Ever feel like government officials aren't telling you everything? Well, sometimes they tell you, and later on they hope you forgot.

Today the US government proposes invading Iraq, deposing its current regime, and imposing military occupation on that country until the machinery of democracy can be put in place.

If that prospect worries you, you're not alone: Colin Powell, Norman Schwarzkopf, Dick Cheney and others involved in the 1991 Gulf War publicly expressed deep misgivings about doing exactly what is being proposed now.

Here are a few of their comments:

"People sometimes simplify this. 'You could have just marched to Baghdad and gotten Hussein.' Really? What if he hadn't been there? Think he would be standing at the gate waiting? It's somewhat simplistic to suggest that all it would have taken was for the American army to march to Baghdad and call for general elections and lots of little Jeffersonian democrats would have popped up to run for office."

- Colin Powell, Christian Science Monitor, September 1991

 

"We should not forget how Saddam tried to characterize the entire war. He was quick to proclaim that this was not a war against Iraq's aggression in Kuwait, but rather the Western colonialist nations embarking as lackeys of the Israelis on the desctruction of the only Arab state willing to destroy the state of Israel. Had the United States and the United Kingdom attacked Iraq and occupied Baghdad, every citizen of the Arab world today would be convinced that what Saddam said was true."

"Despite what we may see in Rambo films, catching and bringing to justice someone like Saddam is not a simple task... I'm not sure that even with a full-scale invasion we would have ever found Saddam in the large armed camp that is Iraq."

- General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, It Doesn't Take a Hero, 1992

 

"What is postwar Iraq going to look like, with the Kurds and the Sunnis and the Shiites? That's a huge question, to my mind. It really should be part of the overall campaign plan."

"I would hope that we have in place the adequate resources to become an army of occupation, because you're going to walk into chaos."

"I think it is very important for us to wait and see what the inspectors come up with."

- General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Washington Post, January 2003

 

"I think the important thing for us is not to be overly fixated on Saddam Hussein."

“How many American lives is toppling Saddam Hussein worth? My answer to that is not very damn many.”

- Dick Cheney, on Face the Nation, January 1992

 

“The American, British and French would have been presented as foreign invaders of Iraq and we would have undermined the prestige we had earned around the world for helping Arabs resolve a major threat to the Middle East. The whole Desert Storm would have been seen as an operation to further Western interests in the Middle East. Saddam Hussein would have slipped away. We would then have found ourselves with the task of trying to run a country shattered by war, which at the best of times is deeply split into factions. Either we would have to set up a puppet government or withdraw without a proper regime in power. In other words, to have gone to Baghdad would have achieved nothing except to create even wider problems.”

- Gen. Sir Peter de La Billiere, Commander of British Forces in the Gulf War, Storm Command, 1992

The Administration has not been spending much time lately explaining the dangers of invading and occupying a country that borders Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia and contains some of the holiest Shiite shrines on Earth. That's understandable; they're busy people. Fortunately, you can help.

Download a free flyer below and post it, distribute it, or merely frame it for your own enjoyment. Or buy a t-shirt and take the message with you. We make no money on the t-shirts; it's enough to know that we're spreading the word about the critical shortage of little Jeffersonian democrats in Iraq.

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