WI: Saddam Hussein Killed in the Gulf War

What if the US and coalition forces had managed to eliminate Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War in 1991 as the top leader of the Iraqi military?
 
What if the US and coalition forces had managed to eliminate Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War in 1991 as the top leader of the Iraqi military?

Hmm.... I think most of what we've seen happen in Iraq since March of 2003 OTL would a decade earlier. We still would've had to fight off insurgences, establish some sort of government there (be it through elections or propping up another puppet dictator), I do think HW Bush would've done this better than W. Bush did, which speaking of Bush 41, he probably beats Bill Clinton in 1992 TTL because of the on going war.
 
Depends on how we kill him. Do we do it in an airstrike, almost by chance? Likely, there is a brief power struggle within the Ba'athist establishment, with whoever wins suing for peace with the Americans (who are likely to give it to them). If he were still alive, General Adnan Khairallah would be the most likely successor. In this case, I would bet on someone like Izzat Ibrahim ad-Douri.

If we kill him during capture in an invasion of Iraq though, the mission likely becomes a grinding insurgency. The Iraqi military was in much better shape in 1991 than in 2003, and will cause immense pain. It will probably look, as dw93 said, something like OTL's occupation of Iraq, only with a more legitimized presence there (we won't be international pariahs for invading), better planning and better relations with the Shi'a (who at this point we haven't betrayed and left to die). The U.S. can probably, eventually, put together something like the Dayton Accords for Iraq, with a confederation of three regions (Kurdistan and Shi'a and Sunni Arab units), with a confederally administered capital district in Baghdad. It won't be functional, but it probably also won't explode into more sectarian civil war.
 
Hmm.... I think most of what we've seen happen in Iraq since March of 2003 OTL would a decade earlier. We still would've had to fight off insurgences, establish some sort of government there (be it through elections or propping up another puppet dictator), I do think HW Bush would've done this better than W. Bush did, which speaking of Bush 41, he probably beats Bill Clinton in 1992 TTL because of the on going war.

No we wouldn't have had any insurgency if we pocketed the Republican Guard.

They weren't prepared for an insurgency in 1991, their army and RG were deep in the desert and there was no significant jihadist presence in Iraq as there was in 2003 ready to fight us.

As for this TL it depends why he is killed. If it is because a lucky strike right before the caese fire takes effect then Uday and his brother fight the civil war and likely win at an even greater cost to human life, perhaps closer to a million when all is said and done.

If Saddam dies because the U.S. continued the war several days more then Sunni minority rule is done for given there won't be a army of jihadists or Saddam's multiple armies left to fight for them. They were all lined up in the desert and we would have pocketed well over 90% of them.

Iran and Syria would have tried to take advantage of the situation, but much differently and more subtly then they did in 04.
 
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