In his presidential memoir, In his presidential memoir, “A World Transformed,” written with his national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, and published five years ago, George Bush the Elder explained why U.S. forces didn’t go after Saddam Hussein at the end of Gulf War I: Trying to eliminate Saddam … would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-441","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-77","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTransformed,”<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> written with his national security adviser, Brent
\nScowcroft, and published five years ago, George Bush the Elder explained why U.S. forces didn’t
\ngo after Saddam Hussein at the end of Gulf War I:<\/P>
\nTrying to eliminate Saddam … would have incurred incalculable human and
\npolitical costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible…. We would have been forced to
\noccupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq…. There was no viable “exit strategy” we could see,
\nviolating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a
\npattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus
\nunilaterally exceeding the United Nations’ mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of
\ninternational response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route,
\nthe United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile
\nland.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>If only Shrub the Son could read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"