Dr. Geoffrey Wawro: 'Having seemed to settle on limited aims, Bush casually expanded them, enjoining Iraqis to rise up and overthrow Saddam. His actual words were not stirring—"In my own view, I've always said it would be—that the Iraqi people should put him aside and that would facilitate the resolution of all these problems that exist, and would certainly facilitate the acceptance of Iraq back into the family of peace-loving nations"—but they sufficed to trigger an uprising, which further complicated the war's termination. Suddenly the U.S. was responsible for all of those rebels answering Bush's call to arms. Yet at the Safwan negotiations, Schwarzkopf carelessly authorized the Iraqis to use helicopter gunships on their side of the cease-fire line. The Iraqi generals were so surprised by that concession— which permitted them to strafe and rocket Kurds and Shiites from the air—that one of the Iraqi generals incredulously asked: "So you mean even the helicopters that are armed can fly in the Iraqi skies?" Having first foresworn a breakup of Iraq and then encouraged one, the Bush administration spent the last days of the conflict watching its would-be insurgents being hunted into "no-fly zones" and debating what to do. Bush finally accepted Scowcroft's position that he must leave Iraq united and reasonably strong to balance Iranian power. Powell and Schwarzkopf warned against any "Lebanonization" of Iraq that, as Powell put it, would leave Washington to "sort out 2,000 years of Mesopotamian history." It's too bad they didn't enforce that view until after all of those Iraqis had been driven from their homes and slaughtered.
Overall, Bush 41's careless termination of the Persian Gulf War arguably sowed the seeds of the Bush 43 administration's invasion of Iraq. No demand was made for the surrender of WMD. The Republican Guard pulled off a "desert Dunkirk" to fight another day. Neo-cons like Paul Wolfowitz, who served in Cheney's Pentagon and protested the mildness of the war's end, were later emboldened to go "all the way" in Iraq, reasoning that great opportunities for regime change had been squandered in 1991.'
12 comments :
broken record..
Why America? Why didnt you occupy my country and kill my people earlier?
lol
they used saddam first to attack Iran, then now its IRAQS TURN
Mojo,
Isnt it disgusting how CANADA provied safe haven for Ben Ali's family and Co? And Saudi, an American ally, provided haven for the dictaror, after getting the approval of their American masters of course.
Shouldnt they be tried for Curruption and crimes against humanity?
Freedom or FreeDUMB?
America should have overthrown Saddam the mass murderer of Iraqis in 1991, I have argued before. They were so close at a time when all the Khaleeji 3arab, even the Wahhabi wackos, would have been glad to see Saddam hung, or at least replaced with a friendly Sunni Arab. The subsequent years of sanctions and resultant deaths of innocent Iraqis was one of OBL's reasons (so he said) he hated America. All that and the 2003 invasion would have been avoided had Saddam been overthrown in 1991.
America didn't need to occupy Iraq in 1991.They had already invaded and killed tens of thousands of Iraqis - the 3arab jarab were cool with that, evidently. US troops just had to keep going another 50 miles and overthrow the regime, secure Baghdad long enough for an interim govt to take over.
The 3arab jarab from falastizi and other 3arab jarab might not have liked it and maybe they will never understand why, but it would have been best for Iraq if Saddam & sons had been overthrown in 1991.
William F . Buckley in April 1991: "Mr. Bush never hesitated in the month before his great victory to pronounce Saddam Hussein to be a "Hitler." The general sentiment is that Hitlers cannot be left to run whole countries, even countries whose destructive potential has been vastly reduced. Iraq is no longer in position to threaten Kuwait, or Israel; but the government of Saddam is well positioned to continue barbarous treatment of those Iraqis whom we encouraged to revolt against him. To be indifferent to their needs when we have sitting in the area the heaviest military concentration since the invasion of Normandy strikes many people who aren't given to thinking in geopolitical grids as morally insensible."
"The subsequent years of sanctions and resultant deaths of innocent Iraqis was one of OBL's reasons (so he said) he hated America."
Yes, so much so that he decided to honor the Iraqis killed from sanctions by blowing up tens of thousands more via Zarqawi and scum.
Yeah I don't think OBL was genuine in his talk of sympathy for Iraqis.
dear Mojo, I'm glad to find you quote WF Buckley to advance your arguement'
But I would disagree with :
" the Americans didn't need to occupy Iraq in 1991 ". I think there was a clear-headed understanding that the removal of Saddam's iron fist would require the miltary to be STUCK in Iraq doing what they aren't designed to do : peacekeeping & nation building.Remember the warning ;
"The Pottery Barn Rule :You break it,you own it".There was not much chance that the US military could remove Saddam,turn the political order on its head, and hightail it back to Kuwait without leaving a broken, and chaotic Mesopotamia in its wake. Still, it would have likely been better to have that struggle from '91 to perhaps (?) '94, than to have it drag on from '91 to ? 2008.
btl
"
To be fair to OBL, I think there were a couple of times where even he and his henchmen in Pakistan were shocked and horrified by what Zarqawi was doing to Iraq.
Iraqi American Mojo finds it disgusting:
☼ I find it disgusting that there are 71 Starbucks in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ☼ ☼
Really. And why is that bad exactly
What the F is wrong with coffee. I drink Jacobs which is a German brand
The war is not over coffee, the war is a war between the 2 countries: United States of America and Iraq.
We still have 49,000 enemy troops to kick out, and several traitors to execute.
"Iraqi American Mojo finds it disgusting:
? I find it disgusting that there are 71 Starbucks in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ? ?"
You are misreading what Mojo said. His point is that the bombings are not aimed at the US-owned Starbucks, but at local Iraqi-owned shops. Starbucks might be considered to be a fair target, Iraqi mom-and-pop shops are not.
(I would not want to see any bombing of Starbucks either.)
"The war is not over coffee, the war is a war between the 2 countries: United States of America and Iraq."
The war in Iraq was between the US (and its allies) and the Saddam regime which was ruling Iraq. Once that was removed, there was no war between the US and Iraq, but there was a major attack on both US forces and Iraqis by both Al Qaeda and Iranian-backed militias.
Both of these wanted to see Iraq reduced to wreckage, and to prevent the US from doing anything to rebuild the country.
You evidently think Saddam was a good guy. I think he was a violent thug who took power by force and was a disaster for Iraq in every way, just as Khomeini was a disaster for Iran.
"We still have 49,000 enemy troops to kick out, and several traitors to execute."
You're not Iraqi, idiot. Start by kicking your deranged views out of Iraq.
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