From: "Mark" 


"Rich Gauszka"  wrote in message
news:43d96c4e$1{at}w3.nls.net...
> but but Gary said it made no difference. Who am I to believe Gary or
> Rumsfeld?

Well his point was if the left was in control we wouldn't need an army
"battle hardened" "stretched" or "otherwise",
since they'd never use them for anything 

> One should take care when officials start using buzz phrases as 'battle
> hardened' .

A percentage of our troops are battle-hardened in first-person perspective,
the rest are at a higher level of readiness in support positions than
they'd otherwise be, just a fact.

> They also told us the following
> about Saddam"fourth largest army in the world," and about his
> "battle-hardened troops,"

I don't recall everything said about Saddam's troops, but if the numbers
were there, then it was accurate -- how well they fought and whether they'd
run is another matter. They couldn't run in a fight against Iran or Kuwait
because they'd be killed by Saddam, they were obviously quite sure as they
watched the Humvees enter Baghdad that Saddam wouldn't be around to kill
them if they ran from the US, so they did -- wisely so.

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