The decision of President George HW Bush to not invade Baghdad and take out Saddam Hussein is one that has been debated for quite some time. What do you think would have happened if Bush allowed for a full-scale invasion of Baghdad?
It's strange that he flip-flopped on this issue during the Bush Jr. Presidency, though.It wasn't up to Bush though. The Gulf Arab Monarchies, who funded the war and from where it was staged, didn't want that to happen. Physically they couldn't stop it, but using soft power they made sure it didn't happen. Money and logistics are what keep wars going.
Something to note is what Cheney said in 1994. He was SECDEF in 1991 and, of course, VP 2001-2009 when the Americans went to Baghdad. Here is what he said in 1994:
"Because if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq. Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it—eastern Iraq—the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq. The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families—it wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right."
To clarify--Bush overthought it in what ways, exactly?We need two more days at war to pocket 90-95% of the Republican Guard and the regime would have fallen as we had hundreds of thousands of Shia and Kurds rising up, and no major jihadi presence so we wouldn't have had to do a lot post war.
Saudis wanted to see Saddam's fall , but Bush overthought it and Cheney refused to arm the rebels with the weapons we took from the Iraqi Army that we told to rise up and our generals were hoodwinked into allowing helicopter gunships into the NFZ.
It was a unfortunate combination of errors that led to the end it did.
I could see this action bolstering HW's popularity and potentially thrusting him into a 2nd term, however if he handles it like his son, his presidency will be crushed.
It's a narrow election either way, but if the effects of ousting Saddam boost his approval higher than OTL, then its entirely possible for "no new taxes" to be brushed under the carpet by the electorate. Plus, if there is an ongoing occupation of Iraq, then that will (similarly to Bush Jr.'s iOTL) be one of the major issues of the 1992 election.Are you sure?
The 'no new taxes' pledge and the economy tanking killed his presidency. Victory in 1991 made his extremely popular, but the end of 1992 the nobody which was Clinton beat him.
To clarify--Bush overthought it in what ways, exactly?
The Army’s 24th Mechanized Infantry Division and 101st Airborne Division were beginning to catch up and hoped to bottle up the fleeing Republican Guard forces near Basra, in southern Iraq.
At a 2011 conference at Texas A&M University, Walter E. Boomer, the retired general who led the Marine attack into Kuwait, recalled that he had told General Schwarzkopf over the radio that his Marines were also prepared to pursue the fleeing Iraqi forces. “I said, ‘We’re poised to launch for Basra, and we will police up the rest of these folks if you want us to,’ ” General Boomer said. “He said, ‘Stand by.’ And then the next message that I received was not directly from him but through my headquarters that we had in fact stopped.”
With American warplanes attacking Iraqi columns fleeing Kuwait City, Mr. Bush was eager to avoid the charge of piling on. He decided to end the ground war at 100 hours, with the strong encouragement of General Powell.
General Boomer offered a different perspective in a 2011 interview with a North Carolina radio station. “I continue to be asked if we stopped too soon,” he said. “The answer in retrospect is ‘yes.’ ”
According to American intelligence, half of the Republican Guard tanks escaped as of March 1, 1991. Significantly, headquarters units also survived, and this helped Iraqi generals reconstitute their forces and put down the Shiite uprising that began in the south afterward.
At cease-fire talks that were held in Safwan, Iraq, General Schwarzkopf agreed to an Iraqi request that the Iraqi military be allowed to fly helicopters in southern Iraq because so many bridges had been destroyed. But the Iraqi military abused this concession by using the helicopters to attack the Shiite insurgents. The United States, along with its British and French allies, did not establish a no-fly zone in southern Iraq until August 1992.
In a discussion with Mr. Bush on Nov. 19, 1991, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, delivered a message from King Fahd, the Saudi monarch. “We have a lot to do to finish with Iraq,” Prince Bandar said. “Tell him not to worry,” Mr. Bush replied. “We must do whatever it takes to get rid of the guy. Tell him we are not changing one bit. We are talking about ways of undermining him. There will be no letting up on sanctions or inspections. We are looking into what we can do with broadcasts. We will not go back to the status quo ante.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/01/w...y-over-iraq-in-1991-was-swift-but-flawed.html
Thanks for all of this information!The media made a huge deal of 'the Highway of Death'. George HW Bush didn't want another Highway of Death on the evening news and then got to thinking hey when I asked for an uprising I wanted it to be a military coup not Shia and Kurds rising up so this could destabilize things. So his idea was would end the war and then use pressure and weapons inspections and the NFZ to try to foster a coup to get rid of him.
Powell was pushing him on this path because he felt Iran could take advantage of the instability.
The problem is that Baathist States are coup proofed to hell and the policy just created an unstable low grade war where we are bombing the hell out of the facilities he isn't letting us in where we think he is hiding his unconventional weapons.
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What a year between the US and Iraq was like after the war.
2. Why exactly was Iran perceived as being more threatening than Saddam Hussein? After all, IMHO, an Iranian-influenced Iraq is much better than Saddam Hussein's Iraq!
Thanks for all of this information!
Also, though, two things:
1. Frankly, the fact that Hitler avoided getting overthrown during WWII should have made Bush Sr. aware that Hussein is likewise difficult to overthrow from within.
2. Why exactly was Iran perceived as being more threatening than Saddam Hussein? After all, IMHO, an Iranian-influenced Iraq is much better than Saddam Hussein's Iraq!
Again, with Iran getting influence in Iraq, the fears of the Gulf Arab Monarchies scared them. That was why they financed Iraq in its war 1980-1988. Turn around with their views towards Iraq being a threat after Kuwait invasion still didn't mean they feared Iran any less.
Frankly, the fact that Hitler avoided getting overthrown during WWII should have made Bush Sr. aware that Hussein is likewise difficult to overthrow from within.
Americans have a big problem separating Persian Shia and Shia Arabs, but those in the region don't and Iraqi Shia don't have fond memories of being dominated by Persians which is why they fought for Saddam instead of defecting or rising up in the Iran/Iraq War.
What the Iraqi generals had to deal with in terms of purges was actually worse then the German ones dealt with. It was closer to how Stalin handled his officers in the 30s.
I thought that they fought for Saddam because they were afraid of getting imprisoned or killed by Saddam (or, worse, getting their family members imprisoned or killed by Saddam)?
Thanks for this information! However, this only further strengthens my point here; after all, unlike with Hitler, no one even attempted to ever launch a military coup to overthrow Stalin!
OK; understood.Saddam did have a Republic of Fear and a full Totalitarian state going for him and yes often kept the conscripts fighting by force and a lot of it.
But, when Iraq was buckling in the early 80s after getting its army routed in Iran the Iraqi Kurds revolted in 1983, but the Iraqi Shia did not take the chance because they have a long historical memory of being dominated by Persia and decided at that time better the devil they knew then the devil they didn't.
They did rise up for the US in 1991 when we called for an uprising as we were not seen as some foreign power out to enslave them, but we didn't help them and they were slaughtered.
It was possibly the WMDs, but I think post 9/11 hysteria and Bush wanting to both one up daddy and get revenge for daddy (Saddam did try to assassinate him in '93) might've also had a small part in it. I do think however that the Neo Cons (some of which, IRC, seem to be making a comeback in the current administration) in Bush's cabinet were the ones that made the biggest push for it and made it happen .In addition, a bit off-topic, but out of curiosity--why exactly do you think that Bush Jr. removed Saddam Hussein in 2003? The WMDs as he claimed? Something else?
Also, out of curiosity--do you think that Al Gore would have also overthrown Saddam Hussein had he--rather than Bush--won the U.S. Presidency in 2000?