I would respecfully disagree. Bush Senior did in fact finish the job.
The primary mission of Desert Storm was to remove the Iraqi threat to surrounding nations, which he was quite successful at. Post-Desert Storm Iraq was effectively castrated militarily. The "No-Fly" Zone and international sanctions against Iraq had further weakened Saddam's ability to threaten his neighbors to next-to-nil, by the time the US invaded again.
The problem here is that condition could not be maintained forever.
The object of wars should be the defeat of an enemy and the removal of the government you are at war with.
The gulf war was flawed at concept as it laid the groundwork for what was to follow that three presidents have been unable to solve.
In short it was a fool's errand, if you are going to fight Saddam, then you remove him, otherwise you have to leave a huge army behind to police him.
That is what happened, and its what drove islamic anger for a decade that culminated in 9/11.
Now here, I agree. We shouldn't have been involved militarily to begin with in the Middle East. However, it is true that once we were engaged, we created more problems for ourselves that forced us to go into afghanistan.
reagan leared the hardway not to move US forces into the middleast.
Bush senior did not learn that lesson, Clinton was not going to change things as it worked for him politically (he could always be strong on defense by a bombing of Iraq) and he knew it would be unpopular in Congress.
Bush jr was the one that thought he could solve it by force and we all know how that turned out.
Better off as opposed to what?
Better off than if they had a peaceful transition to a new government? Almost certainly.
However, what they got is a war that will have caused, either directly or indirectly, close to a million deaths. Some through violence, some through lack of infrastructure, some through disease that would not otherwise have occurred, etc, etc.
Even during the most violent periods of the civil war the Kurds were fighting against him, Hussein never came close to killing a tenth of that number.
Oh sure, Hussein was an evil dictator, but he was no Hitler.
So the question is: "Was it worth hundreds of thousands of people dead to get rid of one, rather weak, dictator?"
Neither you nor I know the answer to that, we'd have to ask the Iraqis.
I believe it was not, as with Bush I, Bush II did not fight a total war and as a result the USA has been subjected to the old Asian 'death of a thousand cuts' so famous to islam in history.
Agree with all, but would add that Bush had separate motives involved control of oil production, and that Mr Bush lied to the American people in order to make the war happen.
In addition, Bush's mistakes began well before Jay Gardner, and continued until well after Bremer.
Petraeus did his job quite well, but everything he did was only a temporary measure. There is no way the US could have kept troops in Iraq to police the country indefinitely. Talk about a waste of lives and resources, that would have been a disaster in the long term. Yet another disaster, that is.
Whether he did or not I can't say, I can only view the results.
But now I see... you're a pure libertarian, aren't you?
Just out of curiosity, and not that it's any of my business, but did you vote libertarian in the last election?
I reject all parties, including libertarians.
I'm simply an American, I believe what i believe in and find I cannot join this group or that group as nobody will feel the exactly the same as I do on all things.
I'm more of an opposer to the party system then a supporter of anyone.
But I can tell you i have NEVER voted for a Bush or a Clinton or an Obama or anyone else from the big two, i supported Ross Perot in the 90s because he was talking my language, attack the deficiet and make America live within its means.
