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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (177341)	8/23/2006 11:50:43 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793574

I also figured the post war period would be a mess, but I figured we would have made more progress by this point. The fact that it would be a mess is the main reason why I accepted Bush Sr's decision to end the first war without driving on Baghdad. Sure it would have also been unpopular around the world, but if the only difficulty back than would have been defeating the remnants of Saddam's military, than all the calls around the world that we were exceeding the UN mandate wouldn't have meant a lot to me. I wonder in hindsight if it would have been better if we did march on Baghdad then. The "former regime elements" were less ready to wage a guerrilla war. The jihadis were less organized. The Shia hadn't developed the distrust that resulted from us encouraging them to revolt and then letting them get slaughtered. A lot of the post war slaughter by Saddam wouldn't have happened. We had more soldiers available. I think you would say we shouldn't gone to Baghdad either then or in 2003, but if you start with the assumption that Saddam had to be taken out at some time, or if you assume that if Bush Sr. doesn't take out Saddam that Bush Jr. will whether or not you think it is a good idea, than it could be argued that an earlier conclusion to Saddam's reign might have been a good idea. Of course that's based on a large degree of hindsight, and is still debatable even now. Back then, based only on the information available at the time, ending the war would seem to be the correct decision. Perhaps it should have gone another day to take out more of the Republican guard but even that would have had its downside as well as its benefits.