Originally posted by Don Cardi:
As for your statment about his father not listening to Norman Schwarzkopf, well you along with several others have made that assertion in the past. However I must remind you that when the gulf war took place, it was done WITH the approval of the United Nations and under the laws and the supervision of the United Nations. And had George Sr. wanted to assassinate Saddam at the time, he could not do so because he would have needed UN approval. And at that time of the Gulf War, the UN rules stated that Saddam was a UN recognized President of a country. Therefore under UN rules a nation cannot assassinate a president of a country that is recognized with the UN. Had Bush Senior ordered the killing of Saddam, he would have broken all UN rules and would have subject himself to being brought up on trial in a world court and charged with war crimes.
So it was out of father George's hands at the time.
Perhaps that is why President Bush Junior told the UN to see where they had to go when he petitioned them to take action against Saddam and they refused. He probably did not want to have his hands tied the way that his father did had the opportunity arose where he could have Saddam killed.
Don Cardi 
DC, as always, great points. I'd also like to point out how closely we were working with Arab nations at the time, especially Saudi Arabia, who certainly wouldn't have approved of us trying to depose Saddam. The first Gulf War had one purpose, to push Iraq out of Kuwait, and it was an outstanding success.
All these people monday-morning quarterbacking saying that we should have done this, or killed him aren't being realistic. They're trying to take a complex situation and turn it into a really simple one.
