What was the reasoning Bush 1 used for not going after Saddam in 1991?

[Bandit]

If Saddam was such a horrible man and we knew he had all of those WMD and we knew he gassed his own people and did all the deeds the current administration keeps referring to, why didn't the Republicans demand we take him out? Why did they let such a "Hitler" stay in power. They have referred to Saddam as Hitler many many times. If it is okay for us to do this now why not twelve years ago when we had twice the number of troops on the ground and ready to rumble. Was their argument not substantial enough at the time? Every time they use the argument that getting Saddam saves lives we must ask why they waited and allowed all those lives to be taken by a Hitler?

[FreeperSlayer]

1. The same reason we're having probs now...

Kurdish autonomy, Sh'ia representation.

[toddzilla]

4. wasn't in the UN mandate

simple as that. we were "authorized" to get saddam out of kuwait, not overthrow the gov't of iraq. this doesn't mean to encourage a revolution and then watch the citizens get slaughtered while we stand by and do nothing.

[hatrack]

10. Yep

No power vacuum in the Persian Gulf, was the cry. No problem this time around, apparently.

[ramapo]

2. Instability

Bush 1 feared instability among the different factionsin Iraq (as we're seeing today) and did not want to inflame the other Arab nations by overstepping our bounds.

[Mistress Quickly]

3. The UN resolution didn't allow for it

at least that's the spin.

Varying opinions, from no UN mandate, to they wanted Saddam still in power. Depends on the news source.

[Spoon]

5. I was thinking about this earlier, actually.

The official line is that is would have broken the broad coalition, nor did Congress and the UN "authorize" going all the way, if I remember correctly. It was a horrible error not to, in my mind. Think of all Iraqis that died for supporting us after being promised protection, and all the dead Iraqis from the decade long sanctions. And all the money wasted to ship back all the equipment needed to fight again (and enforce the sanctions).

The political climate wouldn't allow it back then.

[Tim4319]

6. I can do you one better than that.

If the WMD's were such big deal, how come when Donald Rumsfeld was over there, in Iraq, trying to cut a deal with Saddam for an oil pipeline, during the Reagan era! How come, WMD were not investigated then? This during the Ronald Reagan era!

[central scrutinizer]

7. in their own words

http://www.thememoryhole.org/mil/bushsr-iraq.htm

The Memory Hole rescued this essay from oblivion - Newsweek scrubbed it from their archives

[fairfaxvadem]

8. because the Saudis and Kuwaitis told us to "git"...

Once Saddam was out of Kuwait, they could not afford to have a strong American presence on their soil (which continued to cause problems for the Saudis, as we later saw). Their potential for domestic unrest, as we know, is substantial. Anyhow, they needed us out, said "Thank you very much, he's our ass****, we'll take it from here, you can go home now." Let's not forget that they ponied up a substantial amount of cash for this venture.

Despite the official version of the UN mandate, etc., I pretty much believe that was the real reason behind our leaving. If the Kingdoms had wanted him gone, we'd have done it for them, UN mandate or no.

My question, which may get lost as this is a late posting, is:

If Saddam was such a threat, why weren't his neighbors making a bigger stink? You simply hear nothing from SA or Kuwait, etc.,They certainly were not jumping up and down over the last few years alerting us to the fact that Saddam was ready to blow again. If they didn't seem particularly concerend about him, then what gives??

[Bandit]

9. But we didn't get out of either country

In fact we built permanent bases there. In fact if I remember a few years after Gulf War 1 one of our bases in Saudi Arabia was hit by terrorist truck bombers and did much damage.

[denverbill]

11. Which was one of Bin Laden's PRIMARY complaints.

"Infidels in the Holy Land!"

American soldiers in Saudi Arabia!