Presidential Decisions for War: Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and Iraq (The American Moment) - 2nd Edition

345 Pages·2009·2.01 MB·English

by  Hess

Presidential
Decisions for War
Korea, Vietnam,
the Persian Gulf, and Iraq
Second Edition
Gary R. Hess
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
©2001, 2009 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2009
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
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ISBN-13: 978-0-8018-9123-6 (hc)
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ISBN-10: 0-8018-9124-8 (pbk)
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Contents
Series Editor’s Foreword ix
Preface to the Second Edition xi
Introduction: Presidential Leadership
and International Crises 1
1 Harry S. Truman and the Korean Crisis:
“We can’t let the U.N. down” 8
2 Harry S. Truman as Commander in Chief:
Decision by Indecision 41
3 Lyndon B. Johnson and the Vietnam Crisis:
“America keeps her word” 75
4 Lyndon B. Johnson as Commander in Chief:
The Strategy of Wishful Thinking 113
5 George H. W. Bush and the Persian Gulf Crisis:
“This aggression will not stand” 153
6 George H. W. Bush as Commander in Chief:
The Imperatives of Coalition Warfare 199
7 George W. Bush and the Second Crisis with
Iraq: “Time is not on our side” 221
8 George W. Bush as Commander in Chief:
History Overpowers Ideology 249
Conclusion: Four Presidents
and Their Wars 278
Bibliographical Essay 291
Index 321
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Series Editor’s Foreword
President George W. Bush’s decision to force regime
change in Iraq marked a departure for American foreign policy. Congress
readily supported his decision to attack Iraq, but it refl ected a momen-
tary public consensus, orchestrated by the administration, that the war
was just and vital to American security. Earlier presidential decisions to
use force in Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf responded to the use
of force by perceived, dangerous enemies. But for Iraq in March 2003, the
president invoked a newly declared doctrine of preemptive war.
Americans were told that Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi government
possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs)—meaning nuclear and
chemical weapons—and that Iraq had links with the notorious al-Qaeda,
the perpetrator of the World Trade Center destruction in 2001. The presi-
dent and his advisers assured Americans that the Iraqi people would
greet American soldiers as liberators, welcome them with fl owers, and,
with our aid, establish a democratic government that would inspire po-
litical change throughout the Middle East. No WMDs were ever discov-
ered, and no links between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda ever existed.
The Middle East remains safe for autocracy.
War followed and the president triumphantly declared “Mission Ac-
complished” on May 1,2003, two months after hostilities had begun. But
after more than fi ve years of fi ghting and occupation, the United States
found itself bogged down with 140,000 troops in Iraq, confronting a vio-
lent sectarian and civil confl agration that the president and his advisers
had in no way anticipated and saddled with an Iraqi government that
had neither the will nor the capability to govern effectively. The president
increased the commitment in 2007, saying that we could not withdraw
because there was too much violence. A year later, his commander in
Iraq testifi ed that violence was down, but he reversed his own promise
to draw down American forces that year. Those decisions largely assured
that Bush’s successor would be bound to maintain the commitment.
Meanwhile, more than four thousand military fatalities had occurred in
Iraq, nearly thirty thousand had been wounded and maimed, more than
one million Iraqis had been reported killed, and millions of Iraqis had
become displaced refugees.