From The Times Online we are treated to a glimpse of the idiocy of Bush II. James Baker first points out how everything that has happened in Iraq was predicted on the first Bush's watch -- which is why Daddy Bush didn't take Baghdad. Then, he smooths over it by saying that the current president did the right thing.
Sorry. Can't have it both ways.
I am no longer asked why we did not remove Saddam
James Baker
The Former Secretary of State heads the Iraq Study Group which will publish its findings on Wednesday.
His memoirs
For years, the question I was most often asked about Desert Storm is why we did not remove Saddam Hussein from power. [The answer is that] A coalition war to liberate Kuwait could then have been portrayed as a US war of conquest. Furthermore, even if Saddam were captured and his regime toppled, American forces would still have been confronted with the spectre of a military occupation of indefinite duration to pacify a country and sustain a new government in power. The ensuing urban warfare would surely have resulted in more casualties to American GIs than the war itself, thus creating a political firestorm at home.
And as much as Saddam’s neighbours wanted to see him gone, they feared Iraq would fragment in unpredictable ways that would play into the hands of the mullahs in Iran, who could export their brand of Islamic fundamentalism with the help of Iraq’s Shias and quickly transform themselves into a dominant regional power.
I remember this reasoning. Daddy Bush could have kept the war going and gotten re-elected (because Americans don't like to change presidents midwar). But, he was warned:
- We would be perceived as "empire builders".
- The aftermath would be brutal on our military
- It would take years to get a new government going
- It would drain our treasury
- The entire Middle East would be at risk as systems crumbled
- There were 1000 Saddams waiting for an opportunity to take over
So why was it "okay" for junior to attack? Remember the Woodward quote?
Christopher Buckley (Oct 2006) reminds us:
Bob Woodward asked Bush 43 if he had consulted his father before invading Iraq. The son replied that he had consulted "a higher father." That frisson you feel going up your spine is the realization that he meant it. And apparently the higher father said, "Go for it!" There are those of us who wish he had consulted his terrestrial one; or, if he couldn’t get him on the line, Brent Scowcroft. Or Jim Baker. Or Henry Kissinger. Or, for that matter, anyone who has read a book about the British experience in Iraq. (18,000 dead.)
Baker continues with excuses for the son, (Clinton started it):
Am I implicitly criticising President George W. Bush for having done, 12 years later, what his father’s Administration declined to do in 1991? No, I am not. Iraq’s continued violation of UN resolutions and its expulsion of weapons inspectors in 1998 prompted the Clinton Administration to adopt regime change in Iraq as US policy — a policy President George W Bush also followed. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, US patience with Saddam Hussein finally ran out.
And where did Bush get the idea that we would be greeted as 'liberators'?
Baker in 2002:
I also warned that winning the peace would be difficult and potentially costly — politically, economically and in terms of casualties. "We will face the problem of how long to occupy and administer a big, fractious country and what type of government or administration should follow." I wrote: "Unless we do it the right way, there will be costs to other American foreign policy interests, including our relations with practically all other Arab countries (and even many of our customary allies in Europe and elsewhere) and perhaps even to our top foreign policy priority, the war on terrorism."
With all of the advice that people from the previous administration, probably the most vital one that the son ignored was this:
The working group recommended that the Iraqi army be preserved, not disbanded, to serve as a guarantor of peace and stability, and declared that it was wishful thinking to suggest that Iraqi oil revenues would be sufficient to pay for post-conflict reconstruction.
On top of that:
One thing is for sure: the difficulty of winning the peace was severely underestimated.
But don't worry, Baker gives us something to be happy about:
Despite the troubles that have followed, however, the Iraqi people are better off now than under their murderous dictator.