bling, that's a fair point. While I may not agree with it being an "extremely high probability" that the explosives were taken after we got there, I will say that if we had properly secured the area, this would not have been an issue. The problem was, properly securing the area meant not pushing forward towards Baghdad, when there were other weapons-containing facilities that we had not reached yet. What if by bypassing these 400 tons of explosives, we managed to secure 1000 tons of explosives? What I'm saying is, this was a decision made by people high in the military to press forward to topple Saddam's regime, hoping that by doing so, there would be a significantly decreased military threat. From what we have seen, the threat has not become less dangerous, it has just changed to a guerrila-type attack.
So if you really want to play armchair-general, would you rather take apparent control of the whole country, or real control of bridge-busting devices? Knowing what we know now, I may have opted for the explosives, but it would still be a tough decision.
|