Poppy Bush wrote, in his book, about why he would not invade Iraq...

[Gin]

does anyone have that quote? Part of it goes something like this...there would be a guerilla war.

Every word of that quote should be in an ad for this campaign.

[ourwinter]

1. good question

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

after searching on google, damn I love that thing...

[Droopy]

2. Good find

I read that article and sent it in to the Neal Boortz show during the run up to the war with Iraq. I don't think I made any headway though. I doubt it even got to him.

[virtualobserver]

3. Dick Cheney seems to be a smart guy too.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2072609/



"If you're going to go in and try to topple Saddam Hussein, you have to go to Baghdad. Once you've got Baghdad, it's not clear what you do with it. It's not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that's currently there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime or a Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the Baathists, or one that tilts toward the Islamic fundamentalists? How much credibility is that government going to have if it's set up by the United States military when it's there? How long does the United States military have to stay to protect the people that sign on for that government, and what happens to it once we leave?"

[Gin]

7. Wow...I had not seen that Cheney article...did he lie then or now?

"Plus there was the notion that you were going to set yourself a new war aim that we hadn't talked to anybody about. That you hadn't gotten Congress to approve, hadn't talked to the American people about. You're going to find yourself in a situation where you've redefined your war aims and now set up a new war aim that in effect would detract from the enormous success you just had."


The enormous success was after 9-11..the world was with us...now they are against us..

We need to use these quotes in ads....Moveon is looking for ideas for ads.

[Gin]

4. thats..it....thanks...I went to google....didnt know about the memory hole

I heard he actually used the words "guerilla war"...but I dont see it here...

[BlueEyedSon]

5. 2 of the many references.....

"To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day hero ... assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an un-winnable urban guerilla war. It could only plunge that part of the world into even greater instability."

http://george.loper.org/~george/archives/2003/Nov/998.html

"Trying to eliminate Saddam .. would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible ... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq ...there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. 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 United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."

If only his son could read.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/gulfwar.asp

[madfloridian]

6. Dean read it during a recent interview.

It is probably at his site now if you do a search. I will check and see.

[Gin]

9. do you agree that all the candidates should be referencing this quote when

Iraq comes up...or in their literature....pound it home...what stupid
criminal, minds are in charge.

[madfloridian]

8. Dean read it during his Fox interview with Chris Wallace...transcript

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,105081,00.html

SNIP..."DEAN: I think getting rid of Saddam Hussein is a wonderful thing. But the question is, is it a good idea to send 135,000 troops unilaterally to do it?

Let me -- can I just take one second and read something George Bush's father wrote in his book? This is about the first Gulf War. "To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us, and make a broken tyrant into a latter- day Arab hero. It would have taken us way beyond the imprimatur of the international law bestowed by the resolutions of the Security Council, assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator, and condemning them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerrilla war."

George Bush's father had it right. We could have contained Saddam Hussein indefinitely. We were flying over his country. He had no air force. We were bombing him when we needed to, in response to anti-aircraft fire.

I thought it was a mistake to go into Iraq. If we had gone in, we should have gone in with a real coalition, the way that his father did, and not do it unilaterally......"