WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Former President Jimmy Carter says it would be unwise for U.S. forces to push into Iraq and try to depose Saddam Hussein.
'I hope as soon as we do cross the Kuwait border and dislodge the Iraqi forces that we will announce a cease-fire,' said Carter, who was president from 1977 to 1981.
Carter also opposes seeking to eliminate the Iraqi forces because that strategy would only prolong the war and heighten the casualty toll, he told an audience of about 7,000 people at Purdue University.
He predicted a ground war will begin before a peace can be negotiated.
'I don't think there's much doubt we will send our ground forces into Kuwait and confront Iraqi ground forces in that kind of a war,' he said. 'It's almost impossible to stop a war in mid-course. It has to proceed to literally a bloody end.'
He warned that carrying the war into Iraq likely would break up the coalition of Arab and other nations fighting the Iraqis, uniting many fervently religious Arabs against the United States.
Carter was not critical of President Bush's handling of the war. He said he lacks the information that is available to Bush in the decisions Bush must make. 'It's his judgment to make,' he said.
After the war, he said, the United States and the Soviet Union should convene an international conference to resolve the Palestinian issue. He said the Soviet Union's softer stance on Israel, including its allowing Soviet Jews to freely immigrate there, provides a new opportunity for peace in the Middle East.
