Do the math

Lets see now, in 1999 we knew that it would take 400,000 troops to overthrow Saddam and it might still be chaos in the aftermath with that level of troop strength.

Instead the invasion was stubbornly undertaken with about 180,000 coallition troops. The overthrow was easy, but the aftermath sucks.

Now there is talk of a "surge" of 30,000 additional troops to attempt to quell the sectarian violence that has erupted in the power vacuum that sucked the life and social order out of Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

I have questions about this "surge" too, by the way. When they say 30,000 do they mean 10,000 foot soldiers and the 20,000 support personnel that would accompany a force that size, or do they mean 30,000 foot soldiers and the 50-60,000 support personnel that that many additional troops would require?

But it doesn't matter, really, how many would theoretically be inserted into the theatre of operations, the equation just won't balance.