I'm sick of hearing this falsehood. Bush I spoke to this the other day - the mandate was to remove Iraq from Kuwait. Mission accomplished. Bush I said (paraphrasing) that the United States HAD to abide by the resolution of the coalition. It was a matter of HONOR. Our government without honor is no better than the 2 bit dictatorships we are trying to remove.
You've got the wrong target sighted, baseballmom. I was quoting a previous post which I refuted. We're on the same side on this point.
Indeed. It took immense moral will for Bush I to even go to war at all. People forget this. If Dukakis had been president we would have spent 3 years "waiting for the sanctions to bite" (remember that one? Seems everyone has forgotten that) without firing a shot.
Bush was free to do whatever he wanted and honor had nothing to do with it. At the time, Charles Freeman, our ambassador to Saudi Arabia, made this clear. Bush I was concerned about getting mired down in an occupation that could last a long time while we tried to keep the peace between opposition groups and hunted down an elusive Saddam. He was content to drive Saddam from Iraq and then get out with a cease-fire and Saddam on his side of the line. Had he stayed, removed Saddam from power and got a new government up and running, he probably would have alienated some of the Arabs who had gone along with Desert Storm, but there was no obligation to leave.