Poppy Bush's reasoning for keeping Saddam in power...

[kentuck]

http://www.indepthinfo.com/iraq/aftermath.shtml

<snip>
Yet President Bush and other Allied leaders had more to consider than military matters. Politically the coalition was beginning to differ on whether total defeat of Iraq was a wise move. Iraq had been the only power to stand in the way of the Iranian war machine making a conquest of all of Arabia burring the Iran/Iraq war. Many felt it would not be wise to completely humiliate a buffer between Iran and Arabia. Second, as evil as Saddam was perceived to be in much of the Western World, he was perceived as a hero by many in the Middle East, for example the Palestinians and Jordanians. Thus Saddam's complete destruction, besides upsetting the balance of power in the Middle East, might antagonize other pro-western Middle-Eastern states. Finally, there is a certain brotherhood that Arabs feel for one another, even when arrayed as enemies on a battlefield. Even an aggressor, as Iraq had surely been during this conflict, could not morally be crushed.

As it was, Saddam would prove to be further trouble down the road, repressing his own people, violating peace agreements and continuing work on weapons of mass destruction. Yet twenty/twenty hindsight does not reflect poorly on the wisdom of President Bush in ending the campaign when he did. US war aims were achieved: Kuwait was liberated from Iraq and relative peace has settled into the region.

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Was Poppy really so much smarter than the DimSon?

[dbt]

1. So Saddam was not really such an evil bastard after all?

Or did Poppy's cronies just need an extra 12 years to sell him things?

:freak:
dbt

[ewagner]

2. Absolutely

Remember that Saddam ran a secular government, something that, for our purposes, is highly desireable in the region.

In my opinion, there were two grave errors made in the months immediately after Gulf I:

First, we encouraged an uprising against Saddam (and even then did nothing to support it), and;

Second, we imposed sanctions without a balancing diplomatic effort. In other words, all stick, no carrot.

It was a missed opportunity to make Saddam acceptable to the rest of the international community. He would still have been a ruthless dictator, but we could have kept his attrocities in check and continued to use him as a surrogate "place holder" in the region. Instead, we isolated him and left him to his own brutal devices.

[Bandit]

3. Iranian war machine making a conquest of all of Arabia

Was this ever a real concern? When did Iran ever threaten another country? Iraq invaded Iran not the other way around. We hated Iran because they held Americans captive for over a year and threw out our hand picked dictator and put in place their own choice for leader. I don't know of them ever attacking another country, does anyone here?

[ewagner]

6. Yes, but

You are correct about Iran as a country never actually attacking any of its neighbors, but the fear was in exporting the Iranian fundamentalist revolution to other parts of the ME. We're seeing some of that today in Iraq. Although there appears to be no formal state sponsorship, the Iranian government certainly isn't discouraging Islamacists from working in Iraq.

btw...this was one of the strongest arguments AGAINST the invasion. A power vacuum has been created and the entire region is less stable now than it was before the invasion.

Nice work Junior!

[Democrats unite]

4. To give his son something to do.

eom.

[denverbill]

5. Smarter? Yes. Was this a good decision? No.

We should of knocked him out in 1991. The Kurd gassings were recent. He had just launched 2 aggressive wars, first against Iran, then Kuwait. He had bombed Israel.

We had all sorts of reasons to justify taking him out then, and it would have been far cheaper in Iraqi lives and Americans lives. Instead, we left him in power, he brutally crushed a new Kurd uprising, and the Iraqi people suffered through 12 years of crippling economic sanctions, followed by a massive US air assault.

Bush I could have gotten support from France, Germany, and probably Russia for ousting him in 91.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

7. I can't believe that no-one has stated the obvious here!

Bush Snr stopped becuase just like Jnr, he knew that actually taking over Iraq would be a very bloody long lasting geurilla war that would depress his support at home.

So he stopped the attack on Iraq with the intention of restarting it after he was re-elected. He did not expect to lose the election because he thought a glorious military victory would amke the American people love him.

The reason Jnr went ahead with it is because, as PNAC had wanted, there had been a "new Pearl Harbour" that was supposed to justify the attack. The Bush cabal is still confident that the backlash over the Iraq occupation will be tempered by Sept 11, and that he will be "re-elected" even though Iraq is looking set to become as bad as Viet Nam.

[ewagner]

8. To some extent perhaps

I think he knew the true cost of invading and occupying Iraq. Whether he withheld doing it for international or domestic reasons is debatable. I'm not sure he had a phase two (actual invasion) in mind for his second term.

Let me throw another variable into the mix. Is it possible that he also withheld from invading and ousting Saddam at the request of his Saudi business partners? The Saudis were more concerned about the presence of US troops in the region than anybody else. The Saudis also had their wayward son, Osama, and a growing fundamentalist movement within their own country to deal with.

edited to complete the thought

[Devils Advocate NZ]

9. My reasoning...

Follow me on this and you may come to the same conclusion I did.

Firstly, to invade and occupy would gaurantee a loss of the election, because he, like his son, was destroying the economy, was going to be forced to raise taxes, and was generally a crap President (puking on the Japanese PM for example).

But they NEEDED to invade. Consider this: Enron and companies like it were reaching the end of their profitable lives, in terms of the kind of pillage they could commit. The economy had been sucked dry, and they would soon collapse without a major influx of wealth.

On top of that was the desire to control the Middle East, possibly as part of the quid pro quo with the Israelis. It is possible that during the war when Israel agreed to stay out of it and just absorb the Scud strikes, that Bush promised behind the scenes that he would remove Hussein from power. On top of that is the PNAC belief (except they were in power at that stage and hadn't published it) of US dominance.

Now, ask yourself whether the "No Fly Zones" and the sanctions and all the rest of the pressure put on Iraq after the first gulf war were really because of fear of Hussein. I personally believe that Hussein was conned into invading Kuwait at the behest of the Bush cabal, and as such there was far more to the war than liberating Kuwait or protecting Iraq's neighbours.

So why else would these harsh sanctions etc be put in place? To act as a future excuse, in the same way as Bush Jnr eventually used them! The plan was ALWAYS to occupy Iraq, and thus they needed some way of doing it when they wanted to, so they basically created a permanent provocation that could be called upon to create that excuse at any time.

As for the Saudis, I think you have things a bit backwards there. Supposedly, the Bush cabal story goes, they showed the Saudis satellite photographs showing Hussein's military massed on the border ready to invade. At this point the Saudis agreed to having US troops in Saudi Arabia, but they sure as hell wouldn't have wanted them based there permanently for the exact reason you mention. So why would the Saudis want the US to stop the invasion, thereby forcing them to accept US troops in Saudi Arabia over an extended period?

Surely they would prefer that the US troops invade Iraq, and turn it into their military garrison? Possibly the only reason the Saudis could have for not having the US invade Iraq was to prevent the Iraqi oil being controlled by the US, and thus removing their one bargaining chip (oil prices).

Notice that as soon as the invasion of Iraq was inevitable, the Saudis asked for, and got the removal of US troops from its soil. This is what they wanted years ago, so why prevent the one thing that would have allowed it to happen?

No, I believe once again that they were promised that the invasion would commence after Bush's re-election, and that never occured because Clinton won.

Can you imagine if Enron had not collapsed before the invasion of Iraq how much money it would have gotten as part of reconstruction efforts? It would have made a fortune!

Basically, take all the reasons Bush Jnr did it, and you have the reasons why Bush Snr would want to do it. The only problem was Bush Snr lost. After that they did everything in their power to have Clinton thrown out, and when that failed they made sure they won the next election, by stealing it.

[ewagner]

10. There's a lot to respond to here

great post btw.....

I am particularly interested in this comment:

I personally believe that Hussein was conned into invading Kuwait at the behest of the Bush cabal, and as such there was far more to the war than liberating Kuwait or protecting Iraq's neighbours.

I remember specifically that Bush's ambassador had told Saddam that the US would have no opinion if Iraq attacked Kuiwait. There was a brief, love-fest, Senate hearing which was a whitewash and then nothing more was heard of it. While I don't think that Saddam was particularly conned into invading Kuwait, I think there was a major SNAFU in the administration where they were caught double-dealing both the Saudis and Kuwait. IOW, Saddam who was our defacto ally earlier would take over Kuwait and we could displace the Saudis with Saddam. Somehow the whole shitnkaboodle backfired.

Other point you raised have caused me to think a little deeper and I can't respond yet because I like to process through things rather than respond on-the-fly. I will post my thoughts as they crystalize. Have you bookmarked this? If not feel free to pm me.

egw