If only his son could read ---
Posted to Poetry and Politics
by Jimboloco on 2003-11-03 16:01:00
In his memoirs, A World Transformed, written more than five years ago, George Bush, Sr. wrote the following to explain why he didn't go after Saddam Hussein at the end of the Gulf War:
"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."
