If the world is such a better place without Saddam,...

[KansDem]

...why didn't Poppy take him out in 1991. After all, Saddam "gassed his own people" in 1988, surely Bush Sr. knew about this. Why wait 14 years to make the world a better place? If Bush Sr. had taken Saddam out in 1991, the world would have been a better place 11 years sooner!

I wonder how the freepers/fundies explain this? I wonder if they'll use the "bad intelligence" argument Poppy's son uses so well!

[glaeken777]

1. my dad... who is not a Freeper technically... once said when I pushed...

... because the Democrats in Congress, Powell and others pressed Bush to stop short of taking Baghdad completely.

[Inland]

2. Or why didn't Clinton invade? Or Bush Two campaign on invading

in 2000? And why did Bush II take a year to put together this case for WMD and that Saddam was such a big threat to the US, if the fact he was a threat to his own people was sufficient cause for war?

The answer is that nobody ever said that invading for the sake of Iraqis was a good idea. Everyone agreed that in order for American lives to be spent and our coffers depleted, there would have to be a threat from Saddam to America.

It wasn't until after the world had proof that Saddam wasn't a threat to America--it wasn't until the invasion was a fait accompli--that Bush decided that the good of other nations was in itself worth the death of thousands of Americans and the cost of a billion lus dollars a week. Why did Bush come to this conclusion? Because it was the only reason he had left before having to admit that he took us on the wrong war. So he embraced without a beat the idea that our army and money should be used for the sole purpose of charity, eing just the sort of douchebag who tailors his morals and values and intellectual principles to fit whatever is in his own personal best interest.

And the funny thing is, we haven't actually helped the Iraqis yet, with our deaths and our money. Really funny.

[forgethell]

3. Well, I asked some, and

they said, just because you made a mistake once, doesn't mean you have to keep making it.

[glaeken777]

4. one great book on the entire Iraq matter

Is the relevant chapter in "A Problem from Hell". Very good recap of Saddam's crimes... and our failure to prevent them... at a time when those mass graves Hannity keeps yammering about had yet to be dug.

[forgethell]

11. On the other hand,

is it our responsibility to police the world at all?? Isn't it our governments responsibility to protect Americans?

[glaeken777]

12. of course not, but...

... the entire mess started, most agree, when we sold Saddam all the poison for use on the Iranians. He instead used it on his own people. We had plenty of proof at the time that this happened. We didn't order any sanctions, or even harsh words.

Those thousands of innocent people were dead and it didn't become an issue until years later, when Saddam became a liability. Once the conservatives decided to take him out, all their lackeys started using as moral justification the very events they themselves had **ignored** a decade prior.

[denverbill]

5. Here's why, from GHWB himself.

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

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.

[Jacobin]

7. Good answer

Poppy was not geo-politically dimwitted like his brain damaged offspring

[glaeken777]

10. debatable...

Considering that the Kurds were encouraged enough by our steamrolling of the Iraqi Army that they basically asked if now was a good time to revolt against Saddam.

"Sure!" the Administration said.

So the Kurds revolted, expecting our help in the matter. Bush Sr. twiddled his thumbs while Saddam brutally crushed them.

[denverbill]

8. And I'll add my own addendum.

GHWB was also very concerned about what a 'post-Saddam' Iraq would look like. The most likely scenario was a Shiite theocracy and a breakup of Iraq into Shiite, Kurdish, and (maybe) Sunni regions. We sure as hell didn't want another Iranian friendly theocracy, and neither the Syrians nor the Turks wanted an independent Kurdish homeland.

Bush I didn't give a damn about the Iraqi people any more than he cared for the Kuwaiti people he 'rescued'. As we installed the Shah of Iran to replace the democratically elected government of Iran to prevent the spread of communism, so too we left Saddam in power to stop the spread of Islamic theocracy.

[leftofthedial]

6. it was Clinton's fault

[iconoclastNYC]

9. A smart freeper would say : "Sanctions were not working"

Then divert about the Oil for food and how evil the UN is.

But we know this was about empire, oil, halliburton, KBR and feeding the military industrial complex.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

13. Let's say yoiu have a hangnail that bothers you a lot.

Then someone comes up and chops off your foot. See, aren't you better now without that hangnail?