War Planners Speak of the Risks
WASHINGTON, Feb. 17 — Senior Bush administration officials are for the first time openly discussing a subject they have sidestepped during the buildup of forces around Iraq: what could go wrong, and not only during an attack but also in the aftermath of an invasion.
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has a four- to five-page, typewritten catalog of risks that senior aides say he keeps in his desk drawer. He refers to it constantly, updating it with his own ideas and suggestions from senior military commanders, and discussing it with President Bush.
A top advisor to the Secretary of Defense told the NY Times that Mr Rumsfeld’s discussions with the President have been frank but mostly positive. The Secretary is quoted as saying, “Mr. President, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth both for ourselves as human beings and for the life of our nation. Now, truth is not always a pleasant thing. But it is necessary now to make a choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless *distinguishable*, postwar environments: one where you got twenty million people killed, and the other where you got a hundred and fifty million people killed.”
The advisor stressed that despite the hard choices facing the president that Mr Rumsfeld nonetheless was optimistic that US forces could pacify the Iraqi troops and people in a short time, while “keeping a lid” on terrorist recruitment and possible reprisals at home. Still, he was honest in his assessment that the American people would have to accept some vulnerability to terrorist attacks in the coming days. He reportedly told the President, “I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed, but I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops, uh, depending on the breaks.”
Vice-president Dick Cheney, who has taken the lead in preparations for possible biological or chemical attacks in here United States was reported to have insisted upon the smallpox vaccination program for all “first line” emergency workers. According to administration sources, however, his concerns are incresingly focused on possible contamination of the water supply.
At a meeting of The National Academy of Creationist Scientists and Christian Astrologers in January, Cheney was quoted as saying, “It’s incredibly obvious, isn’t it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice. That’s the way your hard-core Terrorist works.” The orange alert of last week was said by sources in the Office of Homeland Security to have been put in place by Cheney himself when he lost control of his precious bodily fluids during Shania Twain’s half time appearance at the Super Bowl.