Maybe it's just a subtle difference for some people, but I don't believe they wanted to "keep him in power" -- rather, "didn't want to go after him." I think 41 would have loved to get rid of Hussein a decade ago. There was no support for such a move, and we would have been utterly vilified worldwide. Furthermore, didn't Kuwait ask us to help them? After that 'mission' was over, we were done. People love to talk right now about the sorry, ridiculous "interventionist" policies of the USA. Going after Hussein in 1991 would have been just that: sorry, ridiculous, and interventionist.