Washington's Elite Pay Tribute to Tony Snow
Conception.
Snow was the first working journalist in more than 30 years to take the spokesman's job, after stints as conservative columnist, commentator and speechwriter. "He had the sometimes challenging distinction of working for two presidents named Bush," the president said. "As a speechwriter in my Dad's administration, Tony tried to translate the president's policies into English. As a spokesman in my administration, Tony tried to translate my English . . . into English."
Snow would have loved that line.
Just underneath the speaker's lectern, a huge picture of Snow -- flashing his trademark grin -- captured his great gift: optimism. Speaker after speaker praised his determination to find the fun, the humor, the upside of everything in his life, even the cancer that ended it last week at age 53. The tributes could describe it, but never matched his gift of lightness.
"If Tony were here, he'd have the words," said college pal Matthew Covington. "He could say it better."
Before the White House job, Snow was best known for his work on Fox radio and television, and a number of prominent conservatives and colleagues--Roger Ailes, Karl Rove, Laura Ingraham, Bill O'Reilly, and former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.)--were front and center at the service. Congress was represented by Sens. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and Reps. Roy Blunt(R-Mo.) and John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). White House press secretary Dana Perino walked out in tears; almost every journalist in Washington -- including the White House correspondents whom Snow sparred with during his year as the White House -- came to pay their respects.
Bush went on to praise Snow's devotion to his wife, Jill, and three young children, who participated in the 90-minute Mass.
"He loved you a lot," Bush told them. "I hope you know we loved him a lot, too."
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I realize that President Bush is a man of loyalty and that Tony Snow was part of the "family" so to speak, but as a soldier, every military person that dies in service to this nation is a member of President Bush's family, it was his decision to send them to war, as he infamously stated "He is the Decider in Chief" I realize that with there now being more than 4100 deaths of active duty personnel in Iraq since March 2003, that he can't possibly attend all of them, but he has NOT eeven attended one. These are the young men and women of this nation, our future so to speak, and due to President Bush and his administrations decision to take out Saddam Hussein, men that used to do business with him in the past either as Presidential envoys as Don Rumsfeld as a Special Envoy for President Reagan in 1988
http://www.fsmitha.com/h2/ch36.htm
In the early 1970s, Saddam became the power behind the presidency. He supervised modernization of Iraq's countryside, where most Iraqis lived. He mechanizing agriculture and distributed land to farmers. Farm cooperatives were established, with profits distributed according to individual work. Expenditures for agriculture doubled between 1974 and 1975. With the increase in production and Saddam's reforms the living standard of rural people increased. Oil profits were invested in industrialization. Saddam was associated with his Ba'athist Party's economic and welfare programs, and his appeal among Iraqis increased.
In 1976, Hussein acquired the rank of general. Although hardly a communist, Hussein's favorite reading had been about Joseph Stalin - who had acquired power and adulation early in the 20th century. Using intimidation, Hussein moved closer to such power. Bakr's fear of his vice president Hussein grew, and he tried to get rid him. Instead, in 1979, Hussein pushed his relative, Bakr, aside and took power.
In taking control, Hussein called a meeting attended by government and party officials. To secure his rule and as a warning, Hussein called out the names of the dozens of individuals he wanted to be rid of. They were obliged to leave the hall and were escorted to their executions.
These were prosperous times for Iraq, which was one of the world's big oil producers. And Hussein was popular among many of Iraq's common people in appreciation for their prosperity.
Hussein against Iran
Saddam Hussein was playing the anti-Communist West against the Soviet Union. He was buying weapons from the Soviet Union, while the West was hoping to lure him away from the Soviet Union and also selling him weapons.
With the fall of Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi in Iran, Hussein saw opportunity. The Shah had been friendly with the U.S. and was considered a great power in the Middle East. But the new regime in Iran was weakened by revolution, and it was hostile to the United States. The Iranians, moreover, were largely of the Shiite branch of Islam, in conflict with Sunni Muslims elsewhere in the Middle East, including Iraq. Saddam, it is said, feared Iran's influence in Iraq. Perhaps he also feared that the spread of fundamentalism to Iraq. Saddam went to several Middle East nations that had Sunni Muslim heads-of-state to gain approval for an invasion of Iran. In Jordan he met with King Hussein, and there, it is believed, he met with three senior CIA agents - Jordan having been a base of operations for the CIA in the Muslim world. Saddam Hussein was also seeking more weapons, and in this he had an advantage over Iran, which had only Libya and Syria for allies.
In September 1980, Saddam Hussein's government declared Iraq's 1975 agreement with Iran null and void, and, on September 22, Saddam launched a land and air invasion against Iran, claiming that Iran had been shelling Iraqi towns. He said he would be in Teheran, Iran's capital, in three days. His forces advanced along a broad front into Khuzestan province. They captured the city of Khorramshahr, but they failed to capture the oil-refining center at Abadan.
Publicly the United States was neutral regarding the Iran-Iraq war but in fact it was supporting Iraq. U.S. foreign policy strategists did not want a hostile power, Iran, to gain control over Iraq's oil fields. The United States had opposed any Security Council move to condemn Saddam's invasion of Iran. It removed Iraq's name from its list of nations supporting terrorism, and it began sending arms to Iraq, including strains of anthrax for chemical weaponry. France supplied Iraq with more high-tech weaponry, and the Soviet Union continued to supply the Iraqis with weapons.
In June 1981, Israel bombed a site in Iraq, to prevent Saddam Hussein from acquiring a nuclear bomb capability. The U.S. president, Ronald Reagan, condemned Israel's act.
The Israelis were selling weapons to Iran, and the United States provided both Iran and Iraq with arms and with intelligence information, the U.S. trying to win favor from moderates in Iran and trying to keep Saddam Hussein friendly. In 1984 the Reagan administration again applied trade sanctions against Iran, and in late 1986 the Iranians leaked information about U.S. arms dealing, which upset the Sunni Muslims, produced the Iran-Contra scandal in the United States and sent the U.S. tilting more toward Iraq. The United States saw its relations with the Sunni Muslim states as more important than its relations with Iran, and it still feared Soviet gains with the Sunni Muslim states.
Iran and Iraq attacked each other's oil industry. That Hussein used chemical weapons against the Iranians - a weapon abhorred in the West since World War I - created little stir in the West. But Iran's attacks on oil tankers prompted the United States and other western European nations to station warships in the Persian Gulf, and Iran's ability to obtain arms fell.
Stalemate prevailed, while millions were dying in the Iran-Iraq war, and, as always in war, wealth was being lost, with Iraq acquiring a huge debt. Saddam's war was costing him too much, and in 1988 he agreed to a cease-fire mediated by the United Nations.
Into 1990 a permanent peace treaty had not yet been created between Iran and Iraq. Accusations were made that Saddam was making nuclear bombs. On March 16, Iraq denied this but admitted to having chemical weapons and threatened to use them against Israel if it were attacked. Relations between the U.S. and Iraq were deteriorating. On April 10, 1990 the U.S. canceled an aerospace trade mission to Iraq. But still the U.S. sought to maintain good relations with Saddam, hoping that this was best for maintaining a favorable position and what civility still existed in the Middle East.
Steps toward War with the United States
In July 1990 Saddam appeared willing to give up his long-standing conflict with Iran, but he wanted also to do something about being short of money. He stunned his fellow Sunni nations with a vitriolic speech in which he accused Kuwait of sucking up too much crude oil from the oil fields that straddled their two countries. He accused Kuwait and other Persian Gulf states of catering to the wishes of the Western powers by conspiring to keep the price for crude oil low, thereby damaging Iraq. He demanded compensation for these "crimes " by canceling the 30 billion dollar debt that Iraq owned the Kuwaities, and he sent 100,000 troops to Kuwait's border.
Saddam Hussein demanded cash from Kuwait, and he raised the issue of Kuwait's independence. Kuwait had been ruled by Britain to 1961. After having granted Kuwait its independence that year, Britain had landed troops in Kuwait to defend that independence. Now, in 1990, Hussein renewed the old claim that Kuwait was part of Iraq.
The goal of the Bush administration remained normal relations and expanded trade with Iraq. On July 24 tens of thousands of Iraqi troops deployed to the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border. On July 25 an American diplomat, April Glaspie, met with Saddam Hussein. She spoke of U.S. disapproval of settlement of disputes "by any but peaceful means," which to Saddam Hussein might have sounded like pacifist nonsense and hypocrisy. Then she told Saddam that "we have no opinion of the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait."
The Reagan administration had sided with Hussein against Iran, but a dispute with Kuwait had not won for Saddam the approval the administration of President Bush the elder. And Saddam apparently believed that the United States would not intervene on the side of Kuwait. He believed that the United States was still reeling from its experience in Vietnam, and that the U.S. was overly concerned about the loss of lives of its military personnel. Hussein bragged to Glaspie that the United States was not the kind of nation that could absorb 10,000 casualties in one day as Iraq had during the Iraq-Iran war.
Saddam also met with Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, whom he knew was in close contact with the Bush administration. Mubarak asked him what his intentions were regarding Kuwait. Mubarak wanted reassurance from Saddam that he was not planning to attack Kuwait. Saddam was not about to confess his intentions, and Mubarak gathered from Saddam that he was bluffing the Kuwaities. Mubarak passed on to Bush his opinion that Saddam was bluffing. He advised the Bush administration to relax, that the Arab nations would sort things out among themselves.
Saddam also reasoned that he could accomplish what he wanted regarding Kuwait before the United Nations would respond and that he would not be resisted by the United Nations. On August 1, Saddam Hussein withdrew from negotiations with the Kuwaities. And at 2 a.m. August 2, 1990, Iraqi time, and 8 p.m. (August 1) Washington D.C. time, he sent his tanks rolling into Kuwait. Some would compare it with Hitler sending his troops into Poland. Some others would just look on, puzzled or mildly disturbed. For the Kuwaities it was terror, a loss of property, and for many it was death.
Initial Responses
Some have speculated that if Saddam Hussein had merely taken the strip of land just within Kuwait's border where oil wells had been sucking up Iraqi oil and had taken a couple of small Kuwaiti islands, the U.S. and Britain would not have pursued war against Iraq. At any rate, Saddam Hussein was brasher than limiting himself to such a measured move. He wished to compare himself what he considered his great ancestor, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar - from a time when greatness was measured by military conquest and huge palaces. Hussein was living in the past. He was moving against all of Kuwait.
At 8:30 on the evening of August 1, a disturbed George Bush, President of the United States, was on the telephone hearing about the invasion and then seeking information from his National Security Advisor and the Central Intelligence Agency, and trying to find out what U.S. options were. The Pentagon had not been off guard. Intelligence officers had been watching Iraqi troop movements. As early as January they had been concerned, General Norman Schwarzkopf having then ordered an exploration of alternative responses to an Iraqi invasion in the Arabian Peninsula.
Now, just before 10 p.m., the American ambassador in Kuwait was on the phone with the U.S. State Department, passing on a Kuwaiti request for help. The help they wanted was military assistance.
Bush went to bed late and was up again by 5 a.m. and signed papers for the freezing of assets that it did not want Iraq to get its hands on - Kuwaiti assets, Iraq being broke and without assets of its own. At 6 a.m. at the United Nations in New York, the Security Council voted to condemn the invasion, and it demanded the unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
Early that morning, Schwarzkopf arrived at the Pentagon, and saw amateurish blunders in Iraqi troop movements. While Schwarzkopf and others gathered to meet with the President at the White House the press arrived and asked Bush whether he was going to authorize the dispatch of U.S. troops to the Gulf. Bush replied that he was "not contemplating such action."
Also on August 2, the United Nations Security Council condemned Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and passed Resolution 660, demanding an immediate and unconditional Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait.
That day, President Bush kept his appointment for a conference in Aspen Colorado, where he met Britain's prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, there for the same conference. Thatcher told him that she was appalled that Saddam Hussein had lied about his intentions. She called him a brutal dictator and spoke of the need to defend Saudi Arabia as a priority. If Saddam took Saudi Arabia, she said, he would have 65 percent of the world's oil reserves. "He could blackmail us all," she said - in other words, Saddam would have too much leverage over the price of oil. She announced that "aggressors should never be appeased," that we had learned that in the 30s. "We have to move to stop the aggression," she said, and we had to "stop it quickly." If we let it succeed, she added, "no small country can ever feel safe again [and] the law of the jungle would take over from the rule of law." [note]
Margaret Thatcher's memoirs, The Downing Street Years, p. 817.
About her discussions with Bush at Aspen she was to write:
President Bush that day was an altogether more confident George Bush than the man with whom I had had earlier dealings. He was firm, cool, showing the decisive qualities with which the Commander-in-Chief of the greatest world power must possess. Any hesitation fell away. I had always liked George Bush. Now my respect for him soared. [note]
Margaret Thatcher's memoirs, The Downing Street Years, p. 817.
The United States had ordered naval forces to the Persian Gulf, but they were making slow headway against heavy seas. In Kuwait City, on August 3, some of Saddam's Republican Guards were outside the U.S. embassy and threatening to go over the wall. The twenty or so people inside with Ambassador Howell were terrorized but determined to fight, with shotguns, 357 Magnums, tear gas, gas masks, and with Marine Corps guards at the forefront. But soon Saddam's force would withdraw from the embassy wall.
On August 3, the Bush administration announced that it was committing Naval Forces to the Gulf region. On August 4, Bush met with his advisors at Camp David and discussed defending Saudi Arabia. And the following day, he met with the press and, referring to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, announced that "This will not stand."
The U.S. military was scrambling to put together a ground force that it could send to Saudi Arabia, and Bush was starting to put together a coalition force opposed to Iraq. By phone, King Hussein of Jordan told Bush that he was opposed to any U.S. action against Iraq and spoke of Saddam's promise to withdraw from Kuwait soon. King Hussein had much to worry about. Sixty percent of his subjects were Palestinians. Palestinians had been guest workers in Kuwait and had been treated there with contempt. Palestinians in Jordan were siding with Saddam, and many of them were willing to fight side by side with the Iraqis.
President Mubarak of Egypt also spoke by phone to Bush. He had been angered by Saddam having lied to him about his intentions, and of the invasion he had said, "We are at the end of the 20th century. Nobody will accept this in the whole world." But to Bush, Mubarak advised that the U.S. stay calm and give an Arab solution a chance. Bush told Mubarak "fine" but that Hussein's withdrawal from Kuwait must involve restoration of the "lawful government of Kuwait."
According to the CIA, the Saudis were considering buying Saddam's good will with a large gift of money. The Pentagon was presenting the Saudi ambassador in Washington with photos of an Iraqi build up of forces on its border. By August 6, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, with Norman Schwarzkopf and others, was in Saudi Arabia talking with King Faud. That day, Faud agreed to the stationing of U.S. and western military forces on Saudi soil - something never before done.
On August 7, President Bush ordered fourteen aircraft and supporting personnel to Saudi Arabia. And to the press Bush announced that the move was wholly defensive, that he was sending troops to the Persian Gulf "to assist the Saudi Arabian government in the defense of its homeland." Saddam Hussein was pleased. He complained to an U.S. diplomat in Baghdad that he had no intentions against Saudi Arabia, that the Americans were using a fictitious threat to Saudi Arabia as a pretext to put their soldiers into the Gulf region. But he felt victorious regarding Kuwait. He announced publicly that the Iraqis and Kuwaitis were now "one people, one state that will be the pride of the Arabs." In Baghdad the public was delighted. They danced in the streets and guns were fired in celebration.
Words, Hopes, and Organizing for War
Saddam Hussein believed that the U.S. would not risk the lives of its young people by going to war. George Bush remained determined to restore Kuwaiti independence, and he entertained the possibility that Saddam would do so voluntarily - a reversal that would have been a loss of prestige within Iraq. George Bush and Saddam Hussein were still on a collision course, but one that would take months to play out.
International diplomacy was working in Bush's favor. The United Nations Security Council condemned Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and called for sanctions. Iraq's old ally, the Soviet Union, voted in favor of the resolution, and so too did Cuba. But Hussein was not about to admit that he had already miscalculated or to defer to the United Nations. And he watched as British, French, Egyptian and Moroccan troops arrived in Saudi Arabia to join in protecting Saudi Arabia from a possible Iraqi attack.
To hold against further hostilities against him, Saddam Hussein offered Iran his withdrawal from all gains he had won during the Iraq-Iran war. But rather than show signs of weakening, or rather than just remaining quiet and impressing people with his peacefulness, Saddam Hussein tried threats. He sealed his borders, preventing thousands of foreigners from leaving Iraq or Kuwait. On August 16, Iraq ordered 4,000 Britons and 2,500 Americans in Kuwait to Iraq. He called Bush as liar and announced that an outbreak of war could result in "thousands of Americans wrapped in sad coffins."
On August 17, Iraq announced that until threats against it ceased, foreign citizens from "aggressive nations" would be placed at the would be targets of the aggressors. On the 19th, Saddam Hussein announced that he would free all foreigners detained in Iraq and Kuwait when the United States promised to withdraw its forces from Saudi Arabia and guaranteed that economic sanctions against Iraq would be lifted. On August 21, he promised "a major catastrophe" should fighting break out in the Persian Gulf. He appeared before the world on CNN with a group of hostages that he described as "guests," and tried to look kind and fatherly.
In Kuwait, Saddam Hussein's forces were executing people. And Bush announced that he was not going to allow the strong to swallow the weak. On August 22, Bush signed an order to call up 46,000 reservists to add to the military buildup in Saudi Arabia. Four days later the United Nations authorized military action to enforce a trade embargo against Iraq. On August 29, Saddam responded by announcing that the U.S. could not defeat Iraq and that he did not "beg before anyone."
Giving Peace a Chance
Bush was later to describe the coming weeks as "giving peace a chance." He was hoping that Saddam would realize that he would be force out of Kuwait one way or another and that Saddam should leave voluntarily. Some were hoping that sanctions would persuade Hussein to leave Kuwait. But Margaret Thatcher, on September 6, said that she was convinced that the only way Saddam would leave Kuwait was by being thrown out. She said that she saw no evidence that sanctions were working.
On September 14, Iraqi soldiers stormed the French, Belgian and Canadian diplomatic buildings in Kuwait and briefly detained five diplomats, including a U.S. consul. France responded by announcing that it would send 4,000 more soldiers to the Persian Gulf and by expelling Iraqi military attaches in Paris.
In mid-September, in an agreement with the U.S., the Iraqis broadcast an eight-minute videotaped address by President Bush, who warned the Iraqi people that Saddam Hussein's brinkmanship could plunge them into war "against the world." In exchange, Saddam Hussein's message to the American people was broadcast on September 25, Hussein warning that if Bush launched a war against his country, for Americans it would be a repeat of their experience in Vietnam.
The Pentagon was working on plans for a ground offensive against Iraqi forces, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, had an estimation of 30,000 Americans dying. Powell met with Bush and tried to talk him into using sanctions for a couple of years if necessary, rather than opt for military action. Like many soldiers, Powell abhorred war. Bush, who had seen action in World War II, thanked Powell, telling him that it was good to hear all points of view but that he was not going to accept Powell's recommendation. [link]
At the end of September, the deposed emir of Kuwait delivered an emotional address to the UN General Assembly, denouncing the "rape, destruction and terror" inflicted upon his country by Iraq, and the following day he visited the White House, reinforcing Bush's opposition to the invasion of Kuwait.
October and November
In early October, Saddam Hussein threatened to strike at Israel with a new missile, and Israel was handing out gas masks to its citizens. On the peace front, the Soviet Union announced that Iraq would be willing to negotiate an end to the crisis if it were assured that it could keep the Ar-Rumaylah oil fields in Kuwait and two offshore islands. Bush rejected any reward for Hussein's aggression and stood by the UN resolution calling for Iraq unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait. Oil reached over 40 dollars a barrel, and, still trying to appeal to hearts and minds, Hussein offered to sell oil to anyone, including the United States, for $21 dollars a barrel.
By mid-month the build up of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf reached 200,000, and plans for 100,000 more were in the making. Military strategists, including General Powell, remained concerned about Iraqi forces outnumbering Allied forces by 2 to 1. Powell asked Bush for the activation of the National Guard. Bush agreed. Then, on November 8, shortly after congressional elections in the U.S., Bush announced that he was increasing U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia to 400,000 for adequate manpower to liberate Kuwait.
Saddam Hussein was now saying that he was prepared to fight a "dangerous war" rather than give up Kuwait. And British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher followed with a warning to Hussein that time was "running out" for a peaceful solution.
Thatcher was worried about delays and did not want to wait for the United Nations support for military action, but the U.S. Secretary of State, James Baker, argued that United Nations authority was crucial to sustain the support of American public opinion.
Debate in the U.S. was intensifying. On November 13, members of Congress demanded a larger role in U.S. Gulf policy. Trying to explain Bush's position, Baker told reporters that Bush was acting in the interest of American jobs. The next day, Bush told congressional leaders he had no immediate plans to go to war in the Persian Gulf. And a few days later he was in Europe trying to solidify support for his Persian Gulf policies. A suit filed by Congressional Democrats to force Bush to have congressional approval for military operations was failing, and on Thanksgiving a happy Bush and his wife Barbara, were viewed on television visiting joyous U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.
The Final Peace Offensive
On November 27, the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee opened hearings on the Persian Gulf crisis. The former Secretary of Defense and architect of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, Robert McNamara demonstrated his change of heart before the committee. "The point is that it is going to be bloody. There are going to be thousands and thousands and thousands of casualties" - a repeat of Hussein's warning. McNamara favored sanctions against Hussein, as did retired Admiral Crowe, who said was opposed to Hussein having more patience than the United States. The conservative arms advisor to former President Reagan, Paul Nitze, also preferred sanctions, saying that he thought that we could outlast Hussein.
Members of the UN Security Council proved tougher. The resolution that Thatcher feared would be too slow in coming from the United Nations arrived on November 29. On that day the Security Council authorized "all necessary means," including military force, against Iraq if it does not withdraw from Kuwait by Jan. 15, 1991. It was the first such resolution since UN sponsorship of the Korean War in 1950.
Armed with this resolution, Bush tried again to demonstrate his peaceful solution to the crisis. He proposed a meeting between U.S. and Iraqi foreign ministers, hoping that Hussein, faced with overwhelming world opposition, would come to his senses and agree to withdraw from Kuwait. But this would have demonstrated to the Iraqi people a failure and error by Hussein, and Hussein was not about to admit that he was anything but a great and infallible leader.
Hussein did try his nice-guy approach, announcing on December 6 that he was releasing all foreign hostages - including Americans. This was not about to alter Bush's longstanding determination to drive Hussein out of Kuwait. The hostages poured out of Kuwait, and Bush continued to urge Iraq to pull out of Kuwait and to agree to talks.
Instead, from Iraq came a statement that it was "ready for the decisive showdown." The January 15 deadline was approaching, and Iraqi were holding evacuation drills and stockpiling oil supplies. On December 22, Iraq announced that it would never give up Kuwait. On December 30, Iraq's information minister said that Bush "must have been drunk" when he suggested Iraq might withdraw from Kuwait, and added: "We will show the world America is a paper tiger." And the next day Iraq began drafting 17-year-olds.
The American public was awakening to the reality that war could be just around the corner. On January 3, Congress returned from holiday recess, and some Democrats plunged into acrimonious opposition to Bush's policy regarding Iraq. Debates continued in the coming days, and, across the U.S., hundreds of thousands demonstrated for peace and against war.
Among the demonstrators were those carrying signs with a message that had come late in the Vietnam War: "give peace a chance." There were those opposed to all violence, including some clergymen who held all warring to be immoral. One such clergyman was Bush's Anglican minister, who demonstrated in front of the White House, was called in to meet with Bush and told Bush in so many words that he was pursuing an immoral policy. Bush spoke to him about atrocities committed in Kuwait.
Among the demonstrators were university students - many of them the sons and daughters of Vietnam era protesters, eagerly taking up the cause that they believed had added significance to the previous generation.
Some took the position that the U.S. should let the Arabs settle their own disputes - and if Hussein became the dominant power in the Middle East so be it. And there were those who believed that Bush's policy was a manifestation of U.S. imperialism. Some reduced the conflict to an over-riding simplicity, claiming that it was all about oil. They ignored the issue that made U.S. entry into the war politically possible:that the Iraqis had invaded and forced themselves upon the Kuwaitis. Demonstrators chanted "Hell no, we won't go. We won't fight for Texaco." One sign carried by a middle-aged woman read, "No blood for oil. Bush, send your sons not ours." Bush was accused of gunboat diplomacy. The acid test of any progressive, wrote one Leftist, was taking a stand against U.S. imperialism. People were taking the generality that foreign policy was about access to resources to a certainty that in this specific instance that Bush had to be lying, that his motives for going to war could not be motivated by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Such as suggestion to people on the ideological far-left, going from the general (the ideological) to the specific, was absurd.
On January 11, Saddam Hussein assured his nation that victory would be theirs. The U.S., he said, relied too much on technology and that it "can never win the battle." Saddam saw the U.S. as hung-up on Vietnam and unwilling to shed the blood of its youth. By the following day, January 12, the U.S. Congress authorized Bush's offensive against Iraq. The vote in the Senate was 52-47. The House of Representatives voted 250-183.
Meanwhile, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Javier Perez de Cuellar, was moving to and from Baghdad and other capitals, hoping that pressure would force Hussein to back down. Gorbachev tried to broker a peaceful settlement. Then Pope Jean Paul weighed in. On January 16, one day after the deadline for Hussein had passed, the Holy Father telephoned Bush and asked that Bush postpone his offensive. Bush refused.
War Begins
In the early morning of January 17, Iraqi time, Operation Desert Shield (the defense of Saudi Arabia) became Operation Desert Storm. In Baghdad all was quiet until dogs began barking. Then the air raid began, watched across the world on television - an introduction to laser guided bombs. There were 1700 planes in the first, round-the clock assault, many of them flying from the Incirlik airbase near Adana, Turkey. The U.S. military had feared that 1 in 5 of its aircraft might be lost, but only one was lost.
In the air war, U.S. pilots flew alongside pilots from Britain, France, Italy, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Targeted were airbases, nuclear, chemical and biological facilities, missile sites, bridges, and communications facilities. The main goal of the air war was to make the Iraqi military dysfunctional by cutting off communications - analogous to severing one's spinal cord so that the mind could not direct instructions to the body.
In targeting communication, Saddam's palace was bombed - the attitude of the U.S. military being that if Saddam Hussein died in the process so be it. But Saddam was hiding in a residential area, and much more care was given to avoid civilian casualties than had occurred in Vietnam. In Vietnam villages had been targeted in hopes of encouraging people to separate themselves from Communist guerrillas. The U.S. military had learned something. In the Gulf War they were aware that bombing civilians created bad public relations.
Saddam Hussein declared that the "Mother of All Battles" had begun. Impotent against the Allied airforce, he resorted to the terrorism of the desperate - as Hitler had done in sending rockets against Britain. Saddam Hussein fired Scud missiles toward Saudi Arabia and Israel, with little accuracy pretended. And Saddam struck back at the allies by dumping millions of gallons of crude oil into the waters off the Kuwaiti shore in the Persian Gulf.
Israel was eager to retaliate against Iraq's missile attacks, but Bush had a tough exchange with the Israeli prime minister, Yitzak Shamir, Bush promising Israel to do everything possible to stop the scud missile attacks. Israel held back from attacking Iraq, which Allied strategists had feared would break off Muslim states from the coalition.
General Schwarzkopf was concerned about the safety of Israelis, but he was opposed to aircraft looking for the mobile Scud launchers, easily hidden by the Iraqis. He urged other targets for aircraft but was overruled and could be seen on television, with pointer in hand, describing strikes against Scud missiles. Altitude made it difficult for pilots to distinguish between Scud missiles launchers and other kinds of trucks, and what were described on television as strikes against Scud launchers were not Scud launchers.
British airmen made low level flights over Iraqi airfields, looking for mobile Scud launchers. But it was Special Forces units from Britain that performed effectively against the Scuds. Moving about in vehicles through the hills and valleys of Iraq's western desert, they destroyed radar sites, communications cables and destroyed Scud convoys, driving the Scud launchers farther from Israel.
The Scud launches continued, the U.S. throwing up Patriot missiles against incoming Scuds. And in Washington an exuberant Bush boasted joyously that 41 Scuds had been engaged and 41 downed.
The war was hopeless for Saddam Hussein. The allies controlled the air and sea. On January 30, an Iraqi force of 700 men and 45 tanks moved 10 miles across the border into Khafji, an abandoned coastal oil town in Saudi Arabia, and two other Iraqi battalions drove short distances into Saudi Arabia about 45 miles further west. They battled U.S. Marines, with eleven or twelve Marines killed in action - seven of them from the accident known as "friendly fire." Saudis and Qatari (mainly Pakistani mercenaries) participated in driving the Iraqis back to Kuwait, 400 Iraqis at Khafji surrendering after holding the town for only 36 hours.
U.S. intelligence officers collected data on the Iraqi attacks, and they saw weaknesses in Iraqi training. The Iraqis, they concluded, would be less formidable that earlier imagined.
On February 1, Iraq began setting fire to Kuwaiti oil wells, to be claimed as the world's worst man-made environmental disaster.
Saddam had long before lost the most important of wars - the diplomatic war - but King Hussein of Jordan was still on his side. On February 6, King Hussein denounced the Allied cause as an effort by outsiders to destroy Iraq and carve up the Arab world. Japan, meanwhile, had recently angered Iraq by contributing a large sum of money to the Allied war effort.
It was around February 6 that Allied forces were secretly moving westward across Saudi territory in preparation for a surprise flanking attack. The Iraqis were expecting an attack north into Kuwait nearer the coast and an amphibious landing.
On February 13, the U.S. bombed a military installation that, unknown to the Allies, was being used as a bomb shelter for civilians. More than 200 Iraqi civilians were killed. Iraq charged that the U.S. had intentionally attacked an air raid shelter. Many Iraqis accepted their government's claim, seeing the attack as nothing more than bloodlust by the Satanic U.S. military.
The Allied air campaign, meanwhile, was not targeting Iraqi soldiers. It was targeting supply stores and equipment, and Iraqi soldiers were staying away from their equipment and supplies to avoid getting killed.
The Allied Offensive Beings
In mid-February, Saddam Hussein was expecting the Allied offensive to begin soon, and he announced that he was ready to withdraw from Kuwait if Israel returned the territories it had been occupying since the 1960s. Gorbachev attempted a peace proposal to end the war before the Allies launched their assault against the Iraqis. The details of the proposal, agreed upon with Iraq, remained a secret, but later, according to the West German newspaper Bild, its major points were an unconditional Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, the Soviet Union committed to maintaining Iraq's state structure and borders, the end of all sanctions against Iraq, and no punitive actions against Saddam Hussein.
The Iraqis were carrying out last minute executions of Kuwaities. On the 22nd, Bush gave Iraq 24 hours to begin withdrawing from Kuwait. Iraq spoke of a new Soviet peace plan and denounced Bush's ultimatum as shameful. Bush and the Allies rejected the plan. (By December there would be no Soviet Union to do any guaranteeing.)
The Bush administration began urging General Schwarzkopf to begin his assault. It took time for the supplies needed in a great war to arrive, and Schwarzkopf had long been complaining that he was not ready. Bush's Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney, had a problem with Schwarzkopf's continuing requests for delays. From Washington, General Powell called Schwarzkopf, who lost his temper, telling Powell, in Powell's words, that "If you do not care about the lives of young people, well I do." Powell exploded, shouting back that he cared as much but that there was "a limit." Powell calmed down at told Schwarzkopf "Look Norm, we got a problem, we'll work our way through." About thirty minutes later, Schwarzkopf called back and said "Weather's fine. We can go."
The assault began in full on February 24. Schwarzkopf found that Saddam's frontline units were pretty much shattered. Iraq's frontline units melted away, these troops surrendering in droves. The Iraqis had accurate artillery but their fire was inaccurate. Iraqi tank units were no match against Allied tank units.
The Iraqis began setting fire to more oil facilities in Kuwait, and on the 25th the Iraqis fired a Scud missile into Saudi Arabia that struck the U.S. barracks in Dhahran, killing twenty-eight.
The Ground War Ends
On the morning of February 26, Baghdad radio announced that Iraqi forces had "performed their Jihad duty of refusing to comply with the logic of evil, imposition and aggression." Also the broadcast announced that Iraq would comply with United Nation resolutions.
That day tank battles were taking place, and many Iraqi tanks were being destroyed. That day also Iraqis and Palestinians were rushing northward out of Kuwait City on what would be called the Highway of Death. The columns consisted of tanks, trucks armored fighting vehicles and other vehicles included looted cars and stolen goods from Kuwait. Allied planes struck against the column. Tanks burned. Every vehicle was destroyed and no one was seen as having survived.
The sight was televised across the world. Muslims would begin responding to the "Highway of Death" with accusations of unnecessary killing. General Schwarzkopf was furious over reports by journalists suggesting that Allied pilots had wantonly destroyed civilians fleeing Kuwait City.
On the morning of February 27 in Iraq, fighting was still taking place, but that day General Powell in Washington saw the liberation of Kuwait as having been achieved. Powell viewed the television coverage of the highway of death. Powell later said "You don't do unnecessary killing if it can be avoided. At some point you decide you've accomplished your objectives and you stop."
Bush too had been moved by the sight of the Highway of Death. He too was of the opinion that U.S. forces did not kill wantonly - soldiers or civilians. He asked General Powell, his military advisor, "Why not end it now?" Powell called Schwarzkopf and asked his opinion, and Schwarzkopf is reported by Powell to have said something to the effect that it was probably the right thing to do but that he wanted first to have a look around. Bush and Cheney also spoke to Schwarzkopf, and they all agreed that it was time to end the fighting. They agreed to end the war 100 hours after the ground war had begun - at 8 a.m., Saudi time, on the 28th.
On the 28th the U.S. 24th Infantry Division fought against elements of Iraq's Republican Guards as they were fleeing north from Kuwaiti oil fields, resulting in one of the largest tank battles of the war.
For the United States the war ended with 148 battle deaths, the most one-sided victory in the history of modern warfare.
The Settlement
The Bush administration's declared goal was to liberate Kuwait from the Iraqis. That was the mandate provided by the United Nations. And that was all that the Muslim members of the coalition desired. Saudi Arabia and Egypt had wanted a quick end to the war. King Faud of Saudi Arabia was unconcerned about the welfare of the Shiite minority living in the south of Iraq and close to his border. Nor was he concerned about the Kurds in the north of Iraq. Faud and Mubarak of Egypt wanted an Iraq as big as it was before the Gulf War began, and they wanted an Iraq ruled by a Sunni Muslim, and if this were Saddam Hussein so be it.
Margaret Thatcher, no longer Prime Minister of Britain, was to speak of her surprise at the war being ended with Saddam in power. She was to say that when "dealing with a dictator, he has got not only to be defeated, well and truly, but he has got to be seen to be defeated." She added that "Half measures never work, you've either got to do the job properly and show the world you're serious so they better not let it happen again." Her successor, John Major, supported Bush's manner of ending the war, and he was to continue defending it in the years ahead.
President Bush and some others assumed that Hussein would not survive politically in the wake of Iraq's defeat. Intelligence agencies and analysts with information available to the Bush administration had seen in Hussein a special danger and had questioned whether a mere Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait would suffice to pacify the region.
The Bush administration ended the war applying conditions on Iraq that were adopted by the UN Security Council. On March 3, the UN Security Council had adopted Resolution 687: a cease-fire, an extension of sanctions against Iraq, and a UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) concerning weapons of mass destruction within Iraq. Also on March 3, Allied military commanders and Iraqi military commanders met at a captured Iraqi airbase, at Safwan, to arrange terms of a formal cease-fire. Saddam Hussein wanted peace at any price. The U.S. wanted a return of prisoners. Not included in the U.S. demands was the deliverance of Saddam Hussein to stand trial at the world court. Schwarzkopf assured the Iraqis that the border separating the areas being occupied by the U.S. from the central part of Iraq that was unoccupied was temporary. The Iraqis claimed that they needed their helicopters to transport wounded soldiers and other tasks and asked if they could fly armed helicopters across this border. Schwartzkopt said yes. Later he was to say that he had been "suckered." In leaving the Iraqis the right to use their helicopters, helicopter gun ships were used in putting down the revolts against rule from Baghdad. Bush had encouraged risings against Hussein, and now Hussein's military was crushing these uprisings. Members of America's 1st Armored Division watched with frustration as Iraqis strode in front of them, waving their weapons. Pictures of Iraqi soldiers kicking and executing people were broadcast around the world. [link]
On March 5, in Resolution 688, the UN Security Council condemned the repression of Iraqi civilians and called for an immediate "end to this repression." This resolution was to be used by the American and British for "no fly zones," where Iraq was to be prohibited from flying fixed-wing aircraft, but it was to prove ineffective.
On March 6, an exultant Bush told a cheering joint session of Congress that "aggression is defeated. The war is over." Kuwait City was liberated, but on March 7 the Iraqis were still exploding oil facilities in Kuwait. On March 8, plane-loads of U.S. troops were arriving home from the Persian Gulf. That day, the Iraqis handed over to the Allied forces forty journalists and two American soldiers they had captured. On March 16, Saddam Hussein broadcast an address in which he promised to allow multi-party democracy.
Some people criticized Bush's comment that he was reluctant to risk the life of one more American in going after Saddam Hussein. Bush's supporters, including Norman Schwarzkopf, spoke of the difficulty that would have been involved in moving against Baghdad in a last phase of the Gulf War. Schwarzkopf told Frontline that if "we went on another day we were going to kill some more of our people and we had already won an overwhelming victory with a minimum of casualties and that was good enough for me." [link] Some said that the U.S. was too cautious and too willing to kill others without risking the lives of their own troops. Some others argued that the U.S. should not have started the war against Iraq.
In the year 2001, on the 10th anniversary of the Gulf War, President Saddam Hussein, more securely in power than he had been in mid-March 1991, spoke to his nation and described the Gulf War as a "confrontation between good and evil that continues today." He denounced what he called the "aggression" launched by the "followers of Satan" and he praised Iraq's resistance both during and after war.
External Link
Frontline's "The Gulf War."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/index.html
It seems that Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney's rise in power corresponded to Saddams rise in power, they both came into the highest levels of government in the mid 70s and by 1990 they began the military chess game, that continued into Bush 43 Presidency and to where we are today. I honestly can't tell you who is the good guys and who are the bad guys in this, when you look at the overall history all of them are pretty evil. Oh yea does anyone think President Bush might attend even "one" of the funerals of the military personnel he has sent to their deaths in either of the 2 wars? I don't think so, not before Jan 20, 2009 nor after he leaves office with both wars still ongoing.....Sphere: Related Content
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