On this day…

… in 1991, President George Bush Snr declared that “Kuwait is liberated, Iraq’s army is defeated,” and announced that the allies would suspend combat operations at midnight. They could have gone all the way to Baghdad and overthrown Saddam, but they didn’t — because the president and his advisers knew they had done no planning for the aftermath. Also, they didn’t have a UN mandate for it. What a difference an election makes.