But having your closest reserves, weeks away from deployment when the battle starts is pretty counter-intuitive. Maybe Rumsfeld will look like a genious when this is over, but it doesn't look that way now.

I don't think we really need the troops in the North very badly. Turkey did us a favor. Those troops that were re-routed are showing up in the South much earlier and in greater numbers than the other troops scheduled to be shipped to the South "if things went badly". Those troops are desperately needed in the South.

I also don't think that we needed to do anything to prevent "Saddam to prepare himself and his troops". He has had years. No amount of rushing on our part would make his preparations significantly less complete.