Seeking information about the first gulf war......

[Cannikin]

I was just graduating high school at the end of the first war and the only thing I was worried about at the time was getting drafted!
But I'm wondering about the reasons we didnt continue the war to its logical conclusion and take out Saddam then. Now George Jr. seems to use the issue of Saddam murdering his own people to forward his cause. Isnt it his fathers fault they were murdered? If we had taken him out then it wouldnt have happened. Right?

but like I said, I recall very little else from the time other than the fact that the war was ending and I didnt have to go (I wont fight for oil)! So if someone can tell me or point the way to a good source, I would appreciate it.

[onebigbadwulf]

1. It's not only Bush's fault in that he didn't take Saddam out

It's the Reagan and Bush admin's faults for giving him the weapons...

It's Bush's fault for telling the civilians to rebel with promises of helping them...


It's April Gallespie's fault ((R)ambassador) that Kuwait was invaded...


And It's Bush's fault that the whole thing was covered up and blamed on Iran.

[Cannikin]

2. Cool. But I really do need some sources so I can make informed arguments..

with my repug friends....and maybe the occasional freeper.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

3. you can start with UN resolutions

Bush let the whole thing get going by 'looking the other way' on certain Kuwaiti issues and then once Saddam invaded, Bush got the go ahead to get his freak on with the military toys he wanted to test. The only thing is, the whole thing sort of backfired when he didn't get authorization from the UN to oust Saddam from power and only got to kick him out of Kuwait. The UN resolutions were clear in the objective of removing him from Kuwait...not from Baghdad.

TheProdigal

[Cannikin]

4. We didnt listen to them this time. Why then?

[ProdigalJunkMail]

6. This time...

it was supposedly a threat directly to us, making the UN resolution not really all that necessary. The lingo of the day seems to be that since Saddam had tons and tons of bad stuff, that could be used against us, we had to go get him first...of course, now that we're there we can't FIND any of that stuff...hmmmm

TheProdigal

[alcuno]

5. There was NO mandate to "take out Saddam."

The UN mandate was to get the Iraqi military out of Kuwait. They talked at the time of going to Baghdad but there was no mandate from the UN to do so. I guess you could go to the UN's website and get a copy of the resolution.

It's even worse than you pointed out. The US ENCOURAGED the people of Iraq (Shia and Kurds) to rise up against Hussein and when some of them did, we stood by and allowed them to be slaughtered.

Also, that war had a whole lot of PR going on with it as well. I believe that Victoria Clarke, who just served as the Pentagon spokeswoman, worked for a DC PR firm that helped Bush I "sell" the war. I'll never forget the "Republican Guard amassing on the Saudi border" lie. The Bush family appears to be populated abd surrounded by "serial exaggerators" and outright liars.

[On the Road]

7. The Original Coalition

was much larger than the coalition today. Unlike the coalition now, a number of Arab countries participated such as Egypt and Syria. To get such a wide range of allies, Bush Sr. had to agree to limit the scope of the operation to liberating Kuwait.

Bush Sr. is often critized for not into Iraq back then, but I believe he clearly did the right thing. For one, he would have had to double-cross our allies. It would have been just as illegal as the current war.

I criticize Bush Sr. not for stopping when he did, but for starting the war when Saddam was trying to negotiate a face-saving withdrawal.

[arewethereyet]

8. it was against US law at the time. They fixed that, thus the change.

Some Executive order as I recall that prohibited assination of heads of state. The original idea was to reduce the risk to our leader. This is what tied George the Firt's hands.