Page 15 - 2011 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - January 2011

What Really Happened in the Gulf War What Really Happened in Gulf War Continued on from Page 14 But even as he incited the Iraqis to rebel, Bush rejected any push to Baghdad and conceded Saddam the use of armed helicopters on his side of the border. Saddam promptly exploited the American concession not to hop- scotch over shattered roads and bridges but to blast his rebellious subjects from the air. Bush 41 expressed again his mixed feelings about Desert Storm, this time to a (startled) White House press conference: "You know, to be very honest with you, I haven't yet felt this wonderfully euphoric feeling that many of the American people feel." The father's doubts would sow the son's resolve to, as Bush 41 -- Saddam repressed it viciously. One hundred 2003 plan -- Schwarzkopf's headquarters concluded, "cross the last 't' and dot the last 'i.'" and seventy thousand Kurds and Shiites fled recoiled in horror. Arnold's plan implied that In Iraq, meanwhile, Schwarzkopf their towns and villages to escape Saddam's Desert Storm had been a partial victory, leaving traveled to Safwan to accept Saddam's wrath. Many hid in the mountains of the north lots of unfinished business in its wake; surrender. The whole truce was badly managed. or the marshes of the south or continued into Schwarzkopf, Powell and Bush -- despite the Although President Bush continued to lament Turkey and Iran as refugees. "When the Iraqi president's doubts -- wanted it recognized as a the absence of a "battleship Missouri" moment, helicopters started coming out, firing on the decisive one. For its part, the State Department the Missouri was actually available, on station Iraqis, that's when we knew it was bullshit," a feared that Arnold's suggestion of "attacks in the Persian Gulf, and Schwarzkopf wanted to U.S. Army captain bitterly recalled. across the Euphrates River to provide political use it, but was deterred by the logistics of Taken off guard amid the hubbub of leverage" against the Saddam regime would tilt transporting herds of coalition representatives victory, Bush and his air commanders hastily America too far toward the Iraqi Shiites. If the and reporters to the battleship on short notice. clapped "no-fly zones" over northern and Shiite south broke away and rallied to Iran, Safwan -- an Iraqi airfield just over the border southern Iraq, expedients that would have been America would have fought a war to strengthen from Kuwait -- would have to do. Yet none of unnecessary had Bush simply demolished the the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nobody in the coalition partners insisted on Saddam's Republican Guards and forbidden the Iraqis to Washington wanted that outcome, yet. The presence at the surrender ceremony, which was fly. Two historians of the war noted debates in 1991 prefigured similar debates in a glaring oversight. President Bush wanted Schwarzkopf's "surprising disinterest in the 2003, with the difference that they were more Saddam there, but recalled that he and his internal situation in Iraq." To the amazement of openly contested in 1991, but suppressed by advisers "asked ourselves what we would do if the beaten Iraqis, Schwarzkopf "guaranteed" "group-think" in 2003. he refused." Continue the war? Bad. Retreat them that the last coalition soldier would leave from the demand of Saddam's attendance? Iraq the minute the last coalition "ammo and (Continued on Page 16) Worse. Powell and Schwarzkopf thus contented gasoline trucks" were rounded up and put on the themselves with two four-star Iraqi generals, road. Bush and Schwarzkopf could have and Bush did not insist on anything more. The insisted on humane treatment of the Kurds and Listen to Dr. Doug Rokke "Washington hawks" -- Cheney and Wolfowitz Shiites, a new constitution, or even a new on in particular -- felt certain that Powell and regime. They could have squatted on the The ‘X’ Zone Radio Show Schwarzkopf were being played by Saddam, Rumaila oil field - seized by McCaffrey in the with and letting relatively minor military last hours of the war -- until Saddam met their Rob McConnell considerations override long-term political political demands, or paid the costs of the war. at ones. Although Westerners treated beaten Instead, in practical military style, they filled www.xzonepodcast.com enemies with respect, Middle Easterners their gas and ammo trucks and left. Powell and regarded such courtesy as weakness. "Norm the J.C.S. vetoed an effort by America's U.N. went in uninstructed," a senior Bush Ambassador Thomas Pickering to declare Iraq administration official recalled. "He should south of Basra a demilitarized zone, a step that REL-MAR have had instructions," but he didn't. "The would have sheltered the Shiites and held the process broke down. The generals made an Rumaila oil field as collateral for Saddam's and effort not to be guided. It was treated as good behavior. Powell and Schwarzkopf The 'X' Zone Radio Show something that was basically a military worried that Kurdish and Shiite secessionists decision, not to be micromanaged." might "Lebanonize" Iraq and suck the U.S. Welcomes Schwarzkopf insisted that he'd been military into a civil war, leaving, as Powell put forced to "wing it" precisely because he'd been it, Uncle Sam to "sort out 2,000 years of CKBG-FM 107.3 given no proper instructions. Chas Freeman, the Mesopotamian history." President Bush would Blue Garage Classic Mix U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, spoke of "a not have forgotten just how narrow and total failure of integration between military and precarious support for the war had been in in political strategy." The narrow-minded fury Congress and the press. Virtually everyone had with which the neo-cons would plot and launch predicted blowback and "mission creep," so the Middle Musquodoboit the 2003 Iraq War derived in part from their president took pains to avoid both, even at the Nova Scotia conviction that the cautious Army generals had cost of a partial victory. Limited wars generally thrown away real victory in 1991. end with limited results. Canada At Safwan, Schwarzkopf staked out When Army General Steven Arnold cease-fire lines, ordered a prisoner exchange, prepared a secret Centcom contingency plan To Our Growing Family and demanded details on Iraqi minefields, but that called for a march to Baghdad to remove of did not insist that Saddam turn over his WMD Saddam and install a friendly regime that would or his Scuds. As the Kurdish and Shiite revolt permit "a long-term U.S./Western military Broadcast Affiliates flared into life -- responding to U.S.-funded presence in the region" -- remarkably like the radio appeals from transmitters in Saudi Arabia