Reply #16: Are you talking about me? [View All]

[wadestock]

31 years DOD R&D experience, subject matter expert in smart weapons, command/control demolitions and munitions and plenty of things relating the ability to kill tanks without wasting lives on the ground. That is exactly the aim of most of the technologies that I work on. But credentials are not necessary to see the obvious point of how lopsided our forces were in comparison to theirs. Obviously we could have controlled the tempo of the engagement. Obviously there was no significant threat that would have materialized over time.

The argument so far put forth is that we had to go all out to minimize losses....perhaps because of a threat that bio-weapons might be used against us.

But this supposes a ground war in which we were hell bent to mix it up....and that in some oddball ill-constructed ground war in which we didn’t really know what we were doing, we would have incurred MORE losses than we already have had?!!

Of course many effective battle plans other than an all out blitzkrieg could have been effective in containing the problem while providing breathing room to entertain other options. I pointed out that after the oil fields were secured, there was no threat of losing much of anyone else on the ground while we conducted surgical air strikes. Any attacks on our ground forces would have been cleanly blow away using our airforce and ground defensive operations. Time would also have allowed smoothing out other countries and obtaining the use of other air fields to assist in air operations, but even this wasn’t necessary given time.

The difference between what I have proposed as a logical “first phase” of taking a military “action” (rather than war) against Iraq would have been to set the scene for a potentially larger military action. Having ground forces in a “holding pattern” while airforce pummeled and eliminated targets, there would be increased evidence over time and rising confidence that bio-weapons were not the threat. There wouldn’t have been anything approaching the uneasiness of Desert Storm (scuds going to Israel) by virtue of the fact these threats had actually been dealt with effectively during the years of inspections and weapons DESTRUCTION. This fact would have become more and more evident over time.

The point is this....we NEEDED that time to prove to ourselves that there really wasn’t any threat. Doesn’t that make sense? That is one of the most significant points that has to be appreciated. This would have been, in effect, somewhat of an acid test that bio-weapons didn't exist.

Side point - another basic advantage of taking things slow is the elimination of loses due to friendly fire. The truth of Desert Storm didn’t come out right away (hundreds lost due to friendly fire)....and we’ll have to possibly wait to get the real story on this war. I know we’ve worked since to greatly reduce that, but in any fast paced encounter, the statistics of these problems goes way up.