WI?: Iraq Invaded with Half a Million Troops

How would the security, socio-economic, stability etc. have gone down in Iraq if instead of only 250,000 American troops invading in March of 2003 as in the OT and instead original estimates suggested by Defense Secretary Colin Powell of 350,000 troops or even 500,000 like during the Gulf War were followed in the war instead? Would it have made things any better or worse having double the American troops there were at the peak of the invasion?
 
How would the security, socio-economic, stability etc. have gone down in Iraq if instead of only 250,000 American troops invading in March of 2003 as in the OT and instead original estimates suggested by Defense Secretary Colin Powell of 350,000 troops or even 500,000 like during the Gulf War were followed in the war instead? Would it have made things any better or worse having double the American troops there were at the peak of the invasion?

It has the potential to make things better, say if the additional troops are used to secure others locations like the Baghdad museum from looting etc. However if Saddam still manages to avoid captivity, the Iraqi army is dissolved without being disarmed, and the military has the same strategy of staying holed up in large bases prior to the surge, then I don't see how the dynamics that lead to the insurgency are altered that much.

Although having 500,000 troops seems to imply that the US isn't going for Rumsfeld's policy of using as minimal a presence as possible, and rushing things along.
 
Did the Army have the troops the spare? Would the public support another massive operation?

If 500K is the number put forth, there'd likely be more opposition, may never happen.
 
This would require a different SoD that tells Bush after 911 that we need a massive expansion of the armed forces which could have happened. The thing is that we would have likely gone into Afghanistan heavy instead of light as well. Think 300K-400K troops in Afghanistan and a delayed attack to occur sometime in early to mid 2002 on Afghanistan and perhaps late 2003/early 2004 for Iraq.

We are talking about a whole different mindset from the Pentagon and the heavy footprint mindset being in place.

This level of defense spending would have meant Bush after 911 getting rid of his tax cuts and perhaps even increasing taxes. We are talking about a return to Cold War defense spending levels which was politically possible after 911.
 
I think if there were many more troops to invade Iraq there would have been even more damage done to the country's infrastructure and the war itself would have cost over a trillion dollars. Al-Qaeda and the insurgency would have been more manageable and the security situation would have been so as well. But Iraq would still have been in chaos and a significant number of suicide bombings would still occur, as would a only somewhat reduced civil war. The US would have also had fewer troops and needed to potentially rely on a draft. It definitely would have been less prepared for other threats like Hurricane Katrina, the war in Afghanistan, and more. Nothing positive comes from a larger invasion.
 
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