The Gulf Crisis: US Into War?

"This will not be another Vietnam. This will not be a protracted war ... There will be no murky ending. We will win and get out as soon as the United Nations objectives are achieved. "

—President George Bush, Nov. 30, 1990

“[The Gulf crisis) is an entirely different situation than the Vietnam War. There the war had already started, and traditionally Congress supports a war when our troops are overseas and in jeopardy. Here there is no real war started yet, but the president obviously has something in mind."

—Rep. Don Edwards (D-CA), Nov. 20, 1990

"[Saddam Hussain] has taken over another country. He's taken over American hostages. We wouldn't be starting a war by going to war with Saddam [but] continuing a war that he's already started."

—Jay Kosminsky, Heritage Foundation, Nov. 14, 199

"My mail and phone calls are running about eight or nine to one saying. . . 'urge the administration to slow down'. . . It's argued that the American people are impatient, yet there's little evidence of such impatience, of a popular clamoring for war."

—Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Claiborne Pell (D-RI), Dec. 5, 1990

"There are limits to our patience. And those limits are reached when our restraint threatens to undermine other, equally moral goals. These goals ... include ending Kuwait's agony as soon as possible, minimizing American casualties in the event of war, and preventing Saddam Hussain from adding nuclear weapons to his already formidable arsenal of mass destruction."

—Vice President Dan Quayle, Nov. 29, 1990

"I think you're going to have to go to war. I think the sanctions are a delaying factor .... In two years (Iraq] will have either an atomic weapon or be very close to one."

—Columnist William Safire, Nov. 18, 1990

"The direct beneficiaries [of military action] will be Syria and Iran, nations with which we've had more than a few difficulties... The notion that we can carefully calibrate military pressure on Iraq to weaken Iraq just enough so that it no longer poses an offensive threat but would still be a geopolitical actor in the region is the Henry Kissinger/Ben Wattenberg fantasy. Once war breaks out, there is no one who can say that it can be controlled."

—Ted Gallen Carpenter, Cato Institute, Dec. 1, 1990

"The sanctions have all but shut off Iraq's exports and reduced imports to less than 10 percent of their pre-invasion level. All sectors of the Iraqi economy are feeling the pinch of the sanctions and many industries have largely shut down."

—CIA Director William Webster, Dec. 5, 1990

"The placing of an offensive force in the area and the providing of an ultimatum of January 15th is in fact inconsistent with a sanctions policy, because for a sanctions policy to work, it will take more than four or six or eight or ten months ... This buildup of the force almost takes you irresistibly down the path to war. Now, I cannot say to a family that loses a son or daughter in a conflict that may well take place in the next 60 to 90 days that we exhausted every possibility of peaceful resolution before this happened."

—Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D-MD), Dec. 5, 1990

"The international community sends the following clear message: We continue to seek a diplomatic solution. Peace is your only sensible option. You can choose peace by respecting the will of the international community, but if you fail to do so, you will risk all ... If force must be used, it will be used suddenly, massively, and decisively."

—US Secretary of State James Baker, Dec. 5, 1990

[Bush's decision to send Baker to Iraq] is either a deft and rather cynical ploy to disarm his critics in Congress, or it's the first crack in the Bush stand against Saddam ... I suggest that when Baker goes to Baghdad that we check his luggage for umbrellas."

—Columnist Charles Krauthammer, Dec. 1, 1990

"We're going to end up with the same argument where ... the debate about American prestige takes precedent over the fundamental debate of whether or not the policy was flawed in the first instance. Now admittedly, if we change the policy ... there will be some price the United States will pay. But the issue is, will that price be larger than or smaller than the price we pay to continue ... a flawed policy?"

—Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE), Dec. 4, 1990

"The presence [of US troops] creates its own reality, and if we march in and march out, without having achieved the objectives which we have declared, we have abdicated ... If we don't go to war with Iraq, or if we do not achieve the objectives we have set ourselves, the American role in the Middle East will be finished."

—Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Nov. 8, 1990

"I want to emphasize that the president has asked us for an offensive option. He has not decided to use it, and he has not directed us to use it. After this buildup is completed, the president retains all the options he had before the buildup. The forces can be built up further or built down, depending on the mission and the situation."

—Gen. Colin Powell, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dec. 3, 1990

"[An attack] is going to be bloody. There are going to be thousands and thousands and thousands of casualties, particularly for the US, but also for Iraq. And there's going to be destabilization politically, economically and militarily in [the Middle East]. We're going to live with chaos in relations among nations of that area ... for years, and I would say decades to come ... Who can doubt that a year of the blockade will be cheaper than a week of war?"

—Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Dec. 4, 1990

"I simply cannot banish from my mind the question of whether these hearings really will have a constructive purpose ... For the past ten days, the American people have been subjected to a cacophony of carping criticism ... and Monday-morning quarterbacking that ... is eroding the will of the people to stand united at a time when the president of the United States needs all the support he can get. Now you could just bet that the pouches are full of ... things that have been said, and I know that Saddam Hussain must be dancing with joy to see the division of the American people being orchestrated in this country ... If Franklin Roosevelt ... had had the same obstacles that President Bush has, I suspect that the French would be making their soup out of sauerkraut today."

—Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC), Dec. 5, 1990

"Today, the Security Council started a countdown."

—Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, Nov. 29, 1990