# Why George Bush Sr. didn't occupy Iraq

- Author: Joichi Ito
- Date: 2003-11-02T11:57:00Z


George Herbert Walker Bush
from his memoir, "A World Transformed" (1998)Trying to eliminate Saddam...would have incurred
incalculable human and political costs.
Apprehending him was probably impossible.... We
would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in
effect, rule Iraq.... there was no viable "exit
strategy" we could see, violating another of our
principles. Furthermore, we had been
self-consciously trying to set a pattern for
handling aggression in the post-Cold War world.
Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally
exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have
destroyed the precedent of international response
to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we
gone the invasion route, the United States could
conceivably still be an occupying power in a
bitterly hostile land.I wonder if his son read this?Via Markoff





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US Policy and Politics