Leslie Cockburn Quotes
I covered the first Gulf War in Saudi Arabia and Israel for ABC News.
After defeating the Iraqi Army in the field, bush allowed them to keep their arms, did not take Baghdad, and removed the allied troops. Saddam Hussein then attacked his own dissidents and murdered them with the helicopters that we let him keep and stayed in power. Bush’s son, two decades later, then started the 2nd Iraq war and deposed Saddam.
The neoconservatives at the time, not only urged the invasion of Iraq, but no sooner did it take place than Ledeen and other neoconservatives were calling for the invasion of other countries in the Middle East that were controlled by dictators.
His balanced judgment and concern for American Casualties changed during the Iraq War over a decade later where he insisted on taking steady American casualties even after Saddam had been deposed and American troops were in the middle of a sectarian civil war.
His view was that the regime change of ousting Saddam in the Iraq War just exposed the intrinsic ethnic, religious and political problems of Iraq.
Haig was one of those who thought that President George W. Bush should have continued the war and occupied the country and the cities to eliminate Saddam. His own son, George W. Bush, later invaded Iraq and did occupy the country and eliminate Saddam, but the cost was so high that few Americans thought it was worth the cost in American casualties and money. The younger Bush proved how wise his father and Colin Powell had been. See {622764}.
Leslie Cockburn is an American investigative journalist, and filmmaker. Her investigative television segments have aired on CBS, NBC, PBS Frontline, and 60 Minutes. She has won an Emmy Award, The Hillman Prize, Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award, Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and the George Polk Award.
