George Bush's decision to halt the Persian Gulf War ground attack after 100 hours is regrettable and may keep the United States involved in the Middle East for decades, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs says.
"In retrospect, the decision to stop before bringing Saddam (Hussein) to heel may have been a mistake," retired Adm. William J. Crowe Jr. told a Brown University audience Friday night.Crowe, who endorsed Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential race and now serves as chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, said achieving significant change in Baghdad "requires total victory, not partial victory.
"It is true that there might have been problems if we had gone to Baghdad, or if we had tracked (Saddam) down," Crowe said, but the alternative turned out to be much less than the clear-cut victory touted at the time.
"It is disappointing when you deploy 400,000 troops 6,000 miles, win a decisive victory and then a year later be faced with the same problems," he said.
In the university's third annual Anne S.K. Brown Memorial Lecture, Crowe also said Russia remains the No. 1 foreign policy challenge for President Clinton.
Because of 75 years of state regimentation, he predicted it will take "a whole generation" before Russians feel comfortable taking responsibility for their own enterprises.
Students asked Crowe for his views on the president's decision to lift the ban on gays in the military.
"I would prefer he did not do it," Crowe said. "But Mr. Clinton is serious, and he's going to do it. The question is not the end of Western civilization as we know it."