http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-574703,00.html World News February 12, 2003 America's 48 hours to kill Saddam From Roland Watson in Washington AMERICAN war planners believe that they have little more than 48 hours from the start of a ground war to kill President Saddam Hussein if they are to avoid a protracted conflict and a complicated peace. Haunted by the failure to capture Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, Washington is putting in place plans to limit the damage if it fails to topple the Iraqi leader swiftly. They rest in part on persuading the Iraqi people that US forces control the country even before Saddam’s demise. The Pentagon is planning to drop emergency food and medical aid from the first day of airstrikes to try to win the “hearts and minds” of locals so that they will support the ensuing invasion. The opening days of the war are planned as a massive air assault aimed at collapsing Saddam’s command structure, followed by a “rush for Baghdad” by ground forces. US special forces and CIA teams are already operating on the ground in Iraq. But if US forces cannot find Saddam or present credible evidence that he is dead, they will face stiffer resistance from the Iraqis. “If people think Saddam is still alive they will be frightened to come out and support us, even if he is powerless,” one US official said. The American failure to get bin Laden “dead or alive”, in Mr Bush’s words, has provided an unsettling background to war planning in Iraq. “Osama bin Laden hangs very heavy over Iraq,” the official said. “We can’t afford another repeat.” There are formidable difficulties in finding Saddam, who has numerous body doubles and rarely sleeps in the same place two nights running, and America is hoping that its massive show of force will prompt a “palace revolt”.
Doesn't Saddam have several imposters who look like him in order to prevent from being assassinated? He could possibly run things from inside a bunker and let his decoys take the hit. Sounds like a messy situation similar to the levels of capturing Osama during the Afghanistan campaign....
Ya know, I kind of liked that movie. Eddie Murphy was at his best, and he had some good buddy chemistry going with Nolte. I'm kind of surprised that anyone thinks that it will actually kill Saddam. Is he supposed to die laughing? Or is the movie so "American" that he will just die from the horror of it all?
This plan has about a 5% chance of succeeding. There is no way they are going to kill Saddam in the first 48 hours. They don't even know where he is. This war is going to get very ugly very fast. I'm sorry...dropping food packets and medical supplies while you bomb the crap out them is not going to change their hearts or minds to side with the US. We are doomed to fail under this plan. Then, we may have both Saddam and Bin Laden underground planning future attacks against us. Our military overestimates their chances on everything. Remember how we had Osama surrounded in Tora Bora? We're still going to get him, though . Our military should count on sending countless American soldiers back in body bags when their plans to oust Saddam fail and this war turns ugly. I see a repeat of Afghanistan in our future and worse.
You don't have to be a Colonel to know the chances are slim to none that this will work. I would love to be proven wrong but 48 hours is laughable.
how do you know that? how do you know the extent of intelligence we have on iraq? i'm hearing that we're going to hit them with full force the first day...that we'll use as many cruise missiles the first day as we will the whole war...the hope is that it will kill the spirit of the iraqi army right off the bat and lead them to taking care of saddam, themselves. i don't know if it will work or not...and i don't pretend to know enough to make definitive statements one way or the other. the us military is pretty damn good, and they usually don't underestimate opponents...since Vietnam, opponents have traditionally been overestimated.
I've voiced my opinion. I didn't say it was fact. I don't believe Saddam is stupid enough to be killed in the first 48 hours. I believe he will be prepared for any contingency leading up to the war. You have to find him to kill him and there is probably only a very few handful of people close to him that know where he is. And, even then, he certainly has systems in place as far as access to him. I know our strategy as far as bombing and demoralizing. I think it's going to take longer than 48 hours to see results and even longer to get Saddam...if we get him at all. So, in my opinion, this plan of killing Saddam in 48 hours has a 5% chance. Noone can predict the future. But, we can certainly lay out predictions.
Would anyone of you condone the use of "bunker busting" nukes in order to get to Saddam? That would open up as many can of worms as the can opener can handle.
Why go to the trouble of going to war? Why don't we just assassinate Saddam? Reasons that we should not. Anyone have any links/ideas on the other side of the argument? Because I'd love to hear them. I say we just kill'im. Cut the crap, cut the pretense. Kill'im. Send in Beverly Hills ninja or whoever, but just kill'im.
Those that today would say we shouldn't assassinate him can use the same arguments stated in the article. But I agree, things have changed. Why not just off him and be done with it? Why take such a great risk and expend the manpower, money, resources, to go to war? Isn't our objective to remove Saddam from power? Wouldn't assassinating him acomplish this with much less cost/risk/complexity/trouble than going to war?
but assassination doesn't provide for keeping his son out of power (who may be just as crazy) and it doesn't go about setting up a whole new government and proceeding with nation building which is the whole purpose of regime change. it's not so much saddam as it is the system that now must be changed. one bullet won't do it.
The problem with an assassination, even if it works (I'd be willing to bet the Israelis would love to take a shot at Saddam if Pres. Bush has a problem repealling the Executive Order banning the assassination of foreign leaders) is the problem we faced during Gulf War 1 (in order to laugh when I'm crying I'm going to call this next one Gulf War 2: Electric Boogaloo if/when it happens). Should Saddam get knocked off, what replaces him? A relative who may feel vindictive for a LONG time to come? A military junta that may or may not be grateful to the US for putting them in charge? Or, possibly worst case, a hardline extremist that turns Iraq into the new Iran under Khomeni (spelling, I know). I hope Bush has a plan for AFTER best case, because I'd rather not have the President go up in front of a TV camera and go, "Well whattya know! It actually worked! I KNEW we shoulda planned further ahead!" However, given the experienced Security Council he has, I'd be willing to bet it's been covered. By the way, I don't want to start any flame war/argument with Surfguy, but a couple of points. Your reference to "countless" body bags may be overstating your case, isn't it? I rememeber the big rumor that the Pentagon had order like 50k body bags before Gulf War 1, and everyone was up in arms that the military knew it would be a disaster. Although any death in war is horrible, that turned out with relatively few "friendly" fatalities. Give the military SOME credit. They are the most advanced army ever seen on the planet, they CAN get the job done with few casualties given the proper tools and intelligence. Plus, personally speaking, I don't believe Pres. GH Bush wanted Saddam dead necessarily. The instability created could've disrupted the Middle East for decades, even longer. He wanted to contain Iraq and remove them from Kuwait. That's why when we had the Iraqi Army on the run, we stopped at the border rather than pursue and prosecute. We COULD have gotten Saddam then had we engaged in a flat out run across southern Iraq into Baghdad, with air cover to cut off any flight attempt. Opinion yes, but I'd like to think informed one. Thirdly, Saddam may not be "stupid" enough to be killed, but relative intelligence has very little to do with it. Shoot, Lincoln was by all accounts a very intelligent man, but that didn't matter. Yes I know that was almost 140 years ago, but the principle is the same. There would be numerous ways (bomb, sniper, special forces, etc.) to kill Saddam should we dedicate ourselves to the effort. He may be protected, but not invulnerable. No one can throw themselves in front of a laser guided GBU or Maverick missle . Should Bush tell Rice, Rumsfeld, and Powell "I don't care how, but make it happen!" I think (operative word) we would be successful. I know it's your opinion, Surf, and I respect it. I just thought I'd offer a counterargument.
Just a couple of things: 1) Saddam is the best protected man on the planet. If we could just assassinate him and take our chances with Uday or Qusay, we would. But he is surrounded by somewhere around 5,000 Mukhabarat (secret service - his Gestapo), 5,000 to 15,000 Special Republican Guard (3 brigades, depending on where he is), and another ring of anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000 Republican Guard troops, also depending upon where he is. You can't just send in a SEAL team and take him out... Invasion is the only way to assassinate him, unfortunately, because his security detail makes our president's security look like a bunch of K-Mart rent-a-cops. 2) This war will be quick, surfguy. We are going to paralyze his army and decimate the RG divisions and SRG brigades that protect Saddam. That we can do quickly. He will also be out of communications with his levers of power starting the first night of the air war. Once he has lost his means of communications and his hold over the army, it is only a matter of time before he falls. And it won't take long. Don't expect too many bodybags to be filled. Whether or not you believe me, there it is. But I hope you don't lose too much sleep over it - I don't.
