ABOUT THE US IN IRAQ

''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.''

In his memoirs, A World Transformed, written more than five years ago,
George Bush, Sr. wrote the lines reprinted above to explain why he didn't go
after Saddam Hussein at the end of the Gulf War.

(Thanks to wb for sending this in to the Gristmill.)