Turks, HR, and IT

A common misconception in war is that, worst case, an ally is useless.
A common misconception in business is that, worst case, HR or IT is useless.
In fact, it's easy for a group or country to have negative value. Consider this passage from Stepping Off in the 1991 Gulf War:

“Tomaso, you missed it. The BBC just discussed that Wop pilot who surrendered. Lucky he had the white flag, or they’d have shot him, and he wouldn’t be on TV denouncing his country.”

“Well, they didn’t cover Luftwaffe pilots surrendering since they were busy strafing refugee camps. Qatar sent more troops than you Nazis did.”

“Remember the rumor that five Italian planes turned back with mechanical problems and the sixth was shot down? That was false.”

“See!”

“The BBC said seven turned back and the eighth was shot down.”

“And you’re a Nazi.”

Remember that the Italians were assigned a mission. It wasn't the most important mission, or it wouldn't have been assigned to Italians, but it was something Americans could have easily accomplished ourselves. Therefore, the Italians' contribution on opening night was negative.

When the HR rep actively prevents you from getting good resumes, she isn't dead weight, she's a hindrance. When IT disables all Excel macros and makes you throw out that USB keyboard, they're preventing work, not just wasting oxygen.

Which gets me to the Turks, Saddam, and WMDs. If it hadn't been for the Turks, the Iraq invasion would have lasted a few days, Saddam couldn't have fled north, and anything or anyone who escaped to Syria wouldn't have.

Plan A:

The big blue arrow from the north is the Army's 4th Infantry Division coming down from Turkey. I'm not sure what the Army means by infantry, because this division (which eventually showed up) had LOTS of artillery and other heavy equipment. The 4th ID spent weeks off the coast of Turkey waiting for permission to cross to Iraq's northern border. At the last minute, permission was denied, and the 4th ID sailed around the world and ended up in the Persian Gulf a few weeks after the war started.

My guess is that they'd have reached Baghdad in a few days had the Turks not stabbed us in the back.

Plan B:

This is what actually happened. Note that if we'd have had advanced warning of Turkey's perfidy, there would have been another plan -- say dropping tens of thousands of soldiers north of Baghdad, something the Army and Air Force could accomplish (I'm a Marine partisan, of course, but we don't have large numbers of airborne troops).

Want to know what happened to anything or anyone that Saddam wanted to hide? Ask a Turk.