I believe that the military (army) estimate for the Iraq/Kuwait war was situated to serve the pre-ordained political decision; too problematic and too fraught with danger, so we won't play. But it was OK for all of our allies to go in and do the risky stuff.
Had we decided to send 4 CMBG it did come with an organic Svc Bn with a significant transport capability, which could have been augmented from resources in Canada if necessary. 4 Svc Bn was scaled to support the brigade in a war with the Russians...so. It also would have been operating under a friendly air situation, unlike the Soviet scenario(the Iraqi air force fled to Iran or was otherwise quickly neutralized) so continuous running to and from rear supply points would have been possible.
In a stroke of very bad timing we had taken our 1980s Chinook helicopter fleet out of service as an economy measure not long before this. We subsequently sold them to the Dutch who continue to operate them. Ironically, when we first got into Afghanistan we were reduced to bumming rides on them from the Dutch.
I argued against taking the Chinooks out of service back then because they were a wonderful asset, but was told to STFU. It was all about tight money for the airforce who were willing to put them on the block to save the CF18s (helicopters are an army asset anyway and will always be a poor cousin for the zoomies).
The logistics/distribution system for 4 CMBG, had it been deployed, wasn't an insoluble problem. We could have used US APOD/SPOD facilities and added our own stuff as necessary. Everybody else found a way to make it work.
We looked at some other combat alternatives for the army short of sending 4 CMBG. One that I recall was an artillery brigade in support of the US. We had beaucoup M109 SP guns that everybody else was using, we had 155mm ammo coming out of our a$$es in Germany and we had the new HLVW fleet coming on line for ammo haul. The M109s were in good shape and were even fitted with CW protective systems which was a big bogeyman in Iraq.
As mentioned earlier, we had to make assumptions about casualties against the Iraqis, just like everybody else. But there was way too much pre-occupation with relative numbers of tanks, APCs and arty. Numbers don't mean a lot unless equipment is employed by well trained troops with sound tactics and good leadership. Some of us had first hand knowledge of the state of the Syrian and Egyptian armies which were on par with the Iraqis. Much of their $hit was so poorly maintained that it couldn't get to the battlefield. After that it was the state of training of the troops and the ability of commanders to plan and execute combined arms warfare in a dynamic way. They sucked at it.
The Iraqis had their way with hordes of peasants in their war with Iran and were able to grind them up in industrial numbers, including killing a lot of them in the open under tank/APC tracks without expending a lot of ammo. That wasn't the case with their NATO trained and led opposition in Kuwait. The best Arab army, bar none, were the Jordanians; professional, well equipped, well led and well motivated. The others; not so much.
Good on our guys who went over there and did their duty, but the politicians were very determined to minimize our risks, and therefore our representation on the ground. I could go on at length about Brian Mulroney as a war leader, but it would be a very short speech.
It was our shining moment to do what we claimed the army was all about since first deploying a brigade to NATO in 1952, and we baled.
