Argentina ill prepared for Falklands war

Telegraph on Sunday:

The Rattenbach Report is so critical of Argentina's military leadership that the last dictator ordered it kept secret for 50 years.

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A version of the report was leaked decades ago, and its conclusions are not a surprise: the junta planned for an easy occupation, gambling the US would support them and Britain would simply let the islands fall into Argentine hands.

Then Argentina's ill-equipped army had to scramble into a war footing after Margaret Thatcher sent a task force 8,000 milesinto the South Atlantic to take the islands back. 

The report confirms Argentine soldiers were sent from the subtropics into winter conditions without proper clothing, food or weapons, and were treated as cannon fodder by their own officers - pushed into battle without having had basic training in weaponry and combat.

"Troops weren't adapted or equipped to handle the weather or the living conditions," and yet they had to face "a highly equipped and trained enemy," the report concluded.

"Military commanders encouraged the preconceived notion that there would be no armed conflict, and that the situation would be resolved diplomatically, which affected the morale of the forces and their readiness for combat."

The Argentine occupation began on April 2, 1982, and ended 74 days later with British troops crushing the ill-prepared Argentines, at the cost of more than 900 lives.

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They made several miscalculations as they tried to divert attention from their failures at home.  The invasion compounded their error and led to their removal from power.  Argentina has never had a valid or realistic claim to the islands, beyond want and desire.  British forces in the islands are of no military threat to Argentina, unless they are attacked.