The author says "He avoided a possible struggle with legislators by deciding to halt the war after only 100 hours—a mistake, and a luxury, not available to his son. "

What exactly was the mistake? That Bush I didn't just start this fiasco a decade earlier? There seems to be this belief, based on I don't know what, that if the original Bush had just "marched to Baghdad" then everything would have been fine. As history has shown, we certainly could have toppled Saddam. But then what?

The whole reason the US didn't do it in 1991 was that back then it was forseen what a fiasco would ensue. Experts in the military and foreign affairs portions of the US government were heeded - and not ignored by an administration that refused to countenance anything that didn't agree with its own ideology.

Would Sunni and Shi'ite suddenly have loved one another a decade ago? Would the Kurds have been happy to cooperate? Would neighbors like Iran, Turkey, and Syria been any less likely to exploit any potential 'vacuum'? Al Qaid may not have been a household name, but its functional equivalents abounded.

In 1990 I listened to an Army officer brief an Army estimate that in order to keep order and build a "self secure" Iraq the United States would have to commit something on the order of 250,000 troops for at least a decade. The leadership saw the price tag and passed. They did what they promised - kicked Saddam out of Kuwait - and were happy with that success. Unfortunately, a new generation of leadership decided to ignore the potential pitfalls and follow its own rosy prognostications of easy victory and glory.

No, the first Bush administration did not make a mistake. It is the second Bush administration that has made the mistake, thus ensuring the disaster that the first wisely avoided.

Circumstances were different at the end of the 100 hours than they were today. There were local forces ready to support the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, who expected the assistance of U.S. troops. Those troops didn't come. In the years between the two conflicts, Hussein acted aggressively to eliminate those opposing forces (the leaders were assassinated, their families killed and in some cases their villages were destroyed). Had the U.S. acted decisively in 1991, it would also have had better international support as the UN and the European nations supported the anti-Hussein effort because of Hussein's demonstrated aggression against Kuwait. None of this disagrees with the briefing you received in 1990 -- it merely indicates that U.S. wouldn't have been going it alone in 1991 as it is today, meaning those stabilizing forces may have come, from the UN or France or Germany or England.

What I recall from the actual events was the reason the elder Bush stopped the war wasn't caution over being entangled more deeply, but to mollify his critics on the left who kept saying "We can't exceed the UN mandate, we can't go to Bagdhad, we can only free Kuwait."

The first Bush administration probably did make a mistake, it failed to seize the main chance. "There is a tide in the affairs of men..." and it missed the tide, the assistance from other governments, and the chance to set up a local government that might have been effective in stabilizing the country. As a result those local leaders were killed. Whether there are effective leaders in Iraq to which we can "turn over the keys" upon a pullout remains an open question.

What is clear to me, in any case, is that chaos worse than we're seeing today will reign if the U.S. does withdraw.

Actually much of the criticism centered on the fact that war was rapidly becoming a turkey shoot for US forces. The ‘Highway of Death’ where retreating Iraqi armor and troops transports were being slaughtered by US air power and armored forces was starting to make for very ugly video on the nightly news broadcasts. Bush I and his cabinet were becoming concerned about the war coverage moving from ‘triumphant US military’ to ‘bullies killing helpless soldiers’ so they pulled back.

As to whether or not it was a mistake. That’s a difficult question.

Clearly it was not a mistake to refuse to forge on to Bagdad. That would have overstepped our mandate and crippled our alliances in the Mid-East. One of the underreported aspects of Baker’s diplomacy is how he kept the other mid-east states in line by promising them we would not topple Saddam. Nobody in the region at that time wanted the precedent of a US led military force toppling a sitting mid-east leader and they wanted Saddam to remain as a counterbalance to Iran. Bush/Baker built their broad coalition by setting very precise goals and then sticking too them.

There is an argument to be made that Bush I stopped pounding on Iraqi forces too soon however. Another few days and Saddam’s military might (and I stress MIGHT) have been weakened to the point where his ability to hold unto power would have been severely diminished. With his military heavily weakened Saddam might have been overthrown. I don’t think this is very possible scenario however. Even if the various rebellions in the north and south had gained transaction, what would have been the outcome? Would Iran have invaded again to gain control of southern Iraq (there would have been no US troops in Iraq as a deterrent)? Would Turkey have intervened in Kurdistan? And could Saddam have survived despite and even more depleted military (a distinct possibility).

And I think the end game analysis Bush I made the right call. He understood the basic maxim “you break it you buy it” and wanted no part of Iraq recognizing all the problems that would come with it. He also didn’t want to create too much chaos and instability by weakening Saddam so much Iraq descended into civil war and inviting its neighbors to the party.

You and other supporters of this war keep warning of the disaster that will befall Iraq if we suddenly pull out, but you seldom mention an alternative. What does staying the course bring?

This is not a war that can be "won". There can be no "victory", no "success" as long as we are on Arab land. There will always be someone ready to blow themselves up if we are present.

Iraqis must settle their own differences and we cannot referee.

Any settlement acheived while we are in the neighborhood will only be viewed with suspicion and used as an excuse for continued violence.

Yes, and you who are opposed to the war and demand a pullout never offer any solutions to the problem of stability in Iraq or the region -- nature abhors a vacuum, if the U.S. pulls out, some other authority (given the history probably an authority inimical to the U.S.) will come in.

I don't know what the solution is, but until there is something better than "let them sort it out themselves" when they've never been able to do that in the past, then we need to stay and try to sort things out ourselves.

thorin01:

Actually much of the criticism centered on the fact that war was rapidly becoming a turkey shoot for US forces. The ‘Highway of Death’ where retreating Iraqi armor and troops transports were being slaughtered by US air power and armored forces was starting to make for very ugly video on the nightly news broadcasts. Bush I and his cabinet were becoming concerned about the war coverage moving from ‘triumphant US military’ to ‘bullies killing helpless soldiers’ so they pulled back.

The "Highway of Death" action was a violation of the Geneva Conventions. <link> This is why neither the current nor former Bush administrations will allow the US to participate in the ICC. <link> Many administration officials would be tried for war crimes.

If you think that GHW Bush was concerned about this, then you probably also believe that we attacked Iraq in order to preserve the freedom and independence of the Democratic Republic of Kuwait. LOL!!!

The US accomplished what we needed -- the destruction of Kuwait and Iraq and the ensuing chaos that followed. That was our goal when we engaged covert agents to start this war between the two nations. The real roots of the war in Iraq are complicated and largely unknown to the American public.

I'll give you a hint. It involves an illegal price fixing cartel for petroleum exporting countries.

Nightswimmer, I don't no why you are using an open source general reference as the basis for your "conspiracy" theory.

Please provide a more rational and logical argument than this. I have been to Kuwait a number of times, the first one in 1998 and I must have been in a different Kuwait than yours, because there was anything but chaos and very little evidence of damage ffom the Iraqi invasion and occupation. Certainly Kuwaiti oil production fell off for about five years after 1991, but those wells were capped and pre-1991 production was reached in 1997. Just as damining to your argument is the fact that Iraqi oil production has never been a high enough percentage of world production to really matter.

As far as the "Highway of Death", whoever wrote the wikipedia article has no real background in military strategy, operational art or tactics, must less the Laws of War or the Geneva Convention. Any enemy that is retreating, withdrawing or even fleeing is a legitimate target. Just because AT THAT PARTICULAR MOMENT the men and units of the Iraqi Army and Republican Guard were not an immediate threat to US and Coalition forces does not remove them from the status of combatants. Such men and units have, in past history, rallied and coallesced into combat effective and capable units. Napoleon said it best in that it is pursuit and annihilation of a fleeing foe that wins wars. And in fact, Iraqi Army and Republican Guard units that were allowed towards the end of the war to withdraw in the same disorder and vulnerability becuase of our "mercy", became the core of the forces Saddam used to suppress the Shiite and Kurdish rebellions.

As far as the argument over whether we should have "marched on Baghdad" in 1991. As someone above has stated, "Amateurs argue tactics, professionals discuss logistics". The reason the campaign stopped at 100 hours was that the US and Coalition forces were at the end of the logistical tether. Keep in mind that only the US, British and French forces involved in this campaign had sufficient and capable tactical and operational logistics structure in theater. The Arab (Egyptian, Syrian, Kuwaiti, etc) forces were severely limited in their ability to sustain their combat power over any distance. This was one reason they were given the least demanding mission. Any advance to Baghdad would have been purely US/British/French units. And they would have had to take an operational pause to reorganize and refit before resuming any advance up the Tigris-Euphrates. Such a pause would have lasted around a week, a period during which the Iraqis could withdraw, rally and dig-in. Keep in mind that all the support flowed through Saudi ports far to the south up a single road along the coast. Both Kuwaiti ports were in shambles and neither is very large or configured to support massive military operations. The only alternative was to capture Basra and its port and then spend the time to get it back in operations, and more importantly and time-consuming, to sweep the mines from the mouth of the river and the river channel. This is where the political side comes in. Without Saudi support of the US led effort, there would be no capability to deploy US and Coalition forces into the area and sustain them. The Saudis were not prepared to support an invasion and regime change operation in 1991. And any military action that did nothing more than remove Saddam Hussein or set the conditions for such a regime change would only have ensured the same level (though perhaps not the same configuration) of chaos and disorder that rules Iraq today, but in 1991 or 1992. We would have an independent Kurdistan rubbing an enemy (Iran) and an ally (Turkey) the wrong way while the Shiites took control, one way or another, and began their campaign of "sectarian" cleansing and getting back at the Sunnis and Ba'athists. There would be a power vacuum that had every chance of pulling Turkey, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia, along with other interested parties, such as the US into a multi-faceted confrontation. The most likely end state would have been a Shiite fundamentalist dominated authoriatarian government under the influence of Iran. Not exactly our desired end state, eh?

Bush Sr made the right military and political decision. It flowed from the appreciation that Saddam Hussein was not our "enemy". He made a mistake in believing we would allow him to invade and conquer Kuwait and we "spanked" him for it. We placed the Kurds under our protection and "contained" Saddam and that was it. With the proper political management, he could have been re-focused on his real purpose which was as a military balance to the real threat, the Iranians. Unfortunately, the Clinton era lost that purpose and then the Bush Junior Administration let ideological and personal ambitions cloud their judgement. Saddam had been our "ally" against Iran. He could have been managed back into the role again. He was never a threat to the US and he was not much of a threat to our "allies" in the Middle East. He was certainly less a threat to Israel than Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran.

during gulf war 1, history tells us it wasnt george h. w. bush who held a strong opinion on whether or not to invade iraq, after the republican guards were crushed in kuwait.

rather, that decision was made almost solely by . .. colin powell.

it was colin powell's (mis) belief that the shi'ite and kurdish portions of iraq would rise up in a civil rebellion to oppose saddam, his clan, and the sunnis.

if colin had been right, then we'd have seen, in the 1990's, the exact same civil war which is taking place today.

but feeling less guilty about it, since all we did was 'encourage them' without providing any substantive assistance to liberate themselves from their oppression.

in america, we like the oppressed of the world to live or die on their own merits. which explains our reluctance to enter world war 1 and world war 2, our lack of urgency in liberating the death camps, our indifference to nazi atrocities in poland and the soviet union, the tutu/hutsi massacres in africa, the killing fields of camodia, and so on and so forth.

we don't fight for human rights and dignity. thats your job buddy . . . don't expect any help from america. especially not after the iraq war. dictators should feel free to cut lose for the next 20 years or so . . . we've proved we can be deterred by acts of barbarism and atrocities, and care nothing about freedom and human rights