people, it would have been an iraqi problem. instead, he was taken out by us, and now in the eyes of much of the middle east and certainly in the eyes of many of the iraqis, it is our problem. >> is this current crisis and all of the bloodshed of the last 11 years, is that the reason behind the bush 41 administration, the first one, not pushing on to baghdad during the first gulf war? i mean, did you foresee this? >> that was one of the reasons. in fact, president bush and brent scowcroft wrote in the book "a world transformed," that they were fearful that if we went in there and took him out in '91, that we would have ended up occupying it just as we have been occupying it for the last 11 years. and it would not have been in our interests to do so. we would have ended up with a mess that we are in. that was one of the reasons we did not go to baghdad. another reason we didn't go to baghdad is we wanted to have iraq remain as a bullwork against iranian aggressiveness. >> and in this op-ed, sir, you