Posted by arthur p bloom on Wednesday, November 03, 2004 at 4:50PM :
In Reply to: Re: Last Election Comment posted by Russ/Wyo on Wednesday, November 03, 2004 at 2:22PM :
Bush the First, on why he did not fight Iraq:
"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, 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 U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome."