Page 11 - 2011 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - January 2011

What Really Happened in the Gulf War What Really Happened in Gulf War Continued on from Page 10 But General Powell seemed wobbly even on Saudi Arabia, whose 66,000-man army would not stand a chance against the Iraqis. "We must communicate to Saddam Hussein that Saudi Arabia is the line," Powell advised Cheney, but then added that even there -- the world's biggest oil patch -- American intervention would depend on "popular support" from the American people and a "national sense" that the game was worth the candle. President Bush expressed his frustration with the uniformed military to his diary: "we had a long way to go before the military was 'gung ho,'" -- "our military is waffling and vacillating in terms of what we can do on the ground." Cheney too bristled at Powell's pessimism. The Iraqis had annexed Kuwait and were within striking distance of Saudi Arabia's Hama oil fields. The Pentagon's job was not to poll public or congressional opinion, it was to advise the president on national security. "I want some options, general," Cheney growled. On August 2, Bush chaired an N.S.C. meeting that featured sharp exchanges between Powell and the hawks, who now coalesced wanting. Reagan's massive military buildup had -- was the first congressional approval of around Cheney. Thomas Pickering, the U.S. sacrificed unglamorous functions like transport military action since the Gulf of Tonkin Ambassador to the U.N., scolded Powell for ships ("sealift") and minesweepers to pay for Resolution of 1964. Iraqi depredations -- real suggesting that the U.S. could maintain its high-tech programs like "Star Wars," stealth and imagined -- coupled with the Bush policeman's role in the Gulf if it consented to technology, fighter aircraft, attack subs and administration's argument that it was also the Iraqi takeover of Kuwait. Bush too worried cruise missiles. The sea and airlift problems fighting to defend American jobs (that depended that Powell was overestimating Iraqi force. "I would later explain Secretary of Defense on cheap energy), and to punish Saddam's just didn't see the Iraqis as being so tough," he Donald Rumsfeld's determination to slim down human rights abuses and weapons of mass told Scowcroft. After the meeting, Bush flew to the armed services, cut their logistical trains, destruction programs (all of which America had Aspen, where he met with British Prime and re-focus on "agility" and "mobility" when winked at and even supported during the Minister Margaret Thatcher; she urged him to he was defense secretary from 2001 to 2006. 1980s), awakened American idealism. Here was take a hard line with Saddam. "If Iraq wins, no By September 1990, 80 percent of a war that needed to be fought in defense of small state is safe. They won't stop here. They Americans supported Operation Desert Shield, American values. Still, the vote was close, and see a chance to take a major share of oil. It's got which belied Powell's hand-wringing about hardly amounted to a national crusade. to be stopped. We must do everything possible." scant "popular support." Most Americans Massachusetts Senator John Kerry blasted Bush Thatcher compared the move into Kuwait to recognized the need to defend the Western for making "a series of unilateral decisions that Hitler's unopposed moves against Austria and world's energy security. Americans were also put us in a box" and "made the war inevitable." Czechoslovakia in 1938. Hitler had overrun moved by a largely spurious $11 million P.R. His colleague Ted Kennedy beseeched France and Poland with the resources culled campaign paid for by the Kuwaiti government someone, anyone, to "save the President from from those nations, and Thatcher worried that and crafted by Hill & Knowlton. Its most himself, and save thousands of American Saddam would annex the resources of Kuwait effective piece of propaganda was a lie: that soldiers in the Persian Gulf from dying in the and then move on bigger prey like Saudi Arabia. Iraqi soldiers had entered Kuwaiti hospitals, desert in a war whose cruelty will be exceeded A hard line, of course, required a war yanked newborn babies out of their incubators only by the lack of any rational necessity for plan. On August 4, Centcom commander and dashed them on the floor before packing up waging it." Senator Al Gore, preparing his own General H. Norman Schwarzkopf and his air the equipment for shipment to Iraq. That lie was run for the presidency, agreed to vote for the commander General Chuck Horner flew to retailed by the daughter of the Kuwaiti war only if given a twenty minute prime-time Camp David to give President Bush options. By ambassador to the U.S., who pretended to be a television slot (by Republican leader Bob Dole) now, there were eleven Iraqi army divisions in Kuwaiti nurse who had witnessed the Iraqi to advertise his vote. New York Senator Pat Kuwait and Iraqi patrols were scouring the atrocities. In fact, she was not a nurse and had Moynihan denied that Saddam's invasion of border with Saudi Arabia. Cheney met King not even been in Kuwait when the Iraqis Kuwait amounted to an international crisis that Fahd, and warned him that without American invaded. Nevertheless, senators and engaged America's values or interests: "All troops and aircraft, Saudi Arabia would go the congressmen swallowed the story hook, line that's happened is that one nasty little country way of Kuwait. Saddam's military was the and sinker. Many of them referenced it when has invaded a littler but just as nasty country." fourth largest in the world. The million-man explaining their votes in support of the war, Iraqi army with its 5,700 tanks was twenty- which was narrowly authorized by the Senate (Continued on Page 12) times bigger than Saudi Arabia's. 52-47 and by the House 250-183 on January 12, As American units flowed in to backstop 1991. the Saudis (Operation Desert Shield), they As the numbers suggested, the entire Listen to Dr. Doug Rokke found themselves undergunned and Democratic leadership in both houses voted on undersupplied; Schwarzkopf sacrificed logistics against the war, and President Bush actually The ‘X’ Zone Radio Show and prioritized men over materiel to create the worried about impeachment if the weak with impression -- boots on the ground -- of congressional support thinned and the war Rob McConnell American strength. Even when attention shifted miscarried. That narrow vote to authorize the at to logistics, the U.S. military was found Gulf War -- the narrowest since the War of 1812 www.xzonepodcast.com