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October 17, 2003
Georgie Porgie
Here is an interesting warning about Iraq invasion from none other
than George H.W. Bush in his book A World Transformed (Alfred A.
Knopf, NY, 1998): on page 489:
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, there was no
viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our
principles. Further more, 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 bitterly hostile land. It would have been a
dramatically different -- and perhaps barren -- outcome.
-- George H.W. Bush in A World Transformed
Posted by crystallyn at October 17, 2003 09:01 AM
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