Was Saddam's Downfall an Easy Victory for Bush and Blair?

[N_Quire]

Talk about an anticlimax. This war was easy. Bush and Blair were right. Saddam had to go. And he went.

 

[Njorl]

Winning the war was never a question. It is winning the peace that will be a challenge.

Njorl

 

[N_Quire]

Everyone was surprised at how easily the regime crumbled. I hope Rumsfeld and Wolfawitz are as good at planning peace, and that they start to listen to Colin Powell and Tony Blair.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by N_Quire
Everyone was surprised at how easily the regime crumbled.

Except maybe the media who a week ago was saying how everyone was surprised at how tough it was. I wonder if now they are surprised that it was so easy as well. And does that mean they are surprised that they were surprised that it was surprisingly easy? I'm surprised that everyone is so surprised that it went surprisingly easily. I'm not surprised.

I hope Rumsfeld and Wolfawitz are as good at planning peace, and that they start to listen to Colin Powell and Tony Blair.

Well Bush did put Powell (as is traditional) in charge of the reconstruction and not Rumsfeld.

 

[Zero]

Thanks, Russ for pointing out the obvious about the media(not that they would EVER admit it). Anyone with half a brain knew this was going to be easy. Let's thank the protesters for their work, because I think they were instrumental in lessening the 'shock and awe' thing that never quite happened. The troops did a mostly good job, but I don't know how much actual training in this sort of thing that they actually got.

 

[N_Quire]

The media changes its opinions as often as Katie Couric smiles. We have read of a war that would last a week, six months, years; that Baghdad would involve bloody and fierce fighting, chemical weapons, suicide bombers. It turned out that Saddam was all smoke and hot air.

 

[Njorl]

It is the media's business to accurately predict the future, and be suprised when it happens. Nobody wants to watch news that everyone was expecting, nor do they want to be informed by dummies who couldn't see it coming. It's a paradox. Where's Wu Li?

Njorl

 

[BoulderHead]

Obviously Saddam never had any kind of chance, though I thought the house to house fighting would have been worse. I notice from all this that there were no chemical warheads launched, no nuclear strikes, I never even heard of a scud being fired. More like a superpower steamrolling a forthrate regime that couldn't even defend itself.

I feel so much safer now that Hitler has been disposed.

 

[kyleb]

i heard of a few scuds being fired, but that is from idiots who didn't know what they were talking about. also yes; it is like the varsity football team had its way with the chess club; woo-frickin-who.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Njorl
It is the media's business to accurately predict the future, and be suprised when it happens. Nobody wants to watch news that everyone was expecting, nor do they want to be informed by dummies who couldn't see it coming. It's a paradox. Where's Wu Li?

Njorl

Is that first sentence how you meant to word that? "Accurately?" You're not serious, are you? The media's job (as they see it) is to SENSATIONALIZE the possibilities for the future. They don't "predict," they speculate. And the wilder the better. That maximizes the "surprise" when the predictions don't pan out. Two stories for the price of one. Not that I'm jaded or anything...