Iraq war one 575,000 US troops vs Iraq war two 250,000 US troops?

Question

everybody knows how is become difficult in Iraq
I was compare The Gulf War to the 2003 invasion of Iraq
I just wonder why there is so much difference on the numbers
of troops deploy between war one US 575,000 troops and war two US 250,000 troops?
if you compare the 2 wars you will see a huge differences in
military power and how was led all operations!! why ?

Nobody believe 20 000 troops can make the differences
but if we can send 443 000 troops in order to re-establish
the same total of troops during the gulf war 575,000

well in that case control Baghdad should be more easy or not?

hey Rich A you are sooo wrong
war one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War#Coalition_forces_enter_Iraq

war two http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_force_in_Iraq

Iraq war number one

United States: 575,000 troops
Saudi Arabia: 52,000 troops (only 20-40,000 took part in the Liberation of Kuwait & Battle of Khafji)
Turkey: 50,000 troops (did not take part in any battle)
United Kingdom: 43,000 troops Operation Granby
Egypt: 35,000 troops
United Arab Emirates: 2,000 troops
Oman: 950 troops
France: 14,663 troops Opération Daguet
Spain: 3,000 troops
Syria: 16,000 troops
Kuwait: 7,000 troops
Bangladesh: 2,000 troops
Pakistan: 5,500 troops
Canada: 4,500 troops Operation FRICTION
Niger: 500 troops
Bahrain: 200 troops
Morocco: 2000 troops
Senegal: 200 troops.
Czechoslovakia: 200 troops
Netherlands: 200 troops
Honduras: 150 troops
Argentina: An aircraft carrier stationed near Qatar.

Iraq war number two
United States: 250,000 invasion--132,000 current (1/07)
United Kingdom: 45,000 invasion--7,200 current (1/07)
South Korea: 3,300 invasion--2,300 current (1/07)
Poland: 194 invasion--2,500 peak--900 current (1/07)
Australia: 2,000 invasion--1,300 current (1/07)
Romania: 890 current (1/07)
Denmark: 470 current (1/07)(deployed 7/03)
Georgia: 500 invasion--300 current (8/06)
El Salvador: 380 troops
Czech Republic: 300 peak--100 current (1/07')
Azerbaijan: 150 troops
Latvia: 136 peak--120 current (1/07)(deployed 4/04)
Mongolia: 131 troops--100 current (1/07)
Albania: 120 troops
Slovakia: 103 current (9/06)
Lithuania: 50 troops
Armenia: 46 current (1/07)
Bosnia and Herzegovina: 36 troops
Estonia: 41 current (1/07)
Macedonia: 33 troops
Kazakhstan: 29 troops
Moldova: 24 invasion--12 current (9/06)
Italy: 1,800 troops (deployed 7/03 - withdrawn 11/06)
Ukraine: 1,650 troops (deployed 8/03 - withdrawn 12/0

Answer 1

Actually, we don't need 443,000 American troops, we need 443,000 Iraqi troops.

20,000 American are worth about the same.

(You have to understand that you can't make 1-dimensional comparisons like this in a vacuum. When we invaded Kuwait in 1991, we were facing the 5th largest conventional army on the planet in terms of raw numbers, and they had already bedded down in bunkers and trenches for defense of the territory. When we invaded Iraqi, their army had been decimated and never really rebuilt. We didn't need as many troops.)

Answer 2

The 575,000 troops in Desert Storm were a combination of a coalition of 31 nations, including Arab nations. The coalition had to use that large number and also a more massive display of armaments because we had to push Saddam out of Kuwait, protect Saudi Arabia and other moderate Arab states from being overrun, protect the oil fields from Saddam's control, control his air space, and prevent ethnic cleansing. Saddam first invaded Iran in 1980 because he wanted Iran's oil resources to finance his ethnic cleansing campaigns against the Kurds and Shiites. He also fashioned himself as a modern King Nebekaneezer. Saddam also was an ardent supporter of Hitler as a teenager, influenced by his favorite uncle who was later executed. He had grand designs on controlling the middle east oil resources. Also, Powell and Schwartzkopf did a much better job at military planning & leadership, by far. For the current Iraq War phase we've used 185,000 troops, but not more than 160,000 at one time. It was ill-planned, the reasons for the invasion were mostly unfounded, Bush failed to gain popular support at the UN for the war, and later in the US. There was a huge difference in preparation, plus the insurgency response was vastly underrated by military planners. I agree that the surge of 21,500 will not be enough to stop sectarian violence, control the streets of Baghdad, or stop the influx of insurgents. We should have used 300,000 troops to get the job done by patroling the borders. We already had control of 2/3 of Iraqi air space and we controlled the seas.

Answer 3

We cut the size of the army almost in half during the 1990's. Today, the ENTIRE army active duty force is less than 1/2 million.

We also made similar cuts to the Navy and Air Force.

We reached the 600 ship navy Reagan wanted for about a week. Today we have just over 300 ships and the total is falling fast.

Answer 4

Talk to Rumsfield, it was his stupid decision. Yes, he was told he needed more troops from day 1. That the administration if finally getting around to admitting that is kind of astounding.

Due to the tattered state of the Iraqi army, that is indeed all the troops we needed to defeat Saddam. Old Rummy had security all wrong the whole time though. That is where the extra troops were needed, and he should have known it.

Answer 5

You make a good point. The Bush Administration gave into politics when garnering up the invading force, and chose to have a more conservatively sized army. Too this day we are paying for that mistake.

Answer 6

We knew in Gulf I that Saddams military was a straw force but we needed to show world our military ability.
The fact lost upon americans is that no where in the Un resolution did it allow US forces to land upon Iraqui soil but when you got a toy you gotta play with it and the big build up of gung ho americanism left no choice but to try and completley destroy Saddams military which as the Un Resolution pointed out was nto the mission.
The Mission was to get Saddam out of Kuwiat, and by the tiem Us got to slaughter over half of Saddams military they had already left Kuwait.
We only needed the smaller force as we knew Sadam was completley helpless to stop our invasion long before we invaded.
the shias throgh Iranian cntacts and the Iraqui leader Sistani had already agreed not to fight US.
The Kurdish areas of Iraq were already under our control for the seven years preceding our invasion.
Generals within Saddams military had been promised eithr bribers or positions within ne governetn once US invaded with over 1500 Iraquis given new names and us citixzenship under our Federal Witness protection program.
three generals later became province chiefs under British control.
Teh US militry had no enemy to fight when they invaded, other than a few gureilla groupies but needing targets they shot the hell ourt and shelled the hell out of people and places way beyond just the necessary eman to defend themsleves.
Making enemies of their own but conqueirng country and ending war in just a few days.
Their job was supposedly done, Saddam and all his buddies either killed captured or in hiding,
AND THEN!
Came the carpet baggers politcos who were going to make Iraq into the largest most profitable Privatized entity on earth, a new Babylon.
Lost to the Iraquis was evry menasd of making a living unless you worled at low menail wages for US forces and corps
Most corps had their own security forces who practiced kiliing Irqauis for sport hired the cheapest labor from every other nation in area, while the US GOP favored got huge contracts and kids with no more ability than a seventh grader got to run every Iraqui governemtn entuity all with the idea of giving it to american profitsd.
Our own troops not finding any war then had to begin occupying evry place and any place and roundign up every amel of age enoguh to of served in military, average age of Irqui male at invasion II, 16.5 years of age and e found torture and shooting up Toyota trucks to repalce combat.
Teh contry of Iraq is no more, we delibertley divided the sunni=s from the shias to make it erasier to bring chaos to coutnry and now all we got to do is kill a few Shia leaders as rest of contry, Kudistan is a new country, already well in our economic control.
We have sold their oil and we willned to protect those pipelines. the 48,000, troops, 21 thousand are combat the other 27 are support will finally end the Baghdad and the shia threat to our new Free Enterprise zone and launch pad of miltiary powr against Iran.