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. - George H. W Bush
There still is no viable “exit strategy†that will in fact leave a free Iraq.
George H. W Bush on Iraq
The whole thread (25 posts)
- George H. W Bush on Iraq
- yawn yawn, even Bush 41 has said 911 changed it all. good luck (n/t)
- re: You mean Dad changed his mind? Yawn? Pretty insensitive to our troops deaths aren't you. Well, his words are worth reading as the dire net results he predicted has come to pass. (n/t)
- always surfing the wave of someone else's tragedy. (n/t)
- Yeah right. Like FDR with Pearl Harbor
- re: Ed, you sadden me greatly. You equate an amorphous non-nation bunch of terrorists with Japan. 12/7 is not in away similar to 9/11 except in deaths and shock. (n/t)
- So you don't think 3000 dead and billions of destruction and disruption is a big deal. Good luck.
- re: Right you lose all my respect. Some of those billions came from shutting down an industry because of irrational fears on the part of this Administration. (n/t)
- So you don't think 3000 dead and billions of destruction and disruption is a big deal. Good luck.
- re: Ed, you sadden me greatly. You equate an amorphous non-nation bunch of terrorists with Japan. 12/7 is not in away similar to 9/11 except in deaths and shock. (n/t)
- Yeah right. Like FDR with Pearl Harbor
- re: George H. W Bush on Iraq
- yawn yawn, even Bush 41 has said 911 changed it all. good luck (n/t)