I have heard similar things from others whose opinion I respect. Ralph Peters for one (he may have been the one you heard on the radio).

Maybe they're right. Maybe not. There is also the knife Turkey put in our back, which is probably a more serious miscalculation on our part than was any hope that we could "cut the head" off the snake. I pointed out the night of the attack on Saddam that there were plenty more thugs in the heirarchy where he came from.

As Jerry Pournelle says:

...We have taken a northern airfield, but this is not the same as the 4th Infantry sweeping down from the North. The Turks will now try to bargain to get the money anyway. They have probably doubled the length of the war, and the casualties on both sides. Should they be charged for this? Should we take the money from what we are giving them, or from other sources?



When we have a secure port, we can begin moving in the 4th. It would have landed in Turkey in secure ports and rolled in; now they have to go through heavily mined waters, or else through Kuwait. The Turks have much to answer for here. When one of those ships hits a mine they may have more.

The ships will have been loaded for landing in a secure place, not in a hostile environment. There's no place to unload and reload. Getting those troops and their equipment into action -- the 4th is our best division and was clearly intended for a major role in the first week -- is tricky.

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy, or with the Middle East even if they are supposed to be friends.