddam solidarity.

Not Shields

So American and other westerners will stand as human shields to ward off our invasion? When we send off our best young men and women to risk their lives defending us by bringing down that tyrant Saddam, how could anybody even pause when pulling the trigger to save one of them? I say, use the presence of human shields as the prime indicator that something that Saddam wants to preserve is right there. This might be the low tech alternative to GPS-guided bombs if Saddam’s minions have acquired effective jammers. (Hey, ‘Gullible Peace Shield’ works just fine)

This is war, not theater; and we are going to fight this war even if a bunch of stagnant corners of the gene pool decide to cause our bombs to detonate a nano-second earlier than they would otherwise. Saddam must marvel that such idiots are available to him. The funny thing is, even if we did go out of our way to avoid killing these people, Saddam will probably blow some up just so Tariq Aziz can get all weepy on CNN during a eulogy to these ‘martyrs.’

But really, what an opportunity. Ours is a free country so we must tolerate them when they spout off from our campuses; but once they travel to the enemy country and side with the enemy, they are fair game. I mean, I certainly wouldn’t deliberately target them if it would interfere with the mission, but I hope nobody loses any sleep at night worrying that any of them might die.

Mission for Tenth Mountain

I dare say we have a real mission for the 10th Mountain Division and the British Air Assault Brigade in northern Iraq. With a very strong assist from special forces who will be embedded within Kurdish units, of course. Not just a protective force for the Kurds or a political blanket to smother Kurdish independence as the price for Turkish assistance, the force has a real role and real point of leverage for gaining the cooperation of the Kurds—destroying Ansar al Islam, the 600+ Islamists who have set up their own little corner of Taliban heaven on earth near the Iranian border inside Kurdish Iraq. I’ve heard some say we should bomb them even now, but that makes little sense. We can’t destroy them from the air, and if we disperse them now by trying, they can adapt and still harm us when we invade. If they stay happy, contented, and concentrated until we invade Iraq, we can kill and disrupt them to provide maximum effect just when we need the Islamists suppressed and on the run the most.

They are most certainly a target in the war on terror and a potential terror threat to our invasion force in the Iraq campaign and occupation. I am confident they have a big target on their base.

Truman

Sounds like the Mediterranean front is going to center around Truman. This carrier is digitized and will be great for going after elusive targets trying to lob chemicals from western Iraq. The carrier can receive digital images from recon aircraft and not rely on the Fotomat film delivery method. With overflight rights across Israel and Jordan, this will work just fine. And with Army and Marine equipment already stored in Jordan, the carrier probably won’t need to carry out this role for very long. I expect at least a couple brigades to roll out of Jordan to provide some heavier ground forces that link up with airborne and airmobile forces that seize airfields in western Iraq.

On to Baghdad.

Ground Forces-Again

Interestingly enough, this report says that ships carrying heavy armor have not yet started sailing to the Gulf. I could have sworn ships had started rolling already but I guess not (I think I should look back at my archives). It looks like non-brigade equipment will sail from Texas for 1st Cavalry Division.

Anyway, this article says that possibly only part of 1st Infantry will go to war. With only two brigades in Germany (like 1st Armored) does this mean only a brigade of the division will go or perhaps only certain combat support elements? 1st Armored, 1st Infantry, and 1st Cavalry will be in a computer exercise ("Victory Scrimmage") with 101st Airborne. Perhaps 1st Infantry is representing 3rd Infantry Division in the exercise, leaving the divisional flag in Germany? (Where it could command a rescue force into the Balkans if necessary to guard against some unpleasant event there directed against our troops) This is clearly the main effort. 10th Mountain and the Marines and British aren't part of the exercise because they probably have separate mission: our mountain division in the north with a brigade of British in support; and the bulk of the Marines and remainder of British in the south. Maybe one Marine brigade-the Atlantic one sailing-will be attached to 1st Armored to give it three maneuver brigades.

This actually fits in well with the heavy armor stockpiled out there. We have five brigades worth of heavy armor out there plus a brigade of 3rd Infantry. Add the rest of 3rd Infantry's equipment going by sea and you can fly in the personnel of 1st Cavalry (3 brigades) and 1st Armored (2 brigades in Germany) relatively easily. We will ship in the divisional equipment for 1st Cav and I believe we have a division base in the Gulf already that could be used for 1st Armored. The article says we will have enough to invade by late January to mid February. Will we really leave our stuff out there for weeks tempting Saddam to strike first with chemicals? Our allies may balk (or pretend to) but we are going to war soon. Talk of second thoughts is ridiculous. We've pulled the trigger and the round is heading down range. Even if Saddam slipped in the bathtub in the next three weeks, we'd go in. There is no way we cannot occupy Iraq to insure we rip out the WMD infrastructure and the Baathist thug regime.

Also note that the article says that the invasion will start with only 500 aircraft. The quantum leap in our capabilities over 1991 is tremendous. Now, for example, the Navy can take a really significant role because now they have precision abilities. We and our allies had nearly 2,000 combat aircraft committed to Desert Storm. With a bigger theater and more ambitious objectives (but with a weaker opponent), we will nonetheless have superior capability in 2003. Fairly amazing, actually.

Let's move.

What?!"

Please tell me that this is all to throw the Iraqis off. Our allies are asking us to put off the war a little longer because they think that eleven years of inconclusive inspections have not given them enough time to figure out if they work? When the only time inspectors found something was just before they were about to certify Iraq as WMD-free and a defector said, hey, look in the basement at this chicken farm? Given the track record of our allies, they will always think the inspectors will need more time.

Oh, they have the nerve. Our troops will die if the Iraqis get more time to prepare but what do they care? If our government actually listens to these pleas, for shame on the administration. I never thought we needed UN approval to gain allied help, but I did not oppose going the UN route as long as it did not delay our invasion. I'm starting to worry this is happening. Mostly, I think we are letting these possibilities float around to hide the fact that we have decided on war and already have a D-Day set (although what that is I don't know-hopefully this month), it is possible that the reports are accurate. I sure hope the Europeans are simply pretending to be 'very European' to help us deceive the Iraqis.

Also, it is inconceivable to me that we do not have our war plans set. Hogwash. We've had well over a year to plan this and troops are on the move.

Interesting

One thing I've kind of vaguely noticed on Globalsecurity.org is that it lists no separate Army artillery brigades as either in the Gulf or alerted to go. It lists separate air defense, military police, and other brigades and smaller units, but no artillery.

Given the refusal to commit artillery to the Taliban campaign (I think there is one battery in the whole country now in support of our troops) and the cancellation of Crusader, I wonder if this is a deliberate decision to rely on air power and just use the organic divisional artillery. In Desert Storm, we had lots of separate artillery brigades to support the offensive. This might be part of the trade offs we are making to get a force to the theater fast. But artillery is accurate, capable of firing in all weather, and it sure isn't going to suffer from GPS jamming (if the Iraqis can do that, of course). I understand and accept that we need lighter artillery, but we still need it.

Ground Force Summary

Let's see, so far, the following major ground units have been mentioned as earmarked for war against Iraq:

• 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized): 3 brigades.
• 1st Cavalry Division (a heavy division): 3 brigades.
• 1st Armored Division: 2 brigades.
• 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized): 2 brigades.
• 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile): 3 brigades.
• 10th Mountain Division (Light): 2 brigades.
• 173rd Airborne Brigade.
• I Marine Expeditionary Force: 3 'brigades.'
• 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade
• 16th Air Assault Brigade (British)
• 3rd Commando Brigade (British)
• Elements of 1st Armoured Division (British): 1 brigade.

That's a total of 23 brigades or nearly eight divisions. U.S. Rangers and special forces from our allies to aid our special forces will go in too. Separate Marine Expeditionary Units (battalions) have been mentioned too although I do not know if they are separate from the division and brigade mentioned.

To me, this is overkill. I'm all in favor of smashing our enemy, but we can do so with less than this level of force. Especially when we have to look over our shoulder at North Korea I believe this list is designed to allow us to go in earlier than observers think. We will have enough long before all these units can be deployed and so will gain tactical surprise.

This also doesn't mention Air Force or Navy units. I don't focus on them not because I don't think that they are important but because they will be supreme at sea and in the air. They will be in the theater in sufficient numbers to crush opposition and support the war without any trouble.

My evolving scenario, based on what I have read about deployments and what I would do, would essentially have the air and ground offensive start simultaneously. Conventional ground units might even precede the air offensive to get a jump on the offensive:

• Marine Expeditionary Force, 3rd Commando Brigade, and British 1st Armoured Division units seize Basra region and then press north to support the crossing of the Euphrates River.
• A heavy brigade with lots of artillery and attack helicopters in support under V Corps headquarters simulate the main effort driving north out of Kuwait heading for the Euphrates River, advancing on the left of the drive on Basra.
• 10th Mountain and 16th Air Assault Brigade advance out of Turkey into the Kurdish areas, perhaps with the aim of destroying al Qaeda-affiliated groups in the area.
• One or two Turkish corps advance into the Mosul area, probably not really seeking to fight but to keep refugees out of Turkey and to distract the Iraqis.
• The main effort under XVIII Airborne Corps aims to occupy western Iraq and approach Baghdad from the west. This would have six heavy brigades, the 101st Airborne Division, and a Marine Brigade. Perhaps a heavy Army brigade and a Marine Brigade advance out of Jordan. The airborne brigade and Rangers grab airfields to airlift the 101st directly into Iraq. Or perhaps it will base out of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and make a big jump (with a refueling stop) all the way to the Baghdad region. Five heavy brigades link up with the Jordan thrust by advancing north out of Saudi Arabia and northwest out of Kuwait. It is possible that special forces will have staked out the routes so that the heavy armor can basically do a two-day road march to the western Baghdad suburbs. It could take a week if we advance in combat formation.

Now the only question is how fast we can airlift what we need into the theater or adjoining areas. I really hope we are going before the Blix report is made. What more do we reasonably need to do to satisfy our so-called allies? I say we've done enough and it is about time to take care of business.

On to Baghdad.

The Supremacy of Hope Over Experience

I suppose it says a lot about us that we and others are shocked that North Korea has announced that it is withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Said the article:

In a statement released by North Korea's official news agency this afternoon, the insular communist country claimed "freedom from the binding force of the safeguards accord with the International Atomic Energy Agency," the U.N. watchdog that monitors the 1970 treaty, which has more than 180 countries as signatories.

Well, duh.

What was the first clue that North Korea was out of the NPT? Their one or two nukes that they already have? Or was it the clear pursuit of nuclear material that even the North Korean apologists can’t ignore? (though they can blame it on the United States, saying we ‘provoked’ them into going nuclear) What exactly was “binding” about their paper adherence to the NPT?

Honestly, only the most densely hopeful could be actually shocked at this announcement. What has changed by this development? Both before and after, the North Koreans have made it clear that they want nukes. For those who cover their eyes with treaties, soothed by the words and able to ignore the actions of North Korea, this statement is shocking. But that says more about them than the North Koreans. The shocked westerners (and I include the South Koreans and Japanese here—they are part of the West) want to be fooled. Life is easier then. Then they can hurl insults at America, blaming us for disturbing their afternoon tea.

Clear the decks. Let’s take down Saddam already. Before more international surprises distract us or derail us from driving a stake through the heart of that madman.

Price of Delay

Is this a price we will pay for delaying war? Does Iraq have jammers that the Russians sold them that will throw off our GPS-guided bombs (JDAMs)? This is an example of the reason I have harped on going sooner rather than later. We did need some time to prepare but every day past mid-December has been a gift to the Iraqis. Giving your enemy time to prepare just means that they will prepare a surprise for us. Even if we do something to counter the Iraqi jammers, the Iraqis may come up with something else.

Obviously, we can defeat Iraq without JDAMs. We did it in 1991, after all. And JDAMs are not suited to mobile battles anyway against moving targets—the enemy probably won’t cooperate by keeping their armor stationary long enough to input a grid coordinate. Still, for fixed targets we will have problems if those jammers exist and work. Maybe we are lucky and some Russians scammed the Iraqis with Vietnamese FM radios labeled “GPS Jammer-O-Matic.”

Seriously, if we delay and invade and our enemy failed to come up with anything to thwart us, my worries will have been for nothing. But we aren’t there yet. And until we are, I will worry every day that the Iraqis are using this time to their advantage—and our disadvantage.

On to Baghdad already.

The Greatest Danger

The repeated question, ‘Is Iraq or North Korea the greater danger?’ is misleading. The clear implication of those who ask the question is that if North Korea represents a greater threat to America right now, we should drop everything and take care of the North Korea problem. Oddly enough, these people were quick to cry out that we should not deal with Iraq before we mopped up Afghanistan. Since they now say, after the fact of course, that Afghanistan was a cakewalk and no real military challenge, they must have thought Iraq a stronger threat. Yet they did not advocate Baghdad First. Was it a mistake to take on the Taliban first? Was it an error to commit forces to the Philippines where they helped rip up some minor Taliban wannabees?

Anyway, what of the argument? First of all, this assumes we can take care of the greater problem. And since many who sing this tune oppose war with Iraq, will they really support a far more difficult, bloody, and dangerous war simply because North Korea has nukes now? Good Lord, the number of North and South Korean civilians who would die in a North Korea First strategy would dwarf the deaths of innocents in the Gulf! And if they don’t support war after North Korea says, no thank you, we’ll just keep our nukes, will they then say ‘Ok, we looked at it and it is too tough, we can go back to dealing with Iraq?’ (And hope Saddam didn’t use the months or years it takes the NK Firsters to recant in order to develop lots of nasty weapons to lob at us?)

And if we turn our attention to North Korea, what happens if the Chinese decide to lob some missiles at Taiwan and take a crack at invasion or, oh say, ram one of our unarmed reconnaissance planes over international waters? Do we then drop North Korea and turn to face the greater threat?

Or maybe we should be focused on making sure Pakistan is a nice stable, suburban democracy lest Islamists fling some A-bombs at us or their Indian neighbors? Or, what if Saddam explodes a nuclear device in his western desert while we focus on North Korea? Do we then get to consider Saddam the greater threat? Do we count the nukes and daily switch around who is number one and who is two?

Clearly—or at least it should be clear—we cannot scamper about the planet reacting to every threat, dropping a lesser one to focus on the new greater threat. Greater danger is not static or easily compartmentalized. Will the threat as a whole be diminished or increased by dealing with Iraq, Iran, or North Korea first? Clearly, if we take down one nuclear state while letting another go nuclear in that time frame, it is inferior to taking out the nuclear aspirant first and then turning to the existing nuclear state. We go from dealing with two nuclear-armed thugs to ‘only’ one. Indeed, if we are lucky, taking down nuclear aspirant Iraq will inspire a revolution in Iran, thus taking out another nuclear aspirant. Facing the last—nuclear-armed—member of the Axis of Evil will be far easier then. By whittling down the number of threats by taking out the relatively easiest first, we reduce the chance that we will be distracted or stymied in dealing with the next threat. Fewer psychos around with or without nukes is better.

Indeed, if we discovered that Bahrain had a nuke and Shia fanatics take over, it might be wise to drop Rangers and the Marines on that island ASAP, delaying a strike on Iraq for a couple weeks, in order to quickly reduce the population of mad mullahs with nukes.

Another problem with going after the strongest threat of the moment is that the price we pay to defeat that threat could exhaust us and prevent us from taking on other threats. If we invade North Korea, assuming we overcome all the obstacles to actually carrying one out, will we contemplate our 10,000 dead and say, ‘Ok boys, on to Iraq now! I’m just getting my second wind!’ Heck no, we’ll be grateful to have won at all and will lick our wounds and ponder how we got into that mess. I guarantee the NK Firsters won’t proclaim the wisdom of their strategy and demand action on the second-tier threat immediately—even if Iraq doesn’t get nukes in the meantime. It is a very real possibility that lesser threats will grow too strong while we go after the strongest.

No, the greatest threat is failing to take out who we can when the price is cheapest. Time is not on our side, and if we delay too much, we will simply have the choice of which nuclear armed despot we wish to confront first. Or we’ll learn to live in a hideous world where a nuclear-armed thug can do what he wishes short of nuking an American city, knowing that we are helpless to stop him at a price we are willing to pay.

On to Baghdad.

Further Material Breach

Come on, work it baby. Blix won’t say the Iraqis are in material breach but he has been forced to describe the less than cooperative posture of the Iraqis. With Blix providing that information, we are free to draw our own conclusions about Iraqi compliance with UNSCR 1441. "Anything less is not cooperation and will constitute further material breach," [U.S. Ambassador John ] Negroponte said, using diplomatic language that could pave the way for war.

Pave. Pave. Pave. And quickly now, on to Baghdad.

No Smoking Gun

Blix says he found nothing. Big surprise, there. But please boys and girls in the government, bring down the hammer. Haul out the evidence that shows what a farce UN inspections are, and that invasion is the only answer to Iraq’s odious regime.

I’ve been confident that we are pressing toward war and that we will not be turned back. But the delays give me cause to have a kernel of worry grow that we might be winging it.

Say it ain’t so.

Turkish Front?

We are asking Turkey to base 80,000 troops in Turkey? When the Turkish public opposes strongly letting us use their country as a launching pad? When most of the conscript regular Iraqi army is up there? When all of our heavy armor is stockpiled south of Iraq?

If we invade from Turkey, we will need to destroy many Iraqi regular divisions on the way to Baghdad. We will need to ship armor to Turkey. We will need a logistics system to rival what we are building in the south. We will have to deploy significant forces in Kuwait anyway to keep Saddam from lunging south in a desperation move to grab something of value—or at least destroy it.

We only need to invade northern Iraq with 10th Mountain and maybe the British air mobile brigade that is going to be sent to the war. That plus Turkish troops to occupy northern Iraq and keep the regular Iraqi army busy. Hey, maybe 10th Mountain (and special forces, of course) will be used against the al Qaeda remnants regrouping with Iranian help in Kurdish areas.

Our main effort will come from an arc ranging from Jordan in the west to Kuwait in the east, with the mission of bypassing the regular Iraqi army and hitting Baghdad from the west. It all depends on our diplomacy for where the bulk of the heavy armor will strike from: mostly Jordan or mostly Kuwait, with some from Saudi Arabia perhaps. We can avoid the Iraqi army so that we can risk accepting their defection and also avoid the burden of taking them prisoner in the advance on Baghdad. Otherwise we’d have to waste time and resources and lives destroying them just in case.

Plus, after turning down the American request for hosting 80,000 troops, the Turkish government will look good for paring it down to a single truncated division with a British addition and a relatively small amount of air power above what we already deploy there.

Finally, the ‘dispute’ keeps the Iraqis focused on the north and helps to freeze their troops in place.

On to Baghdad. Soon please. I start to worry about events and outside influences that could derail the invasion.

The Second Material Breach

The Europeans have claimed that they needed to see the Iraqis fail to cooperate with the UN inspectors before they would consider Iraq in material breach of the UN Security Council’s will and therefore justify a war. It looks like Blix will be able to report that on Thursday. Gaps in the Iraqi December declaration have not been closed despite UN requests for clarifying information. Iraq has not provided it. I imagine that is why even the French have warned their troops to prepare for war (and I’m not talking about bleaching and ironing their hankies, here).

A declaration of material breach that even the French and Russians will accept is near.

On to Baghdad.

Rolling Over

Senator Lieberman thinks the Bush administration is making the North Korean standoff worse because of its harsh actions:

Right now North Korea is rapidly accelerating its production of plutonium to fuel nuclear weapons, creating a direct threat to our nearly 40,000 troops there as well as destabilizing the entire Pacific Rim. In short, the Bush administration has bullied its way to the opposite result from what it presumably wanted -- a non-nuclear North Korea.

Indeed, one of our most vital security interests is to keep North Korea from developing into a nuclear power. This was the impetus behind the Agreed Framework, negotiated in 1994 by the Clinton administration in close partnership with our Asian allies, which closed off the most likely and dangerous road to a nuclear North Korea: the development of weapons-grade plutonium. And in fact, the North Koreans kept that central part of the 1994 agreement. The framework, in turn, opened the doors to improved relations between the Koreas and even between the North and the United States.

He asks, “Did anyone in the administration really believe that Kim's reaction to that act [withholding oil shipments in retaliation for North Korea’s violation of past agreements] would be to roll over?”

Apparently, the senator believes we should roll over at the first threat from the deranged Pillsbury Dough Boy. And why shouldn’t Senator Lieberman think that? Or North Korea for that matter? Every time the North has rattled nuclear or chemical sabers, the United States has handed out the goodies. And the senator should keep in mind that North Korea actually does have nuclear weapons now (or maybe just one nuclear weapon). That, and the ability to surge produce weapons once he gets the raw materials. Such is the glorious result of our past wiser policy of negotiating and giving.

Do we have a tougher option? Don’t know. We certainly don’t have a military option that avoids the likelihood of tremendous civilian casualties and the loss of many American soldiers. But then, we didn’t even before Pyongyang got nukes.

But certainly, it is foolish to blame the current standoff on the current administration. Many presidents and Congresses from both parties have let us get to this point. We may disagree on tactics, but let’s really absorb Lieberman’s caveat that the crisis is North Korea’s fault instead of reciting it rote prior to moving on and blaming the current administration for refusing to look away from what has been going on for decades.

Oh, and a cheap shot here—isn’t the good senator “inconsistent” for supporting harsh action against Iraq but not North Korea? I believe that is the standard charge from the anti-Iraq war side when noting we do not threaten to invade North Korea [No, he is not being inconsistent, for those who have not read this all along. I consider that charge to be ridiculous]

Clarification

Ok, part of the administration strategy is to seek UN sanctions on North Korea. I had a moment of forgetfulness there. Personally, I wouldn't go that route. Keep it quiet and avoid rubbing North Korea's face in official sanctions. We can do the same thing quietly with our own diplomacy. Shoot, how valuable are UN sanctions anyway?

North Korea Threatens War

So North Korea says sanctions means war? Hmm, and I thought they only wanted nukes to deter us from attacking? But if they attack now, they have maybe one or two nukes. Would they use them? One on South Korea and one on Japan for spite? And then we would have all the excuse we need to flatten the north’s military and nuclear infrastructure with nuclear retaliation?

Sounds to me like they are bluffing. And if not, better they should attack prematurely than when they have a lot more nukes.

And it does amaze me that they think have a right to have us give them stuff. And then do what they wanted to anyway. But I wasn’t aware that we were going to blockade them. I thought we were just going to stop helping them and pressure others to stop helping them. That’s a tad different from an act of war. Let them buy all the food and oil they want. We just shouldn’t be giving it away. Maybe that will cut into their military readiness.

Former Defense Secretary Cohen says correctly that this is a crisis regardless of what the administration says. He also believes that since war is not wise and withdrawal is not wise (I concur in both judgments), at some point concessions will be necessary. It depends on what he means by concessions. If he means pay the blackmail—heck no. If he means that we should be able to give something in return for something substantial and of higher value to us, then sure. But let’s remember who we are dealing with here. North Korea’s track record is awful.
Yet David Ignatius says that the president made a mistake calling North Korea evil because we cannot possibly negotiate with evil. He says, “It's time to choose. On Korea, Bush can't be a moralist and a pragmatist at the same time.”

As I like to say when I read something like this, huh?

North Korea is evil. From nukes, to hacking our unarmed soldiers to death with axes in the DMZ, to blowing up South Korean government officials, to kidnapping civilians, to digging tunnels under the DMZ, to wearing 1950s era bad guy uniforms, these thugs qualify as evil. Yet some would have us maintain some false sort of consistency and argue we cannot deem them evil while negotiating?

Ignatius says, “Bush may still talk about North Korean leader Kim Jong Il as someone he "loathes," who "starves his people." But meanwhile, Powell continues to insist that "nobody's going to attack North Korea" and that a diplomatic solution will be found. No wonder people are confused.”

Again, huh? Who is confused? This is nonsense. Why on earth is having the moral clarity to know that a country’s rulers are evil preclude one from negotiating? Why is it considered an impossibility to refrain from invading someone because we loathe their regime? It is a false choice that we must declare them evil and destroy them or accept them as a normal country and negotiate. Did not President Reagan famously call the Soviet Union an “evil empire?” (For which he was mercilessly attacked at the time) And did not that same president negotiate with that evil state’s rulers? And did we not in the end win? I’d rather talk to the North Koreans than unleash a nuclear war. Even one in which we don’t get hit. But there is a long way to go before talking becomes paying blackmail. I think we are better armed to avoid that slippery slope if we have no delusions about who we are dealing with—one hopes that Powell will never be seen dancing with those dictators as Albright did. Drag out the talks, make the squeezing so gradual that at no point will any incremental increase seem like a reason to Pyongyang for war. (I’ve read that if you put a frog in water and raise the temperature fast, it will jump out; but if you do it slowly, it will boil to death, unaware of the peril.)

Kristoff complains that the administration is making the situation worse. He may have a point (although part of making it worse is dragging out our invasion of Iraq, a point that Kristoff would surely disagree), but our harsher talk and refusal to pay while they play did not start this crisis of North Korean noncompliance. They have been at it for years—we just called them on it last year. But remember who we will talk to and what they are. Kristoff provides one chilling fact that just reeks of “1984” when he relates:

While in North Korea years ago, I barged into as many private homes as possible, and every single one had The Speaker.

The Speaker is like a radio, but permanently on and without a choice of stations. It's the electronic umbilical cord from the Great Leader, waking citizens up each morning and putting them to bed each evening with a mix of heroic songs, denunciations of "the American war-maniacs" and tributes to Kim Jong Il, "the greatest of great men produced by heaven."

(Oops. Now North Koreans are going to wake up to hear The Speaker declare that even the imperialist reactionary New York Times has hailed the Great Leader as, quote, the greatest of great men, unquote.)

The Speaker is a reminder that North Korea is like no other country in the world today. It was eerie to interview groups of North Koreans and then hear them praise Kim Jong Il in unison, like synchronized robots[.]

Oh, and one more painful description of that gulag with a UN seat.

And by all means, finish off Iraq already. We really need to clear the decks to deal with North Korea. It is a crisis.

Invasion and Victory

“The U.S. military is assembling a ground force for a possible invasion of Iraq that could exceed 100,000 troops and include three to four heavy Army divisions, an airborne division, a Marine division and an assortment of Special Operations forces, according to defense officials and analysts.” The Army has plans for a heavy invasion force, apparently (which is a relief). Toss in a British armored division and we have more than enough firepower to crush conventional Iraqi opposition in the open; and possibly fight off an Iranian intervention.

My relief that no “light” options are still on the table is balanced by the time it will take to get this force to the Gulf in order to invade. This size of a force seems to point to an invasion date well into February if not later. If Iraq is the only target, two heavy divisions are enough to destroy the Iraqi armor that might resist us and drive to Baghdad. If we are waiting for five American and British heavy divisions, we are either being overly cautious regarding Iraq or fearful of Iranian intervention.

Or, we are seeking tactical surprise by lining up a huge invasion force in a pipeline all the way back to Germany and then America, so that everybody will be waiting for the last troops shipping from America to arrive.

We could gain tactical surprise by attacking with what is at the front of the pipeline. What is at the back would be ready to roll either to the Gulf in case the war widens; or to South Korea much faster than we could otherwise accomplish if they sat in their bases.

North Korea is already trying to exploit our war with Iraq and it is possible that Iran will see a lesson in that and figure they can smother domestic unrest with a stab at the “Great Satan.”

It seems to me that we need more infantry rather than more armor if we are to fight our way into Baghdad. Maybe one or two of the heavy divisions cited will never go; but infantry units that nobody is mentioning will be airlifted in instead. Shoot, maybe everything is as the papers are reporting. Stranger things have happened, I suppose.

Iraq’s main hope is to prevent our war machine from rolling over them. Once we start, we won’t stop until we take Baghdad. We give our enemies too much time. Time to increase our casualties and time to distract us.

Assuming victory, it is good that we plan for an occupation of Iraq to purge it of Saddam’s thugs, uproot the WMD programs, and get the country on its feet. I don’t see what choice we have. Hopefully, we can draw down to minimal conventional forces in a relatively brief period of time.

One thought on invasion: Could reports of increased Saudi cooperation mean our heavy armor will make the main effort out of northern Saudi Arabia? A couple roads heading north out of Saudi Arabia toward Baghdad could be used for two heavy divisions. Equipment in Kuwait could be moved fairly quickly to jump off points there. A minor thrust out of Jordan could be all that is needed from that direction to open up that road as a supply line. The 101st might airlift from Germany right into captured airfields in the west seized either by the ground invasion, paratroopers, or the lead brigade of the 101st if it can make a long helicopter assault into western Iraq from Kuwait. The northern thrust with the Turks and 10th Mountain would not need to change, nor would the feint by a phantom V Corps out of Kuwait heading north via Nasiriyah or the Marine/British capture of Basra. I’m just speculating, but months ago some unnamed military official said our invasion plan was imaginative; and everything public seems to point to a relatively plain sledgehammer launched from Kuwait. That just can’t be right. We used a left hook to go around the Iraqis in 1991 to go right for the Republican Guards that were the Iraqi center of gravity. Now it makes more sense for an even wider left hook to bypass the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers valley to strike directly at Baghdad out of the west.

On to Baghdad, hopefully before the Blix report.

Japan Nukes

Just one thing to say to those who think we should encourage Japan to get nukes to counter North Korea, and apparently to teach the Chinese a lesson for not restraining Pyongyang: are you nuts? If the Japanese start deploying nukes, the Chinese will end their restrained attitude toward nukes. They so far have appeared to follow a minimum deterrence posture and have not tried to mimic the Soviet attitude of more is always better. If the Japanese get nukes, the Chinese will start building them, and if they go to overtime on deploying these, I wouldn't count on the Chinese building only short-range nukes capable of reaching Japan. A Japanese-Chinese arms race would endanger us. If the North Koreans get nukes, we will need robust anti-missiles big time to keep the Japanese from arming and to keep a chain reaction from starting. If the Japanese ever think that they can't shoot down a North Korean nuclear strike, they will worry whether we can reliably defend them. If the North Koreans get nukes that can reach us and overwhelm our defenses, Japan will question our commitment to lose Seattle and San Fransisco for them. Indeed, with such a possibility facing us, it might be necessary to consider pre-emptive strikes using our nukes to disarm North Korea and destroy their armed forces. We'd be sacrificing Seoul but letting this spiral into an arms race in Asia will not be in our interest.

Wily North Koreans, indeed. They may yet spark a war with their paranoid view of the world. We've been happy enough to let them starve in their Stalinist hell hole for fifty years without destroying them yet they think they are always outwitting us and stopping our imminent invasion. Nukes will finally stop us for good they think.

Nuclear-armed dumbasses who can't feed their people. Wonderful. Squeezing the North to try to force their collapse before they can build dozens of nuclear missiles may be risky, but it may be the least risky choice we have.