 New Yorker. Is Iraq next? Iraq is clearly producing weapons of mass destruction. They represent a oil funded terrorist threat long-term. IF the US doesn't take the current mandate it has for action against terrorists to topple Saddam, we will eventually rue the day. This is a chance for Bush Jr to clean up the mistakes of his father.
Below is a plan to topple Saddam that has wide support in Washington. This plan sounds workable. The key is to insert elite troops and insurgents hold ground in Basra (the oil fields) and wait for Iraq to attack. Defend the force with Air Power and decimate the Republican guard when they attempt to retake the fields. Prepare fo the long-term. Pump oil like there is no tomorrow. Drive the price to $10 a barrel. Encourage the Kurds to attack from the north. Essentially isolate Saddam in Baghdad and force him to retake terroritory.
"Then came September 11th, and the quick victories in Afghanistan, where the combination of internal rebellion, intense bombing, and Special Forces deployment turned the Taliban out of power within weeks. Ahmad Chalabi (the leader of the Iraqi opposition INC) has now given the Bush Administration an updated war plan, which calls not only for bombing but for the deployment of thousands of American Special Forces troops."
"There is a second significant addition to the plan: the participation of Iran, which fought a protracted war with Iraq during the nineteen-eighties. The government of President Mohammad Khatami, America's newfound partner in the war against the Taliban, has agreed to permit I.N.C. forces and their military equipment to cross the Iranian border into southern Iraq. An I.N.C. official told me that the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control gave the organization special approval to open a liaison office in Tehran. (American companies are forbidden under federal sanctions law to do business with Iran.) The office opened in April. "We did it with U.S. government money, and that's what convinced them in Tehran," the I.N.C. official said. "They took it as a sign from the United States of a common interest—getting rid of Saddam. The way to get to him is through Iran.""
"Once inside Iraq, according to Chalabi's scenario, the I.N.C. would establish a firebase and announce the creation of a provisional Iraqi government, which the Bush Administration would quickly recognize. Nearly two-thirds of the Iraqi population are Shiites, and they are seen as potential allies in a political uprising. The United States would then begin an intense bombing campaign, as it did in Afghanistan, and airlift thousands of Special Forces troops into southern Iraq. At the same time, I.N.C. supporters in the north, in the areas under Kurdish control, would begin signalling that they were about to attack. If all went as planned, dissent would quickly break out inside the Iraqi military, and Saddam Hussein would be confronted with a dilemma: whether to send his élite forces south to engage the Americans or, for his own protection, keep all his forces nearby to guard against an invasion from the north."
At best this results in a loose conferated state. At worst, the end result may be three states: a Kurdish state in the north, a Sunni state around Baghdad, and a Shiite oil producing state in the south under our control.
Even if Saddam was still in place in Baghdad after the initial action, he would be impoverished and trapped in a small fraction of his former terriotory. He eventually would be toppled.
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