The Los Angeles Times
January 21, 2011
Twenty years ago this week, despite fears of “another Vietnam,” the House and Senate voted to authorize the use of force against Iraqi troops occupying Kuwait.
After days of impassioned debate, the House supported President George H.W. Bush’s policy by a comfortable margin. The Senate’s 52-47 vote was the closest margin for war by a chamber of Congress in U.S. history.
The anniversary of the Persian Gulf War, a watershed event in modern American history, has gone almost entirely unnoticed. This oversight is perplexing given the presence of about 50,000 U.S. troops in Iraq today and the countless connections between the swift liberation of Kuwait in 1991 and the protracted occupation of Iraq, now winding down after eight painful years.
The relationship between the two conflicts, however, is not as simple as it may appear.