WI the Senate Voted Against the Use of Force Against Iraq in 1991?

Anaxagoras

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IOTL, in January of 1991, the Senate voted narrowly (52-47) to give the President authorization to use force to expell Iraqi forces from Kuwait. What if a few votes had swung the other direction, and the Senate had voted against giving President Bush the authorization to use force?

Would the attack have gone forward anyway? What would have been the political fallout in the United States?
 
He does it anyway, he is allowed to wage operations other than war for up to 90 days IIRC, before being called upon by Congress to explain it.
 
Would have been interesting to see Bush impeached over it, in that case. Likely wouldn't have happened and he definitely would not have been removed, but even so.
 
Off-hand... I'll guess...

Bush does it anyway hoping that Iraq's forces will get enough shock and awe in the 90 days he's got to do whatever he wants and at the same time runs a Wilsonesque campaign to get constituents to directly pressure their own senators to pass an approval of the war.
 
There was a women who claimed be be a nurse at a Kuwaiti hospital who gave testimony before the Senate. She told a horrific story about Iraqi solders pulling babies from incubators while looting the hospital. It turned out that the events described never happened. Even if had there was no way she could have been there because she was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador.

This was not the only bit of flimflam that Bush administration was engaged in. Had the administration gotten caught, with the perjured testimony, altered satellite photos and naked jingoism in the run up to the Senate vote the result would have been a huge scandal. If Bush had gone ahead with the Gulf war it would have resulted in a constitutional crisis.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
I agree that President Bush would have launched the war anyway and the military result would have been the same as IOTL. But I think the political fallout would have been severe, especially after the revelations of the fraudulent propaganda used to encourage members of Congress to vote for war. I think even Republican senators would have been angry at the attempts to manipulate them.
 
Would have been interesting to see Bush impeached over it, in that case. Likely wouldn't have happened and he definitely would not have been removed, but even so.
Then again, the climate was slightly more hostile than today (Iran-Contra, anyone?), though there was no visceral hatred on the part of the opposition like Clinton and Obama.
 
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