This the Cordesman paper on Iraq. This is an open thread.
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Cordesman had an earlier paper (circa 2002) about a possible war with Iraq.
Its title was telling: “Preparing for a self-inflicted Wound”. Worth reading again.
Also Babak, a title only HIM could love:
Revisions in Need of Revising
Then, William Lind questions the strategic conceptualization of THE LONG WAR
Finally, Jeffrey Record Spears the GWOT in it’s ‘Strategic Exposure’, as General Franks Might Put It.
A veritable smorgasboard of PDF here.
Will read yours this evening, Babak.
As a lawyer I guess this excellent summary, along with many others like it, reminds me of an endless indictment process. Or an endless bill of particulars, if you will. I’m ready to move on to the trial and, if appropriate, the sentencing phase of the matter at hand. Even if the trial only takes place in the political sense. See this Fall, hopefully.
I’ve been reading Cordesman all through this war. He’s become bleak as winter in the last two months. Bad sign.
“The GWOT as it has so far been defined and conducted is
strategically unfocused, promises much more than it can deliver,
and threatens to dissipate scarce U.S. military and other means over
too many ends. It violates the fundamental strategic principles of
discrimination and concentration.” Dr Record is correct but a PHD was not necessary to draw this conclusion.
A Link to Babak’s Preparing for a Self-inflicted Wound 10 pg fast PDF download:
LINK
Also Cordesman Interviewed by the Council on Foreign Relations:
LINK
Babak’s “Preparing for a Self-Inflicted Wound” is amazingly prophetic. Almost every single prescription was disregarded by the Bush Admin and the Pentagon, and almost every single one has come back to bite us.
#5, 6, 9, 11, 13, 14 are especially telling.
Cordesman does indeed present
what amounts to an indictment,
yet, as a good rationalist,
he fails to frame it in emotionally charged
criminological terms. What is
at issue is much worse than
a blunder, or even an unending
series of blunders, it is
a crime (to reverse Talleyrand’s
bon mot).
I agree Hannah, hence my request for the ‘trial’.