Question Details	Asked By	Asked On
Do Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. ever talk politics? LOL	purplewings	09/02/04
As you watch the Republican Convention, listening to what the party has to say about domestic and foreign policy, present and future, thought you'd find the following perspective on Iraq interesting. In his memoirs, A World Transformed, published in September 1998, George Bush Sr. wrote the following to explain why he didn't go after Saddam Hussein at the end of the first Gulf War: "Trying to eliminate Saddam would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible ... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq ... there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. 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 United Nations'mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land." If only his son could read.
Answered By		Answered On
drgade		09/02/04
Times changed on 9/11. The goal for Sr. was to get Saddam out of Quait. The Coalition did that. End of story. The continued breaking of the peace agreement with Saddam by him, his refusal to let the UN inspect freely, the shooting at Coalition planes in the no fly zone, his support of the terrorists(besides his own employment of terror to rule), his threats to unleash WMD, all changed the Coalition's goals in this second encounter. The "exit strategy" was rightly seen as the devil in the details by Sr. and is being addressed by W. A timetable has been not only proposed, but also is being carried towards its completion. Can anyone doubt that we WILL get out of Iraq?

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