The Gulf War's primary goal was to 'free Kuwait' from the invading Iraqi army. This goal was accomplished therefore the war WAS 'finished'. George senior has been quoted as saying "Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have...incurred incalculable human and political costs". He goes on to say, "We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. . . . Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different and perhaps barren outcome."

At no time during the selling of Gulf War 1 did GHW Bush say the goal was to take out Saddam.

Typical: moving the goal posts. First it's WMD, then it's connections to Al Qaida, then it's regime change, then it's liberating the Iraqi people...on and on and on.

But the regime they are defending invaded a neighboring country (they were expelled), used WMD on its own people and others (with weapons we sold them), defied the international community (as we are doing now), and had to be crushed (but at what cost?)...

No doubt you've seen this article in the NY Times:

Viewing the War as a Lesson to the World

Shortly after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld issued a stark warning to Iran and Syria last week, declaring that any "hostile acts" they committed on behalf of Iraq might prompt severe consequences, one of President Bush's closest aides stepped into the Oval Office to warn him that his unpredictable defense secretary had just raised the specter of a broader confrontation.

Mr. Bush smiled a moment at the latest example of Mr. Rumsfeld's brazenness, recalled the aide. Then he said one word -- "Good" -- and went back to work.
...
"Iraq is not just about Iraq," a senior administration official who played a crucial role in putting the strategy together said in an interview last week. It was "a unique case," the official said. But in Mr. Bush's mind, the official added, "It is of a type."

Why the interest in Syria (and not, say, Pakistan)?

Paritzky requests assessment of old oil line from Iraq to Haifa

Hanan Bar-On, then the deputy director-general of the Foreign Ministry, confirmed Sunday that Israel was involved in talks during the mid-1980s on a plan for an Iraq-Jordanian pipeline to the Red Sea port of Aqaba. Among the participants in these talks was Donald Rumsfeld, then an adviser to U.S. president Ronald Reagan and currently secretary of defense. The American corporation Bechtel was slated to build the pipeline. According to the deal, which eventually fell through, Israel was to receive about $100 million a year via former Israeli businessman Bruce Rappaport in return for a commitment not to oppose the construction or operation of the new pipeline.

Then there's this:

In the pipeline: More regime change

As acknowledged by the Israeli minister, a prerequisite for the project is, therefore, a new regime in Baghdad with friendly ties with Israel. However, such a regime, if ever it comes to power, will still require Syria's consent to operationalize the pipeline. Given the overall political environment in the Middle East and Israel's continued occupation of Syria's Golan Heights, the existing Syrian regime will never grant its consent as long as the status quo prevails. As stated by the Iranian government, during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88) when Iraq enjoyed cordial and close relations with Israel's mentor, the United States, Israel tried, but failed, to resume the oil flow through the pipeline. Syria, a friend of Iran and an enemy of Iraq, blocked the flow of Iraqi oil.

Hence, unless the pipeline were redirected through Jordan, another country bordering Israel and Iraq with normalized relations with Israel, the pipeline project will require a different regime in Syria. In other words, regime change in both Iraq and Syria is the prerequisite for the project. As Paritzky did not mention a redirecting option, it is safe to suggest that the Israelis are also optimistic about a regime change in Syria in the near future.

Stop watching Fox News exclusively, please!

A morally hollow victory

No amount of PR will disguise the fact that this war is an outrage against humanity

And that's our greatest ally talking!

As InMarin states, the job WAS finished in the Gulf War: Kuwait was liberated; GHW Bush stood by the rules of international law and the UN mandate. The American public was pleased with GHW Bush's management of the Gulf War. Concerns over the economy DID drive him from office; the Gulf War was a done deal. I think that had GHW Bush marched on Baghdad, a great portion of the American public, unindoctrinated in the philosophy of fear of the present administration, would have looked at him askance.

I disagree with both the latter and the former: I've always considered "Three Kings" supremely overrated. My chief objection is that it tries to make a political argument based on events that never happened: there were never US soldiers who stole Kuwaiti gold from Iraq, those shootouts never really happened, and I doubt the football-as-weapon thing has any historical veracity either.

Besides, it was a total copout that Wahlberg lived at the end.

Gosh Mr. Silver...you mean, it was fiction? How dare those Hollywood types make shit up! Why, just the other day I was watching Courage Under Fire...oh wait, that's also fiction. Well, there's always Apocolyspe Now...wait, that's a novel by Joseph Conrad. How about Patton?

Have to agree whole-heartedly with InMarin. Duh - of course it's fiction. It NEVER implied that it was anything but.

Anyone who was watching Three Kings thinking it was a genuine retelling of true events needs a steady thorazine drip.

Oh, and I think it's a great film.