why did bush senior halt the gulf war objective of toppling saddam hussien after he threatened to invade kuwai

Question

kuwait and saudi arabia? take into account both sides.

Answer 1

No support for allies who would rather give Saddam the Castro treatment, and appeasement....since it worked so well on Hitler.

Hey Remy....just FYI...the US never sent arms to Iraq...we indirectly had Israel send them to Iran.

Answer 2

Bush saw it as an unwise move to topple the nation and had a forecast of instability that would follow. And thus the decision was made not to, for Bush the UN mandate allowed for the removal of Saddam from Kuwait not an occupation of Iraq.

The costs were measured and appeasement was not even a thought here. This was not appeasement instead this was the equivalent of quarantining the problem to a remote location.

And yes quarantining actually does work see. "the Cold War".

What I mean by quarantine is, Saddams' Iraq was reduced to a smaller nation. There was an imposed no fly zone in the North where the Kurds lived and they were allowed to rule the North free of Saddam. This means Saddam had less ruling ability than normal. He could not pump out oil and sell it without restrictions. It was like the oil for food only and numerous other restrictions like those placed on his weaponry and army.

So as we see in hindsight, these restrictions left Saddam with nothing but a bully army who weren't equipped to stop much of nothing. I mean there were no WMDs, there were no Gas bombs, there were just assault rifles and other feeble weaponry when he came in.

And the other side Saudi Arabia.. we cant touch them because the Saudis provide us with our oil. To have that country in some sort of instable transition to a democracy would leave us getting the oil on our own. Which would look terrible as we do it ourselfs while the gas man is inside the store fighting for who owns the station. (Sorry for the stupid example but eh).

But Bush senior's decision was pretty much to avoid what we see now. We see Saddam gone, Iraqi's really undecided about their future and we are left to sit there and stabilize the region until "they make up their minds". Which honestly may take a long long time. And if we leave early its looks like we made it fertile for instability.

Cause if it all falls apart after we leave.. then its like LOOK WHAT THE US DID.

So thats why you hear politicians on both sides saying "we need to succeed" Its really a game of saving face.

Answer 3

It's Bill Clinton's fault remember, that's the excuse nutcase conservative use for George Dubya. Clinton told Bush Sr. not to take out Saddam you know that right. I mean it's never the Bush's fault it's Bill Clinton's.

Plus I think deep down inside Bush didn't want to march troops in there because then the press would find out about all the weapons and money that Reagan and Bush gave Saddam.

Answer 4

The former President Bush did not have permission from the United Nations to forcibly remove Saddam Hussein from power. He decided not to ruffle any feathers at the U.N. (and that's why many people called him a wimp).

Answer 5

The arab nations which were our allies in the Gulf War threatened to pull out if we did it, and it was also a UN action--we would have had to go in without most of our allies to do it.

Answer 6

He said himself that the mission was to defend Kuwait from Iraq's invasion, not to take over Iraq. So the US pulled back and never invaded Iraq.

Answer 7

see answer #1... Which is why we need to get rid of the UN...

Answer 8

dem congress