"Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have...incurred incalculable human and political costs...We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under these circumstances, there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see...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's 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. "
- A World Transformed, George Herbert Walker Bush, 1998
Posted by Jason at November 6, 2003 12:28 PM