Bush I encouraged similar uprisings in Iraq in 1991 and then let Saddam massacre the rebels

[NNN0LHI]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_uprisings_in_Iraq

1991 uprisings in Iraq

The 1991 uprisings in Iraq were a series of anti-governmental rebellions in southern and northern Iraq during the aftermath of the Gulf War. The revolt was fueled by the perception that the power of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was vulnerable at the time; as well as by heavily fueled anger at government repression and the devastation wrought by two wars in a decade, the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War. United States also played a role in encouraging the uprisings, which were then controversially not aided by the U.S. forces present on Iraqi soil.

Although they presented a serious threat to the Iraqi Ba'ath Party regime, Saddam managed to suppress the rebellions with massive and indiscriminate force and maintained power. They were ruthlessly crushed by the loyalist forces spearheaded by the Iraqi Republican Guard and the population was successfully terrorized{dubious – discuss}. During the few weeks of unrest tens of thousands of people were killed. Many more died during the following months, while nearly two million Iraqis fled for their lives. In the aftermath, the government intensified the forced relocating of Marsh Arabs and the draining of the Iraqi marshlands, while the Allies established the Iraqi no-fly zones. snip

On February 15, 1991, President of the United States George H. W. Bush announced on the Voice of America radio saying:

“ "There is another way for the bloodshed to stop: And that is, for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside and then comply with the United Nations' resolutions and rejoin the family of peace-loving nations." ”

On the evening of February 24, several days before the Gulf War ceasefire was signed in Safwan, the Saudi Arabia-based Voice of Free Iraq radio station, funded and operated by the CIA, broadcasted a message to the Iraqis telling them to rise up and overthrow Saddam. The speaker on the radio was Salah Omar al-Ali, a former member of the Ba'ath Party and the ruling Revolutionary Command Council. Al-Ali's message urged the Iraqis to overthrow the "criminal tyrant of Iraq":

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Notice the media never brings up this comparison? All it would have taken was a little help for the Iraqi rebels back in 1991 and the Saddam problem would have been taken care of without an excuse for a huge decade long and costly invasion and occupation.

[Fire Walk With Me]

1. Bush also through the CIA gave weapons to Iran AND Iraq so they'd fight each other

softening our appearance as liberators and helpers...helping ourselves to all the oil in both nations. Iran were smarter than that.

Note that current workings at Iraq are designed for the same reason: to get the citizens out once again demanding Change. Which ripens the region for our "help". Long-planned, with slavering wolves awating the oil. (Iran and Iraq both belonging to the top 5 oil-rich regions on Earth.)

[Kolesar]

2. Italy, the US and other European nations "hung in there" to kill Qaddafi

He won't be killing his population. I hope Libya can pull it together now.

[The Doctor.]

4. Yep, a lesson in how it's done.

Thank you Obama.

[spanone]

3. and bu$h* 2 wanted to normalize relations with the brutal dictator/kadaffi

i guess he felt warm and fuzzy after having cheney in the white house

[Xithras]

5. Wouldn't of worked.

The majority of the Iraqi forces survived the Gulf War and remained armed and ready to fight. The U.S. and U.K. did maintain an NFZ and made it clear that air support would be used to protect civilian targets. The Iraq Liberation Act even made funding and resources available to support rebel groups in Iraq.

None of it matterred. The opposition in Iraq was too splintered, and Hussein's military was too strong, for a successful civilian rebelion to occur.

[NNN0LHI]

7. The Iraq Liberation Act wasn't signed into law until 1998

If the US had shot down everything the Iraq military put into the air it could have been decisive. Iraqi helicopter gunships are what Saddam was using to mow down the rebels with.

Don

[Xithras]

9. Still wouldn't have worked.

At that point, Hussein still had widespread support from the Sunni population, and still had a complete and functional ground army to back him up. Under Iraqi law, minority groups including Christians, Shiites, and Kurds were mostly forbidden firearms ownership while the Sunni's (who overwhelmingly supported him) were armed to the teeth. There is no way the unarmed Shiite and Kurdish rebels could have overcome the Iraqi military AND the Sunni population without the direct intervention of foreign ground troops. They were simply outgunned.

It's a totally different situation than Libya. Qaddafi was only supported by one major tribe, and the others were held in check by a combination of intimidation and skilled negotiation. When the protests caused that alliance to crumble, entire military divisions defected to the rebels, and the well armed civilian population brought their own weapons to the game. Qaddafi found himself depending on a rapidly dwindling number of tribal alliances, and facing an armed rebel army that was actually larger than his own.

[Lionessa]

6. Yep I remember that, I was so ashamed of US.

[JHB]

8. Bush was fishing for a coup

The ideal solution for Bush would have been if Iraq was re-stabilized under a new strongman, essentially someone just like Saddam but without the bad press. Swap out the guy at the top and you can return to the status quo with minimal fuss.

The problem with that plan was the fact that one of the things Saddam Hussein did do very well is prevent anyone else from becoming rivals. Relying on a tight network of his top supporters and family, shuffling around military officers so that they couldn't garner a base of support from their troops of fellow officers, a whole range of tricks.

By the time Bush made that speech, even though Saddam's forces had been beaten at every turn, nobody in the military had enough confidence in support from elsewhere in the military that they'd be willing to stick their neck out, especially since that would guarantee someone would try to chop it off.

But since as a matter of international diplomacy and domestic PR Bush couldn't openly call for a coup, he gave that invitation for "the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands". The military kept their heads down, but dissident groups like the Marsh Arabs took him up on it, and paid the price when he has US forces stand by while Iraqi Republican Guard units attacked the rebels.

[MisterP]

10. 1) that ain't legal either, 2) Saddam's a "problem" mostly for the Beltway--why should we find

solutions for those twisted fucks?