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To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51526-2002Sep7.html Bush's Father Feared Expanded Role in Iraq By Walter Pincus Four years ago, former president George H.W. Bush wrote that there was unanimity within his administration that the 1991 Persian Gulf War should end once the forces of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's had been driven from Kuwait. If he had sent U.S. military forces on to Baghdad, Bush asserted in the 1998 book he wrote with Brent Scowcroft, his national security adviser, "The United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land." "Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in 'mission creep,' and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs," Bush wrote in the book, titled "A World Transformed.'' As the administration of President Bush intensifies its efforts to convince Congress, the American public and U.S. allies of the need to confront Hussein again, it is also looking at how a policy on Iraq evolved within the first Bush administration 11 years ago. In response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the U.N. Security Council that November authorized the use of force to drive the Iraqis out but did not make a change of government in Baghdad part of the package. President George H.W. Bush and his aides informally decided that although removing Hussein would be beneficial, that goal would not be part of U.S. policy unless the Iraqi president used chemical or biological weapons against U.S. or coalition troops or a neighboring country such as Israel. He did not. Months before the war began in January 1991, while Pentagon planners were still at work, the White House had discussed the question of Hussein's future. At a December 1990 meeting of senior national security officials, Hussein's removal was set aside, according to Scowcroft. Making it a formal goal of the coalition the United States was assembling for the war "was well beyond the bounds of the U.N. resolution guiding us," he wrote. If the United States announced such a goal unilaterally, he added, "We would be committing ourselves -- alone -- to removing one regime and installing another and if the Iraqis themselves didn't take matters into their own hands, we would be facing an indefinite occupation of a hostile state and some dubious 'nation-building.' " There also was the problem of maintaining the support of Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia that were vital to the war effort, Bush wrote: "We also believed the United States should not go it alone. . . . Mounting an effective military counter to Iraq's invasion required the backing and bases of Saudi Arabia and other Arab states." On Feb. 26, 1991, two days after U.S. and coalition troops began their successful ground offensive to free Kuwait, Bush wrote in his diary, "We would declare an end once I was sure we had met all our military objectives and fulfilled the U.N. resolutions." The following day, after then-Defense Secretary Richard B. Cheney reported that the southern part of Kuwait was free and that military operations would halt that day or the next, U.S. television screens were filled with pictures of U.S. aircraft, artillery and tanks pounding Iraqi units fleeing north from Kuwait City to the southern Iraqi city of Basra. The carnage had an effect on the White House. "We had all become increasingly concerned over impressions being created in the press about the 'highway of death' from Kuwait City to Basra," Scowcroft wrote. In the Oval Office that afternoon, Bush asked his advisers, including Cheney and Gen. Colin L. Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, if it was time to stop. They decided it was. "There was no dissent," Scowcroft wrote. Bush later wrote that Robert M. Gates, who was deputy national security adviser at the time, told him, "We crushed their 43 divisions, but we stopped -- we didn't just want to kill, and history will look on that kindly." There had been a secret plan drawn up by the Army's chief operations officer to seize Baghdad, according to a book by Michael R. Gordon and Gen. Bernard E. Trainor published in 1995. The plan was circulated after the war ended. "While it raised the possibility of a decisive victory, it also opened the door to a protracted occupation of Iraq, which was not the kind of war Powell or [Gen. H. Norman] Schwartzkopf wanted," they wrote. Bush, in his book, laid out other reasons for not sending U.S. forces into Iraq, many of which are being cited by U.S. and foreign opponents to a new military offensive. "The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well," Bush wrote. Referring to a doctrine first applied by the Reagan administration, Bush noted, "There was no viable 'exit strategy' we could see, violating another of our principles." It was also possible that invading Iraq could lead to a breakup of the country, which was opposed by Iraq's Arab neighbors as well as Turkey, which feared that an independent Kurdish state might be created in northern Iraq, Bush wrote. U.S. intelligence and Arab coalition members had told Bush that defeating Hussein would quickly lead to his being forced from power. That did not happen. Instead, an uprising among Shiites in southern Iraq was quickly put down by Iraqi forces. A similar attempt by the Kurds in northern Iraq also was squashed. Accused of having encouraged those uprisings, Bush said that although he had said removal of Hussein "would be welcomed," his fate "was up to the Iraqi people." He added that "for very practical reasons there was never a promise to aid an uprising." Cheney, who has taken a lead role as vice president in pushing for preparations to take military action against Hussein, played the same role 12 years ago as defense secretary. Bush wrote that months before any operations were launched 11 years ago, while Secretary of State James A. Baker III was "reluctant" to contemplate use of force and pressing for diplomacy and sanctions to get the job done, Cheney "recognized early that sooner or later it would come to force." Cheney "was probably ahead of his military on this," Bush wrote. While the military did not appear eager to go to war until other options had been exhausted, Cheney "led the way for the military . . . leading, not pushing, the military to understanding and fulfilling the missions set for them by the president." <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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