Teribus, I take it that yiou think the multiple time that the Bush administration has insisted they will go to war without without the UN is baseless?

Going to war without a local base of operations is HARDER, but the SOP of massive air strikes can be undertaken from the aircraft carriers in the Gulf. Action afterword is more difficult.

But that doesn't mean we'll have to go that route. Qatar is already waffling about troops. The smaller countries in the area like Bahrain and Qatar can probably be bullied or swayed into to. Let's not forget Kuwait -- not an ideal place to station troops, but it would work very well for landing troops in mostly friendly territory and then have them move into Iraq. When you're the 800 pound gorillla, these are minor obstancles.

YES it's impractical without. But Shrub hasn't shown himself concerned with such subleties up to now. And it's been reported several times in the news the Gen. Tommy Franks has already delivered plans for different scenarios or attacks on Iraq. Do you really think the the swollen Pentagon budget never built equipment to handle this kind of assault?

Don't take my work for it. My bro (the West Point grad) and I disagree on almost everything political. His response was unequivically "yes, we can." (Of course, he thinks blowing people up is fun, but that's a military education for you.)

Haven't we learned ANYTHING? Must we train a new batch of despotic warlords? So much for fostering democratuc rule.

Here's scoop from Reuters this morning:

"The White House, in a reversal of long-standing policy, is expected to seek approval from Congress soon to give military training to up to 10,000 members of the Iraqi opposition, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

The goal of the training is to create an array of forces to assist the U.S. military in a possible attack on Iraq, the Times said, quoting Bush administration officials and Iraqi opposition sources...

In order to pay for the training, the White House plans to notify Congress it wants to use $92 million yet to be allocated from the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, which allows the Pentagon to provide training, non-lethal goods and services to seven opposition groups, the Times said."

That means $92 million dollars of weapons instead of blankets, food, and education.