The U.S.Army, Never Gung-Ho For this War, Now Fears Postwar Strife (washingtonpost.com)

Retired Army Maj. Gen. William L. Nash commanded the first Army peacekeeping operation in the Balkans in 1995. Nash said he believes 200,000 U.S. and allied forces will be necessary to stabilize Iraq, noting that up to two divisions alone -- 25,000 to 50,000 troops -- could be required just to guard any chemical or biological weapons sites that are discovered until the weapons are disposed of properly.

The Army's concern bubbled up publicly two weeks ago when Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, the Army's chief of staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that "several hundred thousand soldiers" could be necessary for peacekeeping duties. Two days later, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz -- one of the architects of the president's postwar ambitions in Iraq -- took the unusual step of publicly differing with the Army chief, dismissing his estimate as "way off the mark."

Ivo H. Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said recent history shows that 60,000 peacekeepers were needed in Bosnia to separate warring ethnic factions, just one facet of the mission that could confront the Army in postwar Iraq. And Bosnia's population is 4 million, 17 percent of Iraq's 23 million.

"If Afghanistan is the model for Iraq, we're in deep, deep trouble," Daalder said. "The administration has done the minimum necessary there to avoid disaster, and I think what Iraq requires is the maximum necessary to ensure success. It's a different standard. If they do the minimum necessary to avoid disaster, there's going to be a problem."

Putting 60,000 troops in a Muslim country of 23 million with ethnic strife, a history of dictatorship, a more ancient history of British imperalist occupation, and where many consider suicide bombers heroes is a recipe for disaster.