| Monday
August 10, 2009
Letter from England (and Belgium)
I spent the week in Belgium at a conference on
anticipatory systems-- systems that try to evaluate the payoff of their
choices before making those choices. My research interests are in
neuroscience, and understanding the goal-oriented behaviour--anticipatory
behaviour-- seen in animals is one of the harder current problems. A good
understanding of how animals plan and predict the outcomes of their plans
would be a major step towards real artificial intelligence. There's a very
recent paper in Nature by Lubenov and Siapas that shows the existence of a
time-space representation of the local environment in the hippocampus, so
the substrate for this sort of predictive process exists. If the brain is
able to lay out plans as time-space representations, than it can use pattern
matching and learning on those plans to do some of the things that animals
and humans beat computers at. There are some nasty unsolved problems--the
brain is locally 2-D and time space is 4-D (at least in bats) so how 4-D
space is embedded in the 2-D brain is still undetermined. Walter Schempp
suggested that the embedding of 4-D into 2-D need only be conformal and not
topological for what I need. Unfortunately, the conference was dominated by
theoretical physicists, mathematicians, sociologists, and philosophers, so I
didn't get the feedback I needed.
Stories involving the UK justice system:
1. Police told to ignore a ruling of the European
Court of Human Rights about their collection of DNA from the innocent. <http://tinyurl.com/mdhlum
> <http://tinyurl.com/msj7kt>
. 2. Rush to judgement--about the haste of the IPCC to whitewash the police
after the death of Ian Tomlinson <http://tinyurl.com/m6oujo>
3. Crown Prosecution Service spends £20000 to try a man for stealing a £0.25
banana. Jury finds the man innocent. <http://tinyurl.com/
lqk6kw> . This should be compared to the failure of the courts and
police to take reports of rape seriously. <http://tinyurl.com/m2mc6t>
Education:
1. A few intelligent comments about the English
infatuation with exams. <http://tinyurl.com/mctqco>
The English exam culture is bound up into the forces maintaining the English
class structure and--in the absence of a 'Sputnik' moment--I expect it will
remain stable indefinitely. Students will continue to be required to choose
their life speciality at 14, and will follow a very narrow programme from
that point on. The English remind me of the Greenland Vikings, who thought
of themselves as European burghers, and in the end died rather than adapt to
the increasing cold. 2. The Government is proposing that poor students
receive preference in university admissions. <http://tinyurl.com/lor3zx>
Times comment: <http://tinyurl.com/n33umc
> 3. Universities closing courses to UK students while still
admitting foreign (full tuition) students. <http://tinyurl.com/kkdxv9>
4. PC language madness. <http://tinyurl.com/lp5r8n>
The Equality and Human Rights Commission is a bit more sensible on the
subject. It says: "It is by consent of the speakers, not at the directives
of higher authority, that language changes most effectively."
Politics:
Labour does like to spend money. <http://tinyurl.com/neuzw8>
-- "If academic research is not devoted to finding the
truth, it is a form of propaganda, and not necessarily to be preferred to
other forms, much cheaper and perhaps more persuasive." (Russell 1993)
Harry Erwin
=================
The costs of nuclear power
Hello Jerry,
You pointed out the problem of nuclear power, but
minimized it.
Never mind the cost/kw of 30-40 year old
reactors/generators. Today, while the cost of constructing, fueling, and
operating a nuclear plant can be calculated, and would enable power
companies to deliver nuclear-generated power to the grid at VERY competitive
prices, the cost of getting PERMISSION to construct, fuel, and operate the
plant is essentially infinite, in that there is NO number that you could
assign to that part of the overall cost of nuclear power that would
guarantee that the permit could be obtained. The time of construction is
also infinite for the same reason. There is NO date on which a power company
could commit to delivering power from a nuclear plant that is not doing so
already. So, with infinite cost and infinite delivery times it is not
surprising to learn that nuclear power is 'not competitive' with other forms
of power.
In reality however, nuclear is once again competitive
with hydro and fossil fueled plants because, as we speak today, the cost of
permits and time of construction for both of them are ALSO essentially
infinite, as no finite amount of money or time would guarantee a kilowatt on
the grid from from THOSE sources either.
Bob Ludwick
==
Nuclear Power Costs
Doctor Pournelle,
I work for a company which provides IT services for
major corporations. As part of that I used to do IT (and still do
escalations) for a major U. S. based multinational corporation with a
Nuclear division (where I was assigned). I also used to be a Navy Nuc (a
while ago!).
As of ~2008, the lifetime costs for new generation
plants were $0.07/KwHour.
-- Rodney G. Graves
"There are no dangerous weapons; there are only
dangerous men."
Robert Anson Heinlein, Starship Troopers
Which is comparable to other costs, and well
below some. In Kentucky the cost of coal fired electricity is below 5
cents ($0.05) while in some places it can be as high as 20 cents.
Calculating actual costs can be tricky because of the cost of building and
decommissioning the power plants, transportation and cost of fuel
including such transport costs as accidents at grade crossings, coal mine
disasters, and such like. The cost of oil is known from the world market,
but the US had to spend a lot of military money to keep it there; war
costs are seldom factored into electricity cost estimates, but they are
different for oil, coal, wind, nuclear, etc.
It is clear enough to me that if we had invested
the $300 billion what the Iraq war was projected to cost before we
invaded) into nuclear power plants in 2003 we would be a great deal better
off now. Of course I said that at the time, but few were listening. (I
also advocated building monuments -- 4 square block rubble piles -- in all
cities where there was dancing in the streets over 9/11. That would have
been cheap in blood and treasure including non-American blood. It is
better to be feared than loved.
I don't suppose many people talk that way now.
In any event, the major cost of nuclear power is
payment to lawyers; but then I wrote that in 1973. It was true then and
now. Perhaps we prefer lawyers to cheap power.
==========
cosmological death ray
"Death star galaxy" could obliterate the atmospheres
of planets
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22299201/
ns/technology_and_science-space/
I smell a great novel. Think how much trouble the
residents would be put through; first political and then technological.
RH
Holy Moley!
==========
"If you took the bottom 10
percent, they have 30,000 teachers that should probably find another
profession, yet no one in California can tell you which teacher is in which
category."
Of course, none of this is actually about *education*
- it's about access to more of the public purse.
<http://www.mercurynews.com/
news/ci_13027489?nclick_check=1>
- Roland Dobbins
===============
An FPRI essay on The First
Gulf War
I recommend this to everyone interested in modern
military history. It says what should be said.
GULF WAR I
by LTG (Ret) Bernard
Trainor
If you tell your class that
"Today, we are going to study the first Persian Gulf War," you will get an
unenthusiastic response. That war took place almost twenty years ago, in
1991. Today's students weren't born yet. To them, it's ancient history.
And yet Gulf War I was a
watershed in American history, especially American military history. By the
time today's students graduate, the stream of events that was set in motion
by that War will still be affecting America's youth, who will still be
fighting and dying in the deserts and mountains of the Middle East.
Youngsters who are learning
history, and particularly military history, in today's academic world see it
as a recitation of events almost like a movie script. It starts, it goes
through, and then it ends. It's devoid of drama or uncertainty. And yet
military history has a human dimension that surpasses any other subject.
Human beings are killing one another. Teachers should try to imbue these
events with some of their drama.
Gulf War I is a case study
of the drama. It was a war of erroneous assumptions and miscalculations on
both sides. The end was full of surprises and disagreements that have stayed
with us to this very day. This was the first major post-Cold War U.S.
military engagement. From it came a new organizing principle. The U.S. has
always had to have organizing principles. In the 1930s, it was getting out
of the Depression. Then came WWII, the defeat of fascism and the Japanese.
During the Cold War, the organizing principle was dealing with the Soviet
Union and the possibility of nuclear war. After the Soviet Union collapsed,
there was no organizing principle. Then events in the Middle East took a
turn. Since that time, the United States' organizing principle has been
dealing with the Middle East, with its many ramifications--fundamental
Islam, terrorism, insurgencies, failed states, WMD. It all starts with the
Kuwait war. But to understand that, it's well to understand the context of
the times.
Through the 1970s, Arab Iraq
and Persian Iran both sought hegemony in their own right, but each was
somewhat of a satellite of one of the two great powers, with the U.S.
supporting the Shah in Iran and the Soviet Union supporting Saddam Hussein
in Iraq.
Things changed when the
Ayatollah Khomeini came on the scene in 1979 and there was the Islamic
revolution in Iran, which ousted Shah Reza Pahlavi. Iran under Khomeini
turned against the U.S., which they saw as a supporter of the hated Shah.
Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was waning as a threat.
In a reversal, the U.S.
began to support the Iraqis against its former friend Iran. Meanwhile,
Saddam decided to take advantage of the weakness he perceived in Iran as a
result of the fall of the Shah and the dissolution of the Iranian Army to
attack across the Euphrates into Iran. This led to a long, bitter, and
enormously costly war that finally came to an unsatisfactory conclusion with
millions of casualties on both sides.
The war left Saddam badly in
debt. He came to see himself as Saladin in the Arab world, leading the fight
against the hated Persians, and felt that Iraq had borne the brunt of the
fighting. His campaign had been funded largely by war loans from Kuwait and
Saudi Arabia. Now the bill was coming due, and the Kuwaitis in particular
were anxious to be paid back. Saddam sought forgiveness of the debt,
claiming the Kuwaitis were ungrateful. Besides, he reasoned, looking for
excuses to get out of paying the debt, Kuwait was not really a legitimate
government, but was carved out of the Iraqi portion of the Ottoman empire.
It was no more than the 14th of the Iraqi provinces, to Saddam. Moreover, he
claimed that Kuwait was stealing oil from the Iraqi Ramallah oil field by
slant drilling. That may have been true, but it was largely a pretext.
Saddam was uncertain how the
international community would receive his claim that Iraq was entitled to
reclaim Kuwait. The Arab states interpreted this as mere saber-rattling. As
to the U.S., Saddam called in U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie for a long
conversation about Iraq's complaints against Kuwait. In the version
published by the New York Times, Glaspie told Saddam the following, which
was music to his ears. "We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like
your border disagreement with Kuwait." Saddam heard that the U.S. would
stand clear, interpreting it almost as a green- light to go ahead with
aggression against Kuwait.
The U.S. government was
perfectly aware that Saddam was starting to mass his armies down along the
border with Kuwait. Discussions were held in the Pentagon and NSC on whether
to send a signal to Saddam to deter him. It was proposed to send some F-15s
over to Saudi Arabia and to move an amphibious task force into the Gulf
waters. But the Arab leaders told us that sending planes or a fleet might be
provocative, so we didn't do it. This, beside Glaspie's comments, convinced
Saddam that the U.S. was not going to intervene, because if we were really
concerned, we would have deployed some forces to the region signaling him to
back off.
It came as an enormous
surprise to the U.S. when Saddam made his move in August 1990. The Iraqis
took the Kuwaiti capital and then moved toward the Saudi-Kuwaiti border.
The concern in the U.S. was
not so much for Kuwait per se but oil--if Saddam had been able to surprise
us as he had in Kuwait, he might just surprise us and continue on into Saudi
Arabia for its oilfields. Saddam was aware of this and afraid of the U.S.
reaction, so he pulled back from the border to a line further back. The area
in between became no man's land, and he started to build two unoccupied
lines of defense, one a couple of miles back from the first. While it was
devoid of troops, it became heavily mined, crisscrossed with barbed wire
entanglements and fire trenches.
President George H.W. Bush
sent Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff Colin Powell to talk to the Saudi king and princes to convince them to
allow American forces on Saudi soil. Saudi Arabia is a holy land, with Mecca
and Medina on its ground. Bringing foreign, Christian infidel forces into
the country was a very big thing to do. Cheney and Powell had difficulty
doing so, but finally their delegation convinced the king that Iraq really
was a threat to his nation and the king acceded to our request to land our
forces, which we began to do. We flew in aircraft and units of the 82nd
Airborne Division. We put in a Marine regiment in what was known as
Operation Desert Shield.
These forces dug in as a
signal to Saddam that he had best not move against Saudi Arabia (which he
had no intention of doing, although he did come up with contingency plans).
But he had bitten off more than he could chew. He didn't know the Americans
were going to react this way. How would he get out of this? In the meantime
his soldiers started to steal anything that was moveable in Kuwait.
The idea of getting involved
in Kuwait was not very popular with the American people. We had had the
experience of Beirut in 1983 where we'd gotten a bloody nose and an
embarrassing retreat. There was no desire to repeat the experience. The
Kuwait-Iraqi dispute was perceived in the eyes of many Americans to be about
the oil companies' interests. But there were three people in Washington who
were of a different view and they controlled the decision process: President
George H.W. Bush, Secretary James Baker, and Brent Scowcroft, the national
security advisor. (Officials like Cheney and Powell were on the periphery.)
The troika was determined to force Saddam to back down. But they could not
use force unless a coalition could be built to support direct action--not
only a foreign coalition, but a bipartisan American coalition. They would
first build up support abroad and then focus on the American people, able to
say to them "See, the international community supports our efforts, you
should, too."
President Bush worked the
outside world and succeeded in gaining support. The UN passed resolutions
condemning the Iraqis and told them to withdraw. Once this international
community had been built, and it was clear that even Arab states would join
a multinational coalition army to face the Iraqis, President Bush went to
the Congress to get American support for any military action that he might
deem necessary. When it came to giving the President the right to use
military force, it came down to a 52-47 vote in the Senate on January 12,
and 250-183 in the House, which was pretty close. So the idea that the
American people enthusiastically supported the war was suspect.
Even within the DoD and
Pentagon, there was great disagreement over how to deal with the Iraqi
threat. Cheney was a hawk, and felt we had to do something about the
invasion of Kuwait. Powell disagreed, arguing that Kuwait wasn't worth the
life of one American soldier. He proposed drawing the "line in the sand" at
the border of Saudi Arabia; if the Iraqis crossed it we'd fight; otherwise
we wouldn't. Cheney told Powell he was not reading the president very well;
Bush had decided that Iraq must be forced from Kuwait, by force, if needed.
Initially, the American
forces rushed to Saudi Arabia in August under were small. But the build-up
had started and eventually reached half-million troops, backed by an awesome
array of air and sea power with the latest in modern weapons and technology.
Saddam made the terrible
miscalculation in challenging the U.S., which at that time had a formidable
army that was "unemployed"--i.e. the Cold War was ending, leaving us with a
big army in Europe with no one to fight. We sent our forces from Germany and
from the U.S. to Saudi Arabia not to only defend that kingdom but to prepare
for an assault on the Iraqi army in Kuwait if it did not withdraw. So it was
not a very smart move on Saddam's part to invade Iraq at this particular
time.
The UN sanctions and
resolutions were taken, but nothing was happening in Kuwait to convince the
president and the coalition that they wouldn't have to resort to force to
expel Saddam. Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev sent Yevgeni Primikov, his
foreign minister, to Iraq to advise Saddam to withdraw from Kuwait, but
Saddam wasn't convinced the Americans would do more than drop some bombs, if
that. Knowing that the American public was casualty-averse, he did not
believe the U.S. had the stomach for war. After all, it had pulled out of
Vietnam and Beirut after some blood was shed. He also believed that in the
long run, the Soviet Union and the international community would deter the
U.S. from attacking. He was adamant about remaining in Kuwait. Once again,
he miscalculated.
There were Cassandras here
in the U.S. The Iraqi Army had fought the Iranians for eight years and was
battle-hardened, they held. We were sending into war a relatively untested,
post-Vietnam all-volunteer force whose quality was unknown. There were dire
predictions of American casualties in the range of 10,000 during the first
24 hours. Americans were nervous about liberating Kuwait by force.
In the White House, there
was certainty of a swift victory, but concern about Saddam's chemical,
biological, and nuclear weapons programs. There was abundant evidence of
very active Iraqi programs aimed at developing those weapons. This was fully
acknowledged by the international community. We knew of two particular sites
where the Iraqis had nuclear weapons development sites: al Qaim and al
Tuwaitha.
We wanted to see Saddam
withdraw, but didn't believe he would. Therefore we would invade and drive
him out by defeating his field army in Kuwait. The assumption was that he
would then probably be overthrown by an internal military coup, The
Administration wanted a regime change, but assuming a coup, there was no
need to go to Baghdad to oust the Iraqi president. Indeed, the UN resolution
which finally authorized force restricted the action to the liberation of
Kuwait. It said nothing about regime change in Baghdad.
How were we going to take on
the Iraqi field army? The plan according to General Colin Powell, Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was to isolate it in Kuwait and destroy it
with superior firepower and deft maneuver. As was mentioned earlier, the
Iraqis had built up the two lines of defenses. But they left the open desert
in the west undefended. They did not anticipate an attack coming from that
direction. The plan devised by General Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of the
coalition forces, was to conduct a prolonged air campaign against the Iraqi
infrastructure--political, economic, and military. At the same time a
multidivisional armored and mechanized corps would secretly move to the
west, blind to Iraqi intelligence and surveillance. Two Marine divisions in
the east would directly face the Iraqis. When the order to attack was given,
the Marines directly facing the Iraqis were to engage the Iraqis and hold
them in place while as planned the western task force cut behind them
severing their line of retreat, leaving them isolated and open to either
surrender or destruction.
When the air campaign
started on January 17, 1991, the Iraqis attempted to draw Israel into the
fight by launching Scud missiles at Tel Aviv. Saddam reckoned that the
Israelis would retaliate. This, he reasoned, would outrage the Arab members
of the coalition and undermine it. Once again he had miscalculated,
although, it took great pressure from the White House to persuade the
Israelis to stay out of the fight.
As the bombing campaign
progressed the Saudi government and CIA conducted a psychological campaign
encouraging the Shia population in southern Iraq, always suppressed by
Saddam, to "Rise up! Throw off your chains! This is your opportunity to rid
yourself of your tormenter! Be prepared for the Hallelujah day." The hope
was that between the destruction of Saddam's field forces, an uprising by
the Shias, and possibly an army coup it would be the end of Saddam.
Meanwhile, oblivious to an
attack from the west, the Iraqis planned to fight the Americans the same way
they had fought the Iranians. They established sequential defensive
positions behind the unoccupied barrier zone just above the border with
Saudi Arabia. The positions were occupied by the regular army, backed up by
armored Republican Guards divisions. The Iraqis planned to turn the barrier
zone into a killing zone in which to entrap and inflict intolerable
casualties on the attacking Americans with their abundance of artillery. Any
Americas that made it through the firestorm would be met by Iraqi infantry
and counter attacked and destroyed by the Republican Guard. It was exactly
what Schwarzkopf hoped they planned to do. His end run behind them from the
west would come as a complete surprise.
What the Iraqis also hadn't
counted upon was the effectiveness of the prolonged coalition air attacks.
Iraq was being devastated. Saddam decided to seize the initiative and start
the ground war. He would make Schwarzkopf react to a provocation and draw
the Americans into a premature counterattack. To do this, at the end of
January, he sent a mechanized task force south across the border into Saudi
Arabia to the seaport town of al Khafji, which had been evacuated of
civilians. The town was defended by a small Saudi Arabian force backed up by
Americans some miles to the south. Saddam planned to bait the Americans.
The Iraqis succeeded in
taking Khafji without difficulty, but Schwarzkopf reacted, not with ground
forces, but with air power. Saddam had taken the potency of our air power
into account, but had equipped his forces liberally with air-defense
weapons. He was convinced that he could provide an air defense bubble over
his forces that would drive off the Americans. He was wrong. The mechanized
corps that went into Khafji was devastated by air strikes.
Faced with prima facie
evidence that his air defenses were no match for the Americans he radically
changed his strategy. No longer would he attempt to hold Kuwait and bleed
the Americans in a brutal defensive battle - whose outcome he assumed would
lead to a negotiated settlement. Now he recognized that he was outmatched.
He decided that if and when the Americans attacked he would abandon Kuwait,
but preserve his army, particularly the loyal Republican Guards. He would
conduct a fighting retreat out of Kuwait back into Iraq.
Not aware of the radical
turn of events, the assumption was made by Schwarzkopf that the Iraqis would
defend in place. Indeed, as we noted, until Khafji, that's exactly what they
had planned to do. Schwarzkopf never understood the importance of the Khafji
battle and made no analysis on what impact the Iraqi defeat might have on
Saddam. He was totally unaware of the dramatic change in Iraqi strategy. His
attention was focused on monumental enterprise of positioning multiple
divisions in the western desert. He remained committed to his basic plan to
hold the Iraqis in place and envelop them from the rear. On February 21
Desert Shield became Desert Storm. The coalition attack went in against the
Iraqi forces as planned, with the Marines leading the way to engage their
attention and lock them in battle. A day later the surprise corps-sized
attack of three armored and a mechanized division in the west was launched
against the Iraqi flank and rear.
It turned out that the
"battle-hardened" Iraqis weren't battle-hardened at all. They were tired,
undernourished, and under-equipped army, largely unwilling to fight. So many
had deserted earlier that it was a hollow army. (Managing surrendering
Iraqis posed a greater problem than the fighting.) Some of them were even
surrendering to helicopters and reconnaissance drones There was very little
fighting. The Iraqis gave up all along the line. Some Republican Guard units
fought, but most of the Guard was under orders to flee back to Iraq and let
the regular army cover their retreat. The unexpected collapse of the Iraqis
upset Schwarzkopf's careful plan. The Marines advanced so fast that instead
of holding fast to the Iraqis so that the western attack could trap them,
the attack acted like a piston and rapidly drove them north towards escape
over the Iraqi border before the American armor engaged them.
Schwarzkopf also had trouble
with the heavy armored corps' field commander, Lt. Gen. Frederick Franks, a
very cautious man. He didn't realize that the Iraqis were on the run and
that he had an opportunity to go hell-bent across the desert and cut the
Iraqis off. He was moving very slowly so that all units would be
synchronized into a steel fist when they met the Iraqi Republican Guard. The
result was that while Franks cautiously advanced, over half the Guard units
along with their equipment, were escaping back into Iraq.
Saddam was quickly defeated
at an astonishingly low cost to the coalition. But the idea of destroying
his field forces was gone; the best and most loyal ones had escaped to pose
a subsequent threat.
That was the first
undesirable outcome of the war. And while there was a clamor by some to
continue on to Baghdad and overthrow Saddam, President George Bush rejected
the idea and stuck with the UN mandate, which limited its warrant to ousting
the Iraqis from Kuwait. Secondly, the President did not want to get tied
down in administering the occupation of Iraq. This decision was to have
unfortunate consequences for the Iraqi Shias just across the border.
With the Iraqis fleeing and
coalition forces pummeling them, it brings us back to Washington and
discussions on ending the war. Bush and his advisors knew that the Iraqis
were thoroughly beaten in the fast moving war, but they had little idea of
the actual situation on the ground. When asked about it, Schwarzkopf
reported that the weather was bad, it was raining, there were sandstorms,
units were scattered all over the desert. He confessed that didn't have a
clear idea of where each of his units and those of Saddam's army were
located . But, as he boasted in a televised news conference, the "gate was
closed," meaning that the Iraqi's escape route into their own country was
blocked and the Iraqi army was trapped. Of course that was not the case as
his field commanders knew. Schwarzkopf had again based his remark on an
assumption that was wrong.
Bush presided over an
oval-office meeting of his advisers and Douglas Hurd, Britain' foreign
minister, whose country's forces were fighting next to the Americans.
Although there was utter confusion on the battlefield, it didn't make any
difference. The decision to stop the war was a political, not a military
one. To continue killing already retreating soldiers was viewed as impolitic
and unethical, particularly in light of media accounts of what was happening
on the highway from Kuwait City to the Iraqi border. Iraqis in Kuwait city
were headed home on the main highway with everything they could loot from
Kuwait. Theirs was an endless stream of every conveyance that would move
headed north, bumper to bumper. They became a target-rich environment for
American aircraft, which flew up and down, blasting away at "fish in a
barrel." Scenes of devastation garnered bad press for the administration.
This prompted Colin Powell to step out of his military role and recommend a
ceasefire on humanitarian grounds because the enemy was already beaten and
he was afraid of sullying the American escutcheon by continued attacks on
what was becoming known as the "Highway of Death." With imperfect
intelligence of the military situation, the President announced a ceasefire
on February 28.
Schwarzkopf was authorized
to enter into ceasefire arrangements with the commanders of the Iraqi field
forces, not realizing that all decisions would actually be made by Saddam
from his Baghdad sanctuary. The general, still ignorant of the opposing
troop dispositions on the battlefield, announced Safwan, a small community
just inside of Iraq, as the site for the talks. Much to his chagrin he was
told that Safwan was still in Iraqi hands. Under threat of annihilation,
despite the ceasefire, the Iraqis were finally persuaded to withdraw. Tents
were erected for a meeting between Schwarzkopf, his Arab forces counterpart,
and three Iraqi generals. Here was an opportunity to use coalition leverage
to make substantial demands upon the Iraqi military under threat of resumed
violence. But Schwarzkopf received no guidance from Washington. His only
concern was cementing the ceasefire on the ground and of recovering the few
coalition captives who had fallen into Iraqi hands. Instead of dictating
terms as a conqueror, he treated the Iraqi delegation as equals. There were
no draconian options presented. Moreover, Schwarzkopf acquiesced to an Iraqi
request for freedom to use helicopters for logistic and administrative
purposes as the bridges in southern Iraq had been destroyed.
You will recall that the CIA
had been urging the Shias of southern Iraq to revolt against the regime.
With the defeat of the Iraqi army, they saw their opportunity to do so and
expected American support. But the White House had no intention of providing
it. As far as the President was concerned the war was over and it was time
to come home. When the Shias rose up, the coalition forces did nothing to
help them even as refugees fled across the border into Kuwait with
horrifying tales. Saddam brutally suppressed the uprising, notably using
armed helicopters to attack the insurgents. That use was not what
Schwarzkopf had in mind when he authorized the use of helicopters. The Shias
were left to a dismal fate. It was another unfortunate consequence and a
shameful footnote to a notable American victory.
And so Gulf War I ended. It
was marked throughout by a series of miscalculations and faulty assumptions
on both sides. It turned out to be a precursor for another war in 2003, the
results of which are still with us. In 1991 Saddam remained in power, his
Republican Guard was intact, revolt had been suppressed and his quest for
WMD, particularly nuclear weapons continued--at least temporarily. As
mentioned earlier, we had identified two WMD sites prior to the war. At its
end when UN and IAEA inspectors had access to Iraq, under provisions of the
ceasefire and UN authorization they found not two but 19 nuclear sites with
39 separate facilities. So there was no question about Saddam's intent. This
was to have a bearing on the events over the 12 years of sanctions on Iraq
and the events leading up to Gulf War II.
With the war over, the
troops came home, many of them were embarrassed because they saw very little
of any fighting. For most ground troops it was little more than a
motor-march through the desert. Saddam was discredited in much of the world,
but he was a canny survivor and cast himself at home as a hero of the war.
He told the Iraqi people that under his leadership the Iraqi army had
defeated the Americans and their puppets in the "Mother of All Battles." As
proof he noted that the Americans were defeated in their attempt to invade
Iraq, something an enemy army would have done if it was victorious. The
sacred soil of Iraq was preserved. He liberally handed out medals and awards
to the warriors of his victorious army. But beneath the bravado, Saddam was
shaken to the core by the performance of his army, the Shia uprising, and
the fear of a coup. All three concerns were to influence his postwar
decisions and the way he would fight Gulf War II.
-----
Copyright Foreign Policy
Research Institute (http://www.fpri.org/).
You may forward this essay as you like provided that it is sent in its
entirety and attributed to FPRI. , provided that you send it in its
entirety.
I was opposed to the First Gulf
War from the beginning.
Some of my friends and associates
believe that April Glaspie was "just following orders" and knew what effect
her ambiguous messages would have on Saddam; that Bush I wanted an excuse to
send in the Army. My own view is Napoleon Bonaparte's "Never ascribe to
malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."
The results of the First Gulf War
were catastrophic. Instead of the US withdrawing to North America and
building an expansive economic system, we became a military superpower, with
troops stationed in Saudi Arabia (much to the dismay of many and the hatred
of Al Qaeda) and began the long road to 9/11 and the Global War on
Terrorism, at enormous costs in blood and treasure -- with the end not in
sight.
At some point the US must decide:
will we become a competent empire or withdraw from incompetent imperialism
and adopt policies suitable to a Republic?
The cost of incompetent empire is
enormous and it's not likely to get smaller and smaller.
And on that subject:
Codevilla: 'Iraq is breaking into its three
constituent parts. The sooner the better.'
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?
q=YzExMDcyODFjN2Y3YmRjMzg3
ZmMwZDJkMzA0NmJlYTI=
-- Roland Dobbins
Angelo Codevilla is a
realist.
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