Bush Regrets Not Removing Hussein, He Writes

Former President Bush worried that he might be impeached if the Gulf War dragged on, but after rushing the battle to conclusion, he regretted that Saddam Hussein survived in power, he reveals in a new book.

“It hasn’t been a clean end--there is no battleship Missouri surrender,” Bush wrote in his diary Feb. 28, 1991. “This is what’s missing to make this akin to WWII, to separate Kuwait from Korea and Vietnam.”

In the book, “A World Transformed,” written with his national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft, and due for publication Sept. 30, Bush frets about how to stop the war quickly while avoiding the mistakes of a drawn-out Vietnam.

In the middle of the 100-hour ground war that pushed Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, Bush feared Saddam would survive as powerful as ever.

That is, in fact, what happened. Although the U.S.-led Gulf War smashed Iraq’s military and forced Saddam to withdraw from Kuwait, the Iraqi leader claimed victory and never surrendered. Today, he remains in power and in frequent defiance of United Nations resolutions requiring Iraq to allow weapons inspections to ensure the nation has disarmed.