Okay, a fairly simple and direct question here.

Was George Herbert Walker Bush wrong for leaving Saddam Hussein in power at the end of the Gulf War? Why or why not?

From what I have read regarding his mind set at the time, he had good foresight not to. In hindsite, Bush senior was pretty darn smart. His son is in the exact same predicament that he so feared. Do you think Bush Senior hits him with that fact every Christmas? "Yuck, Yuck, when will you ever listen to me boy?"

Here is the article and link, (I had difficulty getting the link to work everytime, hence the cut and paste)

http://www.thememoryhole.org/mil/bushsr-iraq.htm


Excerpt from "Why We Didn't Remove Saddam" by George Bush [Sr.] and Brent Scowcroft, Time (2 March 1998):

While we hoped that popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome.

Pretty scary huh?

No.
We had an Arab coalition that funded most of that war. We also had troops stationed in, and flying over the airspace of those Arab countries, at the behest of their government. They were against invading Iraq and removing Saddam from power. Therefore, it would have been a very bad move on our part to defy them and proceed anyway. We had the ceasefire terms, which Saddam agreed to, for which we expected him to comply.

Although I think leaving Saddam in power after the Gulf War was tantamount to the Allies stopping at the Rhine in WWII, if the stupid Arab countries that neighbored Iraq would have bolted the coalition, I'm not sure there would be much of a choice.

In hindsight, what we should have done, was left the Arabs to their own devices if they didn't want to finish the job. If they are killing each other, less of them with the potential to come kill us.

Yes. Daddy Bush called Saddam "Hitler reincarnated". One does not want to call an enemy "Hitler" if you're not going to remove him from power. Bush sr. could have saved everyone alot of trouble by goiong after Saddam.

I don't think we would've been justified in marching through Belgium and France to get Hitler in Germany if Belgium and France didn't want us to.

I think by going after a clearly obtainable objective with worldwide support and keeping to the initially defined objectives, GWHB greatly enhanced the prestige of the United States in the eyes of the world. As Mrs. P pointed out the war was 90% paid for (Japan played a significant role here) and had a broad based coalition of support, including from Arab countries.

Our military emerged from the war looking like an invincible force because its operations were those that highlight the side with the best training and equipment.

Our prestige rose in the Middle East to the point where Yasir Arafat found himself in a dramatically weak political place following the war because of his support for Hussein.

What short memories people have.

Gulf War 1 was to defeat the Iraqui invasion/occupation of Kuwait. There was a UN mandate upon which the action was launched. The Iraqui military forces were easily defeated, decimated and driven from Kuwait. At this the world felt that it was over, but Bush and the coalition forces carried on. Despite the fact that the Iraquis were running for home at breakneck speed, coalition forces decided to kill them as they attempted to reach Iraq and even after they entered Iraq. Remember the "Road to Basra". They called it a duck-shoot. Planes and tanks fired for days upon the only road out of Kuwait. They destroyed anything that moved. All the Iraqi military machines plus Kuwaiti civilians in cars. This was well documented by the media at the time. With the exception of some right wing conservatives, America and the World was outraged as to why the slaughter continued after the objective had been achieved. Bush seemed confused for a while, but under pressure ended the war. Objective achieved according to the mandate under which we were told we were at war.

I have no idea what governed Bush 1st actions, but I remember very well that the overwhelming opinion of the people (particularly liberals) was that he fought the war longer than he had to. The only group that lamented his decision was a very small group of hard right folks who wanted him to take Baghdad and finish Saddam Hussein. If they are still of that opinion then they are consistent. If otheres have "revised" their past opinions then they are dishonest.

Yes, they 'decided to kill them' because the Iraqi government refused to accept the UN resolutions, which were the agreement terms for a ceasefire. Most people on this forum weren't even adults during the first Gulf war. I was 20 at the time, and one of the oldies on the forum. This isn't a case of shortterm memory, as most were too young to be very informed back then.
I must have a 'short memory' myself, because as I remember, a lot of people wanted to depose Saddam at the time. In fact, for the next 8 years of Clinton, I listened to the Dems lambast the first Bush. "Had he done his job, Clinton wouldn't have to deal with this", and "He's finishing Bush's job" during the bombing campaign.

There were a lot of people who wanted Bush to depose Saddam, not "just a small group of hard right folks". Nevertheless, you are correct, overall, in your analysis.

In particular, I remember very clearly the French government posing as a non-negotioable condition for participating in the coalition that the goal was only to force the Iraqis out of Kuwait, not to overthrow Saddam Hussein. (I was already living in France at the time, married to a European, and very much following both American and European politics.) Bush accepted that condition in order to have France and other countries support the offensive.

Ultimately, then, the question in this thread is: "Was Bush right to honor his word to America's allies, even though he personally would have preferred to go much, much further?" And to that question I can only say: Yes.

Bush I was wrong for ever getting us involved in the Gulf War. What the hell do we care if Saddam attacks Kuwait? Does it somehow bring him closer to attacking us? If anything, we could have made some good cash selling weapons to both sides.

Saddams rule was a great thing for us, because he kept the Muslim fundamentalists in line, using the only method that is effective for keeping them in line.

Arabs killing Arabs? I say, where's the problem? Isn't it twice as effective as us killing Arabs?

No, he didn't have the mandate or the international backing for regime change (sounds familiar). The critical mistake he made was not eliminating the remains of the Republican guard. Disarming him was part of the mandate and he had grounds to finish what he started against the RG. By not doing so, he was forced to keep troops in Saudi Arabia, which was credited as the primary reason Al Qaeda was started or at least given strength. It also allowed Saddam to recover a bit and mercilessly murder the Kurds in the North and Sunnis in the South. Without his precious assault troops, its more likely that he would have been overthrown and we could have avoided this mess altogether.

Historically, I believe it was this failure that had the single greatest potential for preventing(or at least delayed perhaps) 9/11. Hindsight is 20/20 of course.

Doc

Of course Daddy Bush should have gotten rid of Saddam! I was actually perplexed as to why he didn't at the time.

That whole gulf war and everything that happened in it (the footage of drugged and beaten hostages, the images of innocent animals covered in (deliberately spilled) oil, etc.) got me so upset and unsettled, I couldn't sleep, and became nerve-wracked throughout its duration. I had never felt such sadness, fear and hate (politically speaking) in my life (until 9/11, of course), and had not become aware of the existence of (the likes of) Saddam & his atrocities until it happened. He seemed to me, too, like a second Hitler.

The fact that Bush Sr. left office leaving everything unresolved baffled me.
I couldn't understand why he didn't pursue him (more) vigorously, and I took doubt in the news reports that they weren't able to locate Housein. (How could that be in today's technical age? - GPS, FBI, CIA, etc.) I can only assume it had something to do with the oil and the back-scratching that goes on between each country to keep themselves economically afloat. There's simply No reason for it when other sources of energy exit.

Boy, what a price humanity pays when it comes to greed!

What people have yet to mention is that it was considered important to maintain a balance of power between Iraq and Iran. Just a short few years before we had supported Iraq in its war against Iran for this same reason. I am in the nminority here that remember, in fervid detail, the Iran hostage crisis. Only from a neocon perspective can you argue that Bush did not go far enough. If anything throwing out Saddam would have raised more difficulties then as compared to now. Iran has taken steps toward a more moderate government in the last dozen years.

For my two cents. Our Arab partners were scared to death that we would take out Hussein because they knew that they had a many opponents as the Iraqis. There was no way that Bush Senior would have taken out anybody that his good friends in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait did not wish removed.

Of course Bush I was wrong in leaving Hussein in power, just like he was wrong in using US troops to prop up a racist regime like Saudi Arabia. The US should have turned Baghdad into a glass bowl and been done with it