The United Nations offers international legitimacy in what we might do.
It might be interesting to wonder why all the generals see it in the same way, and all those, who never fired a shot in anger and really held back to go to war, see it in a different way. That's usually the way it is in history.
That decentralization was done so they insured they had control, ... I think it was done more for internal reasons and internal military problems they thought they might have than for any military preparations they had for us.