Sorry if this has been asked before, I did a search but couldn’t find anything. Then again, I’m not very good with the search function.
So why didn’t we remove him after the first Gulf War? One article I read said that the UN wouldn’t let us. Why not?
Thanks.
The UN mandate was to drive him out of Kuwait, and render him incapable of attacking his neighbors, not to remove him from power. The UN and other politico types judged they had done just that by the end of the Gulf War, so the war was stopped. Popular wisdom said he’d quickly be overthrown by his own people after this. Oops.
Why didn’t they? Didn’t have the power?
Specifically, some of the coalition building that was used to get support from the largest number of countries at that time included the express declaration that we would not pursue the war into Iraq beyond what was needed to free Kuwait. Had we gone further, there would have been a great outcry against us. (This had specific ramifications in that several of the Gulf countries would have demanded that we leave their countries, immediately–countries where we had established supply bases.) As it was, the U.S. came under a lot of criticism for the “highway of death” where air attacks destroyed a huge convoy of Iraqi equipment that was clearly leaving Kuwait.
As to “popular wisdom” being that the Iraqis would overthrow Hussein: I don’t know anyone who believed that they could. Bush “encouraged” the Iraqis to overthrow Hussein, giving the impression the the U.S. might support the revolution, then sat back and offered no aid when the intact portions of the Iraqi army crushed the rebellion. He noted that he had only told them to get rid of Hussein and had never promised them aid. (A statement that was, technically, true, although it was a bit disingenuous, given that Hussein had an army and the rebels did not.)
Iraqi citizens did revolt, especially large numbers of Kurds in the north, but Saddam crushed them with impunity. A successful revolt could only happen if the army supported those citizens and refused to crush the rebellions (like what happened in 1991 when the Soviet army refused to crush the anti-coup protestors). That’s why this time the US military is attempting to encourage more dissent in the army ranks.
It wasn’t just the Kurds in the north, the Shiites in the south revolted too, under the belief that they had support and therefore protection from the coalition. Their lack of intervention then, allowing Saddam to reestablish his control and preventing Iraq’s dismemberment, seems to be a serious cause of the Kurds’ and Shiites’ (and not just them0 distrust of Bush Administration motivations now, with pretty much the same cast of characters in place.
As to the OP question of why the coalition didn’t go into Baghdad in 1991, that can also tie into the desire to keep a functioning native administration in place to avoid the need to establish one with the coalition being responsible. It was more directly due to the military’s distaste (a mild term) for street fighting, which could be bloody and lengthy, with success in getting Saddam being a matter of luck, and support back home steadily decreasing. For better or worse, it was decided to leave him in place but contained. But that’s the situation we’re facing now, and the US/UK forces aren’t even near Baghdad yet.
First and foremost, George Bush the Elder valued stability. Remember, he tried hard to keep the Soviet Union together under the rule of Mikhail Gorbachev, and he discourage the republics of Yugoslavia from succeeding. In Bush I’s mind, order and stability are the highest goods, while nothing is worse than strife and chaos.
From Bush I’s standpoint, it was infinitely better to have ONE man (preferably Gorbachev) in control of the entire Soviet Union than to have dozens of republics to deal with, each with its own stash of (perhaps nuclear) weapons. Similarly, he thought it was better to have one Yugoslavia, even one ruled by a creep like SLobodan Milosevic, than a collection of heavily armed mini-sstates like Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, et al. Bush I believed, not without good reason, that chaotic mini-states are bound to be a source of trouble.
To put it crudely, Bush figured, "If we’re going to discuss nuclear disarmament, it’s best that I have ONE man in the Soviet Union with absolute power. If Gorbachev is in charge of the whole Soviet Union, I can make a deal with him, and know that his word is law. But if the union breaks into 20 republics, many of which are run by “governments” with no real power or credibility, I CAN’T make such deals and expect the terms to be met.
George H.W. Bushg may not have liked Saddam Hussein, but he probably reasoned that it’s much better to have one Iraq ruled with an iron fist by one dictator than to have Iraq break into several smaller nations with governments we can’t anticipate. “What if,” Bush probably reasoned, “We end up with a Kurdistan in one end, where rival Kurdish groups star ta civil war? What if, then, we get a radical Shiite group taking power in another section? And what if one of Saddam’s lieutenants takes over the rest? We could end up with three dangerous mini-states where there’s either NOBODY in charge or a complete maniac in charge. That’s NOT an improvement over having Saddam in power.”
Although adhering to the UN mandate is the mos plausible explanation, I’ve long suspected that Bush I called off the war prematurely because he suddenly remembered that he’d promised the US would be a “kinder, gentler nation” (does anyone else remember that?). The carnage on the road to Basra seemed to fly in face of that sentiment, so Bush pulled the plug.
I’ve long felt that, although the U.N. mandate and its restrictions were the public reason for not pushing on to Baghdad, the ultimate reason was that Bush I did not want to get involved in “nation building”, especially in so volatile a regio as Iraq. If he tried to push for a democratic government (to please people in the US, and perhaps our allies) we’d alienate the monarchies and autocacies in the region. If we tried to put one strong man in place, we’d possibly lose the support of our allies and the American people. Better by far to let the Iraqis sort it out themselves, and to encourage them to. But his encouragement sounded lik promise of aid, and people were sorely disappointed to find out that none was forthcoming. (I suspect that Bush was not anxious to aid the Kurdish rebels, consiering how Turkey woul have felt about that).
After 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan, however, the U.S, found itself committed to Nation Building in the Middle East, putting Kharzei in power in Afghanistan. So why not do the same in Iraq, at long last? (As if Bush’s policy advisors needed the extra incentive.)
I seem to remember Dick Cheney, who was the Secretary of Defense back then, expressing a smug confidence that it was “inconceivable” that Saddam could remain in power after his humiliating defeat.
Sorry, no cite. It was a TV interiew from 12 years ago.
And I would not credit Cheney with either popularity or wisdom, then or now. My memory is of the outcry when Bush did not send in troops to suport the Shi’ites and the scramble by administration apologists (such as Buckley) to carefully “explain” that it was up to the Iraqis to overthrow Hussein if they really wanted to and that it was not Bush’s fault that they couldn’t do it.