AFGHANISTAN REDUX :

America will depend on Iraqi rebels to overthrow Saddam (John Simpson, 21/07/2002, Daily Telegraph)

[B]ritish and American agents are being infiltrated into Iraq, and particularly Shia southern Iraq, in order to raise a rebellion against Saddam.

Then, it seems, the Americans and British will start bombing Iraq heavily, as they did in January 1991, and at some stage in the resulting confusion the locals will rise and do the job for the Americans.

There is no real alternative. Mr Bush doesn't have the appetite for a long war, and the Pentagon doesn't feel that the United States army should be used nowadays to take on a determined enemy in the field.

Air power, yet again, will have to do the main part of the job: with all the ugly loss of life for Iraqis which that will involve.

The more you read this scenario in the papers the more you tend to think there's something else going on....
Posted by Orrin Judd at July 20, 2002 7:52 PM