Not Your Sweetie

poppy bush:


"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."