“UP to 100,000 body bags and 6,000 coffins have been secretly delivered to a US base in Italy…”

Just to put that in perspective, the United States lost approximately 58,000 lives to the conflict in Vietnam. What could the Pentagon be thinking by preparing for so many losses in Iraq?

To continue a theme, I have an absurd thought. Let's imagine for a moment that Saddam Hussein really does posses a vast store of biological and/or chemical weapons. How would he best use them against the United States? One might argue that he doesn’t have a delivery system capable of reaching U.S. territory. One might also note that Saddam would be unlikely to launch a large scale attack against either Israel or Turkey. While he did launch a limited, and very quietly reported series of military strikes against Israel during the first Gulf War, it’s simply too much ground for his current weapons systems to cover while under the thumb of 200,000 U.S. and U.K. troops. So what are his options?

Saddam has vowed to die in Iraq. He also vowed that the Iraqi people will die with him in a struggle against any invasion force. He knows that urban combat is our worst nightmare. He believes the Bush administration will not stop at nothing before U.S. troops have overthrown his regime.

So when you can’t bring Mohammed to the mountain, what do you do?

It is very likely that if Saddam does have weapons of mass destruction he will use them against an invasion force. Furthermore, those weapons would be made most effective by use in an urban environment. If Saddam is as ruthless and evil as the administration would have us believe, his own civilian losses would be negligible. The toll on U.S. forces however would be catastrophic. The situation becomes even more grim when you consider the Bush administration’s assertion that it would not rule out the use of nuclear weapons in the event of U.S. troops being subjected to such an attack. How would our Arab allies feel about that I wonder?

This is only my opinion, but I believe that things are going to get a whole lot worse in the Middle East before they get any better.

Labels: iraq, saddam hussein, wmd