The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency

by Chris Whipple

As the Iraq Republican Guards fled along the so-called highway of death, a debate erupted in the media. Should the U.S. military go all the way to Baghdad and topple Saddam Hussein? Powell says that during the first Gulf War, the idea was so untenable it was never talked about. “We were never going to Baghdad,” he says. “It was never discussed. It never was anything that entered the president’s mind. He had no desire to occupy an Arab state, and he wanted to accomplish what the UN resolution called for, and to restore the legitimate government of Kuwait. And that’s what we did.” That opinion was unanimous among the president’s advisers, including Cheney. It would be less unanimous just over a decade later—when some of the same advisers debated whether to invade and occupy Iraq during the presidency of Bush’s son, George W.