February 13, 2002: Former Reagan Arms Control Director: Defeating Iraq Will be a ‘Cakewalk’

Kenneth Adelman. [Source: PBS]Neoconservative Kenneth Adelman, who served as an assistant to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from 1975-1977 and was arms control director in the Reagan administration, writes an op-ed for the Washington Post titled “Cakewalk in Iraq.” Adelman is straightforward in his insistence that defeating the Iraqi military and beginning a transition to a democratic government in Iraq will be a “cakewalk.” He derides predictions that the US could lose “thousands of troops in the process,” writing, “I believe demolishing Hussein’s military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk.” He gives what he calls “simple, responsible reasons:” it was a cakewalk in 1991, Iraq is significantly weaker than during the Gulf War, and “now we’re playing for keeps.” Adelman details just how weak and insignificant the much-vaunted Iraqi ground forces are, and says that US forces are “much fiercer.” Between that quality and the sophisticated “gizmos”—unmanned Predator drones, “smart” bombs, and other technological wonders—Adelman says the Iraqi military should be routed with ease. He gives similar short shrift to the idea that the US needs to build a multinational coalition. In 1991, he writes, the US “engaged a grand international coalition because we lacked a domestic coalition. Virtually the entire Democratic leadership stood against that President Bush. The public, too, was divided.” The situation is different today. “This President Bush does not need to amass rinky-dink nations as ‘coalition partners’ to convince the Washington establishment that we’re right. Americans of all parties now know we must wage a total war on terrorism.” Saddam Hussein, and not Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, is “the number one threat against American security and civilization. Unlike Osama bin Laden, he has billions of dollars in government funds, scores of government research labs working feverishly on weapons of mass destruction—and just as deep a hatred of America and civilized free societies.… Measured by any cost-benefit analysis, such an operation would constitute the greatest victory in America’s war on terrorism.” [Washington Post, 2/13/2002]