Word: cordesman
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...force was in the army, police or militia. The effect of Saddam's policies was to turn the country into an ideologically motivated military machine. Rumors of coups and plots within the military had no significant result on the conduct of the eight-year conflict with Iran, says Anthony Cordesman, author of The Lessons of Modern War, an authoritative study of the Iraq-Iran...
French military officials do say the Iraqi army is running out of spare parts for tanks and armored personnel carriers and, in the words of one top officer, "will crumble soon after the first encounters." But Washington specialists do not believe it. Says Anthony Cordesman, a top congressional staff expert on the Middle East, who toured Iraqi military installations in 1989: "It will be a really long time -- I'm talking maybe a year -- before the embargo seriously affects Iraq's military capacity." Determining whether Saddam will pull out of Kuwait by then without fighting is problematic, and probably irrelevant...
...there are doubts about how well they might fare. In a major battle, only those units equipped with large numbers of tanks could play a significant role: the Saudis, Egyptians and Syrians. While the Saudi air force is modern and well trained, the army is not. According to Anthony Cordesman, an expert on Middle East military issues, the Saudi army is at least 30% under strength. Most army units are commanded by members of the Saudi royal family selected for loyalty rather than military prowess. Exercises involving more than 6,000 men are rare. If it becomes necessary to move...
Nepotism is rife even in the armed forces. "Every commander has some link to the royal family," notes Anthony Cordesman, Washington's foremost expert on the Saudi military. "Loyalty to the House of Saud is the critical factor, not military proficiency." According to U.S. advisers, many of the princely pilots fly only when they want to. During scrambles early in the crisis, a discouraging proportion of them called in sick...
MILITARY. The price in lives -- on both sides -- is the hardest to forecast. Says Anthony Cordesman, a Washington-based military analyst: "War is one big experiment." It is just possible a coup in Baghdad would topple Saddam Hussein and bring the war to a quick, low-cost conclusion...