Paul Wolfowitz 1, Colin Powell 0

[Imran Siddiqui]

Imran, I didn't know you were so familiar with our logistics at the time.

I read MtG's posts .

[Berzerker]

Uh oh, I don't want to get into an argument with the living encyclopedia, but if we had the air power to maintain no fly zones, I don't know why we couldn't shoot down a few helicopters.

[Imran Siddiqui]

We we COULD, militarily, but not politically. An undeclared air war would not fly.

[DinoDoc]

Still don't see why we let them keep the helicoptor fleet in the negotiations.

[Berzerker]

But this was part of the cease fire terms, not an undeclared war. We set up no fly zones for the benefit of Iraqi dissidents but let Iraq helicopters attack the very dissidents the no fly zones were set up to protect. I remember interviews with US soldiers who complained that they were ordered to stand by as dissidents were slaughtered.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Believe me, the media would have called it a war, and that would spread like wildfire.

[uh Clem]

What Bush did in 1991 wasn't a "mistake," it was deliberate.

Bush's actions (and inactions) immediately after the war allowed Saddam to destroy the Iraqi opposition groups whose rise to power would be greatly inconvenient to Washington.

The US (at least to date) has never supported a breakup of Iraq and has generally regarded existing Iraqi opposition groups as nuisances.

As Thomas Friedman explained a few months after the fact (NYT 7 July 1991), postwar sanctions would lead some of Saddam's generals to overthrow him and then, as Friedman wrote, "Washington would have the best of all worlds: an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein."

The flaw, of course, was that the sanctions didn't do their work: there was no military coup. This could not have been foreseen; after all, look how quickly the embargo against Cuba had gotten rid of Fidel Castro. But in 1991, it seemed like a very plausible solution.

[Dinner]

As I recall it was Bush I who called for the Iraqis to revolt and it was Bush I who wanted to end the war as quickly as possible. General Schwartzkoff wanted to continue the war for another week so he could finish off the Republican guard units but Bush was afraid the continuing slaughter of the Iraqi military would make him look bad in the international press.

[Adam Smith]

Originally posted by uh Clem
What Bush did in 1991 wasn't a "mistake," it was deliberate.

Bush's actions (and inactions) immediately after the war allowed Saddam to destroy the Iraqi opposition groups whose rise to power would be greatly inconvenient to Washington.

I remember this much differently. The biggest problem was Arab opposition to the US removing Saddam. We cobbled together a coalition to get Iraq out of Kuwait, with Arab acquiescence, and that set of political arrangements may not have survived had we removed Saddam at that time.

[chequita guevara]

The Arab governments' interests and our own government's interests coincided. Frankly, I don't think Bush ever expected the Iraqi people to actually rise up, and was caught by surprise when they did. Had he known they would, I doubt he would have encouraged them, having never had any intention of helping them.

I'm not so cynical as to believe uh Clem's scenario, but there is no doubt that the US benefited from the Baathist regime not being overthrown.

[MRT144]

another fine example of americans doing something without thinking about the consequences. we should have just done our job and left it at that. every time we try to increase our sphere of influence on other nations and groups without supporting it fully and with dubious means it bites us in the ass, and in this case from a humanitarian perspective.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Berzerker
In Kuwait? No, my gripe is the same as Wolfowitz'. Bush 1 told the Iraqi people to rebel, and it's my understanding that he did that because Iraqi dissidents, wary of US policy ala Nixon's backstabbing from the 1970's, wanted some public assurance from Bush of support for the rebellion once they stuck their necks out.

1) I would not have had the US ambassador (April Glasby) tell Saddam we had no treaty with Kuwait and no desire to get involved in inter-Arab disputes at a time when Saddam was massing troops on the Kuwaiti border in response to a border dispute over Kuwait allegedly side drilling into Iraqi oil fields. It's clear to me Saddam did not want to do anything to really anger the US since we helped him during the war with Iran and sought the meeting with the US ambassador to get signals about our resolve should he invade Kuwait. Bush 1 really screwed up.

2) Once Bush 1 blundered by effectively sending him a green light, I would not have went to war to expel Iraq from Kuwait.

3) Once expelled from Kuwait and the message to rebel was sent by Bush 1, I would have supported the rebellion, not turned my back as they got slaughtered.

As I recall it was Bush I who called for the Iraqis to revolt and it was Bush I who wanted to end the war as quickly as possible. General Schwartzkoff wanted to continue the war for another week so he could finish off the Republican guard units but Bush was afraid the continuing slaughter of the Iraqi military would make him look bad in the international press.

and this is the part that I remember too, from my perspective. Apart from the looking bad part in the eyes of press, what I think is that Saddam in charge of Iraq still suited US at the time, but the tide soon changed for good.

[GePap]

That was a great Frontline episode they had last night.

On the Iraq issue, what Brent Scowcroft said to frontline in Oct 2001 was the salient point: Toppling Saddam was not one of the objectives of the Gulf War, and certainly not part of the UN mandate that gave the green light for war. The mission was to get Iraq out of Kuwait. We did so.

The problem we had in 1991 is the one we still have, and the reason why we are slowly undermining the Iraqi ooposition. The US wants a single Centralized Iraq, to balance mainly Iranian influences, now and in the future, in the gulf.

The other wonderful bit of that Frontline was that they clearly laid out the real reasons for this war: the New, Wolfowitz inspired policy that the admin. has taken as its own. As much as I dislike Bill Kristol, he was correct: for the last 6 months we have been using Colin powells tactics to achieve Paul Wolfowitz's aims.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Berzerker
In Kuwait? No, my gripe is the same as Wolfowitz'. Bush 1 told the Iraqi people to rebel, and it's my understanding that he did that because Iraqi dissidents, wary of US policy ala Nixon's backstabbing from the 1970's, wanted some public assurance from Bush of support for the rebellion once they stuck their necks out.

1) I would not have had the US ambassador (April Glasby) tell Saddam we had no treaty with Kuwait and no desire to get involved in inter-Arab disputes at a time when Saddam was massing troops on the Kuwaiti border in response to a border dispute over Kuwait allegedly side drilling into Iraqi oil fields. It's clear to me Saddam did not want to do anything to really anger the US since we helped him during the war with Iran and sought the meeting with the US ambassador to get signals about our resolve should he invade Kuwait. Bush 1 really screwed up.

April Glaspie has been fairly screwed on the subject of that conversation. The context of her remarks and her meeting was a pending meeting of the Arab league in which the Iraqi - Kuwaiti dispute was to be discussed, and Glaspie's remarks were directed toward that: That the US had no interest in the matter, and that it was something the US felt should be worked out bilaterally or through the arab league. Saddam's positioning of troops on the border was widely seen by both US and other arab intelligence services as mere posturing.

[/QUOTE]

[Imran Siddiqui]

but Bush was afraid the continuing slaughter of the Iraqi military would make him look bad in the international press.

And yet this Bush is slaughterd for not considering international opinion on this war. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.