Bush Senior Admonishes Junior

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Times report at end. Do read it.

BTW I have seen NOTHING of this in the US Press. Has anyone?

Dave


------ Forwarded Message
From: "Howard Butcher, IV" <hbiv () netreach net>
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 17:59:41 -0500
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Bush Senior Admonishes Junior

Dear Dave,
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-605441,00.html
 
    As I am sure you will see this sooner or later I send it along now.  In
my opinion Bush Sr. is senile and he was wrong not to finish the job back
then.  As a result we are faced with a much more expensive undertaking today
and a much greater threat than would be the case if Dad had gone forward on
his own.  Dad was technically correct at the time.  I recall listening to
Dad explain that he did not have a mandate to pursue and finish off Saddam
and that his mission was only to toss the Iraqis out of Kuwait.  I also
recall seeing films of the fleeing Imperial guards who were allowed to
return and protect Saddam while he went about the business of rearming and
making himself more dangerous than ever.  Lots of us recognized then that by
letting him escape we were simply allowing him to rebuild and increase the
risks to the world community, but it was too late.  George Sr., worthy pilot
he, was at the end too much influenced by his diplomatic background and
unable to recognize the way the old world was falling apart while a new
worldwide wave of fundamentalist religious fervor was producing all kinds of
terrorists who would acquire the means sooner or later of harming us
seriously.  
 
Dad's time is long past and his son understands the core issues much better
than the father.
 
At the very least the Father should keep his thoughts to himself rather than
allow his son's opponents to use them against him.  A sorry business indeed.
H.
  

March 10, 2003 
Bush Sr warning over unilateral action
From Roland Watson in Washington

THE first President Bush has told his son that hopes of peace in the Middle
East would be ruined if a war with Iraq were not backed by international
unity. 

Drawing on his own experiences before and after the 1991 Gulf War, Mr Bush
Sr said that the brief flowering of hope for Arab-Israeli relations a decade
ago would never have happened if America had ignored the will of the United
Nations. 

He also urged the President to resist his tendency to bear grudges, advising
his son to bridge the rift between the United States, France and Germany.

³You¹ve got to reach out to the other person. You¹ve got to convince them
that long-term friendship should trump short-term adversity,² he said.

The former President¹s comments reflect unease among the Bush family and its
entourage at the way that George W. Bush is ignoring international opinion
and overriding the institutions that his father sought to uphold. Mr Bush Sr
is a former US Ambassador to the UN and comes from a family steeped in
multi-lateralist traditions.

Although not addressed to his son in person, the message, in a speech at
Tufts University in Massachusetts, was unmistakeable. Mr Bush Sr even came
close to conceding that opponents of his son¹s case against President Saddam
Hussein, who he himself is on record as loathing, have legitimate cause for
concern. 

He said that the key question of how many weapons of mass destruction Iraq
held ³could be debated². The case against Saddam was ³less clear² than in
1991, when Mr Bush Sr led an international coalition to expel invading Iraqi
troops from Kuwait. Objectives were ³a little fuzzier today², he added.

After the Gulf War, Mr Bush Sr steered Israel and its Arab neighbours to the
Madrid conference, a stepping stone to the historic Israeli-Palestinian Oslo
accords, in much the same way that the present President has talked about
the removal of Saddam as opening the way to a wider peace in the region.

In an ominous warning for his son, Mr Bush Sr said that he would have been
able to achieve nothing if he had jeopardised future relations by ignoring
the UN. ³The Madrid conference would never have happened if the
international coalition that fought together in Desert Storm had exceeded
the UN mandate and gone on its own into Baghdad after Saddam and his
forces.² 

Also drawing on the lessons of 1991, he said that it was imperative to mend
fences with allies immediately, rather than waiting until after a war. He
had been infuriated with the decision of King Hussein of Jordan to side with
Saddam rather than the US, but while criticising the Jordanian leader in
public and freezing $41 million in US aid, he also passed word to King
Hussein that he understood his domestic tensions.

Mr Bush Jr, who is said never to forget even relatively minor slights, has
alarmed analysts with the way in which he has allowed senior Administration
figures such as Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, aggressively to
criticise France and Germany.

There are, however, signs that Mr Bush Sr¹s message may be getting through.

Father and son talk regularly and it was, in part, pressure from Mr Bush
Sr¹s foreign policy coterie, that helped to persuade the President to go to
the UN last September.

------ End of Forwarded Message

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