After much thought and arm twisting. I have decided to throw this one out to the masses.

Should we have gone to Bahgdad in the first Gulf War? It has been said that if we would have gone there then. We would not be having the trouble over there that we have now.

Gen Schwarzkopf (sp) has been quoted as saying. "I am 90 miles from Baghdad. With nothing between us except sand". He wanted to go at that time. As one that was there I must admit I wanted to go.

It was the only decision that then President Bush said no to his General. Was this a good decision or a bad one.

I can see why the General wanted to go, but I can also see why the President didn't.

So DJ there it is for ya.

Paul

Paul...
I for one cannot see the reasoning of why we didn't go to Baghdad the first time, Like you said in your post, our forces were 90 miles away with nothing else in between...Was it an economics thing???Personally, I feel if we would have taken care of this the first time, our situation would not be as it is now in the U.S....Can somebody enlighten me upon this subject?

Sincerely,
Gunny

my opinion has always been the gulf war was fought to protect the kuwaiti's and their oil.

as such it made no sense (econonically and politically) to conquer iraq at that point.

the iraqi army had been decimated so posed little if no further threat to the kuwaitis.

from the events that followed it would have been better to topple saddam there and then, but thats with the benifit of hindsight!

regards

joe

Well, as far as I know, the only reason we were there was to push Iraq out of Kuwait. That was done, and the mission was accomplished, there was no need to go into Iraq.

I wish that we had gone into Baghdad in GW1 after learning about what Saddam did to the Kurds and some of the other groups after GW1 as well as his continued support of terrorism. But without having the ability to foresee the future actions of Saddam and his regime I believe the G.H.W. Bush did the right thing at the time by calling an end to the fighting when he did. The stated objective had been met.

There are a couple issues:

He had UN and Arab support (Egypt, Syria, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, etc.) to drive Iraq out of Kuwait and that was all.

To have continued may have left us with an unsecured rear area full of no-longer-allied Arab forces, although I believe the Kuwaitis would have allowed us to switch logistical support from Saudi ports to Kuwait City. The Saudis were also providing us our POL and potable water - we would not have gottn far without those!

How much modern "smart" armaments did we have left at Saudi airfields? I have heard we could not have continued much of an air campign with what remained.

Although, I would have liked to see us finish the issue like we did in WW2, President Bush completed the mission per his promise and the UN mandates.

It would have been a disaster. No way would the 'coalition' have held together, the arab states would never have allowed it.

Besides, what would have been the rebuilding plan? What kind of government? A new U.S. backed dictator or some sort of attempt at an elected body.

The war wasn't about nation building. Kuwait and Saudi had to have their oil secured. No doubt about it.

Steve

Well, absence of a popular will in the United States would have doomed the enterprise we decided to occupy. However, what if we just destroyed his military then withdrew. Was that feasible?
DJ

Didn't we do that? Look at the criticism taken for the 'road of death'. There was little for them to fight with in OIF compared to what they had before ODS.

How would killing more Iraqis been tolerated once they were out of Kuwait?

Steve

i'm hearing this from a guy that served in the first gulf war, my dad, objective: push iraqis out of kuwait
objective complete....

Mech-manics dad hit the nail on the head. We were sent over to liberate Kawait.

and so we did...

We appreciate that we set out to expel Iraq from Kuwait. Mission accomplished. The threat remained, however, Saddam's big mouth and the corruption of the UN in the oil for fodd program allowed Iraq to rearm. Iraq was a potential source of weapons (conventional and otherwise) for terrorist organizations. After we were attacked, the United States had (IMHO) ever right to conduct pre emptive strikes when and where necessary to ensure the security of the Nation. I toss and turn with the issue of invading Iraq. If we conducted a series of large raids (which we were and are quite capable of successfully doing) on identified WMD site, for example, and they came up dry, we could have crossed that possibility off the list and moved on to other avenues to disrupt and disorganize terrorist networks. When we committed troops on the ground, we put our foot in a tar baby that will take a long time to resolve (we are still in the Balkans). If I had to come up with a "did Bush do the right thing?" response, it would be a firm "yes." The guy could not have sat there and let us get wacked again. He did something. In retrospect, it may well have precluded a large and more disasterous attack on us. Hind sight is a luxury, it is not a way to exercise a strategy to defend your Country.
My two cents
DJ

From what I gathered about first Gulf War is that we still left the Republican Guard units intact. We also allowed Saddam to fly ARMED Aircraft initially after the war. An insurgency started in several regions that were able to be brutally suppressed (poison gas). If we had given Schwartzkoft 24 more hours... just 24... we would of devastated the remaining republican guard divisions and more of the helicopter force. The other part of the equation would have been to forbid any combat aircraft period from flying. Our "allies" would not have had time to protest until it was all over. Now it is speculative, but it is quite possible that the insurgency might have suceeded and taken out Saddams regime 10 years earlier.

I agree that American forces should have destroyed his Republican Guard where ever they ran after Kuwait. If we had pursued them, the credibility of Saddam would have been destroyed without us having to occupy the country. Without those forces he was nothing.
Tragic error.
DJ

Howdy fellas,

I'm a Patriot, and a Veteran. But just because I choose to wave our flag doesn't mean I'm a blind Patriot.
The U.S. (along with many other Nations) have wanted Saddam removed from power for quite sometime. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was an almost storybook excuse to perform the excorcism. Bush Sr. had his 'Carte Blanche' and our troops were, in fact, on their way to Baghdad. BUT.........the mistake that was made that stopped the advance on a dime was what our Air Power did to the retreating Iraqi troops/convoy on that highway (sorry, the name escapes me at the moment...."Hells Highway"?)
Anyway, that entire convoy of Iraqi men and material were incinerated.......literally. I don't know if any of you have seen the photos of that incident. But, the decision to continue on to Baghdad came to an abrupt halt immediately after that action. The intel was (at the time) that Bush Sr. was advised that after the overwelming massacre of these troops and with a virtual landscape full of burning vehicles of every type (and every news camera in the world was getting pictures of it) it was felt that if the U.S. just simply shrugged off the devastation and continued their advance to Baghdad, that the U.S. would be viewed as a heartless conquerer, and that the original mission objective would be tainted in the eyes of the World.
The above is not just simply my opinion, there was a very exhaustive TV report on this very thing some months back. I just happen to agree with their findings............

Tread.

Gordon-- I tend to agree with your assessment. Having lost that window of opportunity, I further believe that we (by our lonesome self) could and should have conducted large scale raids into Iraq to pounce on suspected WMD storage facilities. We could have destroyed whatever we found, caused Saddam some big hearburn and shown the world what the heratless son of a gun (this is a family website) he was meesing with the wrong guys. Invading Iraq does not sit well with me. But, I was not in command and did not have all the information that floods the operational channels. I was also not on the spot to prevent another attack on the country. As the President said a short while ago--- hindsight is wonderful, but it does not ensure the safety of the Nation.
DJ

In GW1 the goal (and UN mandate) was to expel Iraq from Kuwait. Had we headed on into Iraq, the UN would have been up in arms against the U.S.

Myself, I would have loved to see us do just that. The time was just not right. Too many of the European countries had too much invested in trade deals with Iraq to support a drive to Bagdad. The exact same reasons France and Germany did not support GW2.

I still stand by what I said. Once again the BANE of the military .the PRESS interferes with their one sided predjudiced reporting. I am Viet-Nam era and those of us from then know full well that the major cause for dis-affection in our country came from their totally one sided reporting.They show pictures of mama holding up dead little boy not reporting that the day before little boy had chucked a grenade into a duece and a half killing a dozen GI's. I'm not supporting the decison to go into Viet Nam and I totally was against us going back to Iraq, but once we did it, I prayed for quick results and a rapid and safe return of our forces.

Steve-- perception mangement by the press is always the danger as the recent CBS fiasco demonstrates. As an aside, today there are no stories on this episode in the Washington Post. Those that appear are usually buried on page A-27. Imagine if they could connect to some Republican the play they would have given the story. I did note your statement about another perception from Vietnam. Not knowing your personal experiences, I can only reflect on my own time in country. At no time did I ever witness anything but frightened Vietnamese doing all they could to lead a normal life without getting killed by either side. This imagine of children shoving grenades at trucks is like the story of guys taking ears. I am sure it happened, but not to the extent that one might believe from some of our PTSD claiming clowns.
My two cents
DJ

Sorry, but there were many reporters risking their lives in Rwanda in the 90's documenting the deaths of 100,000's of thousands of innocent people being butchered in a bloody civil war and nobody did a damn thing to stop the massacre.

Reporters risk thier lives in Iraq to show us what is happeing there. And, it's not pretty no matter what your view of Bush, Kerry, etc.

In a week I leave again for Palestine to spend time with people living under occupation. I do this to show what is happening on the ground, to real poeple, real families, real kids. Should we limit ourselves to what the Israeli government wants us to see?

Hate it as much as you want, but a free press is a safeguard against government tyranny. No, it's not perfect and too liberal in many ways. But, I don't think any military should be able to do what it wants without anyone knowing about it.

Steve

Steve-- I would agree with you, as I know almost everyone else contributing would, that we need and desire a free and open press. The question is "do we have that now?" We certainly do not if CBS News pursues a story for five years than relies on a forged document to propel its case against a sitting President. Appears that in this case we have a very prejudice press pursuing its own political agenda. They have the freedom to do this in our Nation, but they also have the responsibility to be fair and objective. The Washington Post, no small town paper by any means, has a front page series on homosexuals living in the mid-west. Are we getting "/news" or is someone pushing a social agenda? Once again, the press is free to print whatever they want. What every citizen of the country must constantly fight is the tendency to let the press set the National agenda through perception management. We are free to accept or reject what we read and see and should not fear going against what we see and read. We're all free to do that.
DJ

Howdy fellas,

The word "Perception" has always been an extremely strong word with me. I have always felt that our individual 'perception' of things is the strongest and most lasting internal guide that we use on a day to day basis. I don't think we really realize just how much our perception of something affects our conception of something.
I have never used the phrase 'Perception Management' before......but I like it.

I think I will steal it 210 cav................do you mind?

Tread.

Sir-- imitation is the highest form of flattery. Please feel free to use it as you deem appropriate.
DJ

DJ, there will always be agendas. Like I mentioned, I feel that the press can be too liberal at times. But, now there are many other sources for news besides the tired old networks that continue to diminish in importance or the traditional newspapers.

Just think about the popularity of Fox News and Internet sites like the Drudge Report. I wouldn't classify these as bastions of left-wing idealism.

You have a choice as to how you get your information now.

But the first source for news will always be the reporter in the middle of the action trying to make sense of what is happening. This is far from an exact science and is even wrong at times.

It is up to the historians to make sense of what happened months, years, or even decades later. Look at how much has been learned about WWII since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Sure, some reporters are too liberal but considering some of the stuff they have to deal with it's not totally shocking. I think it's the mix of a 24 hour news cycle combined with info-tainment that is hurting the news biz. I don't give a crap about Lacy Peterson or Jacko...

Steve