[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 112 (Wednesday, September 20, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1536]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                           BAGHDAD RESTRAINT

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. DOUG BEREUTER

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 20, 2000

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, this Member highly commends the September 
18, 2000, editorial from the Omaha World-Herald about second-guessing 
President George Bush's decision not to invade Iraq during the Gulf 
War. The editorial thoughtfully discusses the possible options facing 
President Bush and the reasons why his final decision was clearly the 
best option available in a world where perfect solutions do not exist.

             [From the Omaha World-Herald, Sept. 18, 2000]

                      Baghdad Restraint Revisited

       The complaint is being voiced in the current campaign that 
     the Bush administration erred during the Gulf War by failing 
     to send a U.S. invasion force into the heart of Iraq to 
     topple Saddam Hussein's regime.
       Carrying out an ``on to Baghdad'' policy in 1991, it's 
     claimed, would have spared the United States the headaches of 
     dealing with Saddam's recalcitrant government over the past 
     nine years. Public Pulse letters recently discussed this 
     topic.
       It's wishful thinking, however, to imagine that a U.S. 
     takeover of Iraq would have neatly resolved the situation in 
     the Persian Gulf. Far from bringing calm to the region, a 
     U.S. or United Nations occupation of Iraq would have created 
     new and difficult problems for this country.
       A northward drive into Baghdad would have shattered the 
     international coalition that President Bush had delicately 
     assembled to support U.S. military action. The basis for the 
     coalition, and for the United Nations resolutions which gave 
     it legal legitimacy, was a concrete and limited goal; the 
     explusion of Iraqi forces from a sovereign country, Kuwait. A 
     full-blown invasion of Iraq, perhaps complete with block-by-
     block fighting in the capital city, would have far exceeded 
     that fundamental war goal.
       Public support for Desert Storm was mild at best in many of 
     the Arab and European countries whose governments stood by 
     Bush. Had Bush adopted a topple-Saddam strategy, CNN 
     videotape of American tanks patrolling the streets of 
     Baghdad--a proud Arab city once the site of an Islamic 
     empire--could well have triggered protest throughout the Arab 
     world. It's a good bet, that U.S. occupation would have 
     spurred tender-hearted Europeans to take to the streets to 
     wail anew about the horrors of U.S. ``imperialism.'' The 
     eruption of hostility could have set back U.S. relations 
     overseas for years.
       Neither is it pleasant to contemplate what U.S. soldiers 
     would have faced on the ground in occupying Iraq. Just as 
     British soldiers came under withering assault in Palestine in 
     the 1940s and French occupiers reaped the whirlwind in 
     Algeria in the 1950s, so the U.S. occupation of a volatile 
     Arab country like Iraq could have brought great peril to the 
     men and women of the U.S. military.
       Because Iraq lacks strong national cohesion, a U.S. 
     invasion could well have triggered a break-up of the country 
     into three new entities: a Kurdish north, a Sunni center and 
     a Shia south. That radical change in the Middle East equation 
     would have meant a host of new challenges for the United 
     States, ranging from Turkey's anxieties over the new Kurdish 
     state to the likelihood of Iranian manipulations of the newly 
     independent Shias along the Persian Gulf.
       The larger point here is that foreign policy issues rarely 
     can be resolved neatly. No matter what action is taken, new 
     problems arise. Consider the 1989 invasion that U.S. forces 
     mounted to topple Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. 
     Although the operation succeeded in ousting Noriega, Panama 
     has continued to present the United States with new 
     headaches. The U.S. operation restored civilian rule to the 
     country, but that didn't stop Panama's leaders from pointedly 
     rejecting a U.S. request last year to maintain an Air Force 
     base at the Panama Canal. And Panama's stability is now 
     threatened by guerrilla incursions from neighboring Colombia.
       There is no reason to believe that a U.S. occupation of 
     Iraq would have produced long-term results that were any 
     better than those discouraging results in Panama.
       George Bush had sound strategic reasons for rejecting a 
     U.S. seizure of Baghdad. He settled on an imperfect solution, 
     but in the real world, imperfect solutions are often the best 
     that can be achieved.

     

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