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Interesting, but pretty much as I predicted in an earlier post.
The Mother of
All Strategies. It's not clear how the 'Republican Guard' and 'Special Republican Guard'
are related to the 'Elite Republican Guard' (ERG) which people normally
talk about (I guess ERG = SRG). What the article misses is that:
- The US can besiege all his cities.
- Saddam will lose control of his troops as soon as he is physically
isolated from them, and can't torture anyone who surrenders
or defects.
- The US doesn't have to have Baghdad to control Iraq. The oil and farms are largely outside
of the cities (obviously).
While Baghdad may have a population of 4.3 million, it is still
geographically small, and can be easily contained. The US just needs to take out the easy cities and declare the largest
fallen city the new Iraqi capital, install a puppet government, set a date for
democratic elections, and
start pumping oil! And all while Saddam still controls Baghdad. 4.3 million
hungry people with no electricity or proper sanitation are hard to control, and
with a standing army of 700,000, nearly all the soldiers will have suffering
family members. The Iraqi troops will eventually take Saddam out
themselves. And the US will come out of it smelling like a rose - as long as
they can stay away from the poison gas or the nukes.
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