Saddam-Post Gulf War

[CodE]

As we all know, Saddam Hussein the Iraqi dictator was left in power after the first Gulf War. I wrote an essay this year about why I thought it was the right decision at the time. The four points I used to argue my point were this:
1. His military was crippled and useless.
2. He was deeply unpopular with many of his countrymen and seemingly unable to defend against rebellion.
3. Support back home from the war was nearly nonexistent.
4. No one wanted the hassle of removing Saddam from power and rebuilding the country and government and dealing with loyalist Saddam forces.

Does anyone agree or disagree with that?

 

[Snayke]

Saddam crushed an uprising right after he signed the cease-fire with USA IIRC.

 

[CodE]

What was the uprising? Kurdish? or Shiite?

 

[CodE]

Also his military was in no shape to handle a threat from outside the country. Such as dealing with Iran.

 

[swerve]

What was the uprising? Kurdish? or Shiite?

Both. And both were crushed.

The Shi'ites have deeply distrusted the USA, & the Bush family in particular, ever since. They feel that they were encouraged to rebel, & led to expect US assistance. They not only got no assistance, but feel the USA did not enforce the cease-fire as rigorously as it could, when more stringent enforcement would have disadvantaged Saddams forces. They feel that they were betrayed by the USA. Many believe that the USA wanted Saddam to crush them, for fear of a pro-Iranian regime in Iraq, & the broadcast messages calling for an uprising were part of that plan.

Whatever the truth of the matter (& I tend towards the cock-up theory rather than conspiracies), it was a major US blunder. Bush 1 shouldn't have said some of the things that he did unless he meant, & was able, to back them up.

BTW, I hope you don't mind me saying this, but don't you think that any essay on the wisdom or otherwise of leaving Saddam in place should have at least some discussion of the internal situation of Iraq immediately after the war?

 

[CodE]

That is true, however the nature of the essay and the limited length did not allow me to delve very deeply into the situation in Iraq, but just take a stand and attempt to prove it. Iraq's internal situation has always been in conflict and that continues today. How much longer we will see Iraq in termoil I don't think is up for anyone to guess. One of my army buddies was saying that they should split the country in three, allowing each faction to govern there own geographical section of Iraq. Could that really quell the hatred in the region? I disagree with him, however any other suggestion really doesn't seem like it will work either.

 

[kato]

4. No one wanted the hassle of removing Saddam from power and rebuilding the country and government and dealing with loyalist Saddam forces.

Saudi-Arabia and a lot of the other contributors/actors in the UN operation really wanted to press on into Iraq at the time. It was a purely US decision to stop (the US did not fight within the UN operation either, instead Operation Desert Storm was devised for them and a few allies). The house of Saud and their allies had long wanted to make inroads into Iraq, ever since an al-Hussein (no, not related to Saddam) became King of Iraq in the 30s.