Heaven Forfend!
You will not need to worry about the prospect of a long, drawn-out war.
No even a short one will be ruinous. As the bombs fall on Baghdad people stop travelling fearing bombs on airplanes reprisals.
The USA will QUICKLY decimate Saddam's government with precision (avoiding collateral damage/civilian injuries as much as possible) and force a regime change.
Tricky when you don't know where he is. Don't know who will replace him/them. Don't have any legal authority to take action. Don't have the stomach to take any casulaties or PoWs.
It is well known that most people in Iraq hate Saddam and loathe their living conditions and lowly status in the Arab world.
Is it well known? There have been exactly no internal attempted coups against Saddam. Even the Germans managed an attempt to blow up Hitler. The Iraqi people have been fed similar amounts of propoganda to the North American people. They believe the evil US is deliberately starving them.
Most Iraqi people, including the already pulverized Iraqi army (with long-term memories of precision missiles and napalm carpet-bombing runs) would favor a more-democratic rule and would not fight as hard as Saddam would like.
The Repulblican Guard were not pulverised. True some civilians were killed by PGM's. I don't remember much Napalm being dropped in the Guld War. Difficuly to favor more democractic rule when there is no alternative to Saddam offered. Will the next dictator be worse? Who knows.
Any war would be a matter of weeks - not months.
Not according to Colin Powell.
And the US doesn't need anyone's direct help - not even the British (it will need Turkish airspace and Bahraini airfields, etc.). The US can do it alone - it is time for a regime change.
Well they will need the direct help of the Turkish and Bahrainis for a start then. The US can do it alone. Alone being the operative point. If its time for a regime change then just tell me one thing - whats the replacement?
Therefore, I would not worry too much about a prolonged hiring freeze in the event of a war. It will be a turkey-shoot...
Terminology such as that is a little disconcerting. We are talking about killing men, women and children. Not turkeys.
Just how many Iraqis were aboard those aircraft on Sept 11th? And how many Saudis? Surely the US has a much much greater mandate to invade and topple the rullers of Saudi Arabia?
Cheers
WWW