[Dead Dog]

Does anyone here know exactly why we witdrew support of the '91 uprisings?

[Diva Betsy Ross]

Ask the UN why we left...

[js1138]

Does anyone here know exactly why we witdrew support of the '91 uprisings?

Didn't have UN support. So much for Bush "bungling" diplomacy. He planned form the beginning to go it alone. No one to tell him when to stop.

[asformeandformyhouse]

Does anyone here know exactly why we witdrew support of the '91 uprisings?

The stated objective was to get Saddam to leave Kuwait. When that occurred, we ceased our operation. Unfortunately because Saddam was left in power, those who uprose too quickly were just as quickly executed.

[Naspino]

Does anyone here know exactly why we witdrew support of the '91 uprisings?

Democrats and their propaganda to end the war.

[GraniteStateConservative]

Guardian, 27 March 1991
“Iraqi helicopters free to hit rebels”
The Bush administration resisted growing pressure yesterday to stop Iraqi helicopter gunships attacking Kurdish and Shi’ite rebels… White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the use of combat helicopters was “not covered by the terms of the ceasefire” though it did violate an “oral agreement” between the two sides. Helicopters would only be shot down if the represented a threat to allied forces, he stated…. President Bush has shown deep ambivalence towards the Kurds and Shi’ites arrayed against President Saddam. “We believe Iraq is a single country, that it is good for the stability of the region that it maintain its territorial integrity. We do not intend to involve ourselves in the internal power struggles of the country,” Mr Fitzwater said yesterday….
“This slaughter is proceeding under the eyes of half a million American troops… any policy premised on Saddam Hussein’s suppression of the rebels implicates the US passively in Saddam’s massacres,” argued Laurie Mylroie of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in the Wall Street Journal. It is clear that the US is betting on dissident elements within the ruling Ba’ath party, which would hold Iraq together.

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Independent 2 April 1991
Raymond Whittaker
Victory in the Gulf war provoked a revolt against President Saddam, as Washington hoped, but not of the kind it expected. Instead of a quick and clean military coup, the presence of coalition forces encouraged a popular insurrection among the Shias in the south, in turn emboldening the Kurds to rise up against Baghdad in the north…. Washington… ordered its commanders to do nothing. Disowning any responsibility for the start of the uprising, it now insists that Iraq’s territorial integrity be preserved, even if that means keeping Saddam Hussein in power.… If anything, the tilt is against the rebels… [cites story of US soldiers being ordered to disarm rebels passing through their lines - JS].

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Guardian 4 April 1991
Front-page headline: “Turks shut frontier to refugees”
Sub-heading: “Bush stands firm against US military intervention”
Turkey yesterday closed its borders against a huge influx of Kurdish refugees, as up to a quarter of a million people shivered on the mountains of northern Iraq…. As world-wide concern grew over the fate of Iraq’s Kurds, President Bush broke his silence at the end of a four-day holiday in Florida. “I feel frustration and a sense of grief at the innocents who are being killed…”
the Independent added: “…there was little sense of urgency. President Bush professed ignorance about whether the use of helicopters against the rebels was a breach of the ceasefire.”

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Guardian (Martin Walker, Sarah Tisdall) 4 March 1991
”…even the welcome departure of Saddam Hussein would leave a political and balance-of-power vacuum in Iraq. The US did not go to war to render Iran the dominant regional power, but an unstable and enfeebled Iraq would create precisely such an outcome. There is a glum realisation in Washington that the future government of Iraq may yet have to be another form of military dictatorship. The prospect for a thriving democracy in a country as wrecked as Iraq would be gloomy.”

[GraniteStateConservative]

One of the few things that proponents and opponents of a new campaign against Iraq seem to agree on is that the first Bush administration should have solved the problem of Saddam when it had the chance. They’re right. Certainly, everyone would be better off today if the U.S. military had marched into Baghdad. But the Bush administration’s decision to stand down in February 1991 made excellent sense at the time. All those armchair generals who declare they would have taken out Saddam forget that the Gulf War coalition included Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia, who never would have openly joined a U.S.-led invasion to topple an Arab regime. Witness the growing Saudi reservations about hosting a U.S. military presence even in peacetime. And since Western intelligence analysts believed that Saddam’s humiliating defeat would shortly prompt a coup among dissatisfied military officers, sitting back and waiting for matters to take care of themselves seemed like the smart thing to do.

The Bush administration’s real mistakes were made after the Gulf War. First, as part of the cease-fire agreement negotiated by Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, the United States agreed to let the Iraqi regime use its own helicopters to fly its leaders around the country. This agreement instead allowed the Iraqi military to use gunships to suppress subsequent Shiite and Kurdish uprisings. Second, the White House failed to support those uprisings because it feared that the breakup of Iraq could destabilize the entire region.

[N. Theknow]

Does anyone here know exactly why we witdrew support of the '91 uprisings?

IIRC - Onset of early Someziemer's Disease you know)-Something about not being sure what kind of a regime would take the place of Saddam (better the devil you know than the one you don't know) and just letting the Iraqis settle it amongst themselves.