Page 9 - 2011 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - January 2011

What Really Happened in the Gulf War What Really Happened in Gulf War Written by Geoffrey Wawro Desert Storm Turns Twenty: What Really Happened in 1991, and Why it Matters January 22, 2011 (Huffington Post) - It's been twenty years since we went to war in Iraq for the first time. The years have been kind to Desert Storm, which is now remembered as an unalloyed triumph. But was it? The way Desert Storm was shaped, fought and finished revealed tremendous indecision in Washington, half Gulf states and had noted the peril "of having oil to Diego Garcia, and there was not even a Navy measures on the battlefield, and an inconclusive production and pricing policy in the Gulf carrier in the Gulf or the North Arabian Sea. The war termination that sowed the poison seeds of determined and enforced by Iraqi guns." But nearest U.S. carrier, the Independence, was four Operation Iraqi Freedom. Baker also affected "to take no position on the days away. Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990 in large border delineation issue raised by Iraq with By August 1, it was plain that Saddam part to extricate himself from the debts of the respect to Kuwait." intended to invade Kuwait. He had satisfied Iran-Iraq War, which had raged from 1980 to Imprecision like that had caused the himself that Washington would not intervene to 1988. The Americans, Japanese and Europeans Korean War forty years earlier, when Secretary stop him. Satellite photos depicted corps- had loaned Saddam about $35 billion, the of State Dean Acheson had neglected to include strength Iraqi armor and infantry units on the Saudis $31 billion, Kuwait $14 billion and the South Korea in America's East Asian security Kuwaiti border, Iraqi marines with bridging U.A.E. $8 billion. The war had cost Iraq at least perimeter. The North Koreans had interpreted equipment opposite Bubiyan Island, dense half a trillion dollars, and Iraq had little hope of that omission as license to invade the south. In concentrations of Iraqi strike aircraft and repaying its external debt with oil prices sliding 1990, Saddam saw an opening in Baker's helicopters at air bases in southern Iraq, and all down to $13 a barrel as the war petered out and apparent indifference on the border issue. What the logistics required for a push down to Kuwait supply picked up. if he left Kuwait largely intact, but seized the City. Nevertheless, President Bush was The Iraqis had been claiming Kuwait Rumaila oil field and one or two of Kuwait's preparing to depart for Aspen, Colorado to ever since the British amputated its territory islands? Perhaps the Bush administration would announce the "peace dividend," and Centcom from the Ottoman province of Basra in 1899. permit that. The Bush administration itself had commander General Norman Schwarzkopf let Iraqis defiantly referred to Kuwait as their "19th no idea what it would do if Saddam invaded his staff go home early on August 1. By 7 p.m. province" and coveted its hoard of petrodollars Kuwait. Instead of facing the question squarely, Schwarzkopf's staff had all come rushing back and deep reserves of oil. In July 1990, Saddam President Bush and his key deputies kicked the from the suburban subdivisions, gyms, Little shaped a pretext for war, when he defined can down the road, and merely hoped that League diamonds and malls of Tampa; Iraqi Kuwait's refusal to cede territory to Iraq, cut its "moderation" would work. mechanized divisions had carved into Kuwait, oil production, and forgive its Iraqi war debts as "Do not push us to [invade Kuwait]," driven the emir into exile, seized the capital, and "military aggression." Saddam growled to Ambassador Glaspie. "Do swiftly defeated weak resistance by the Kuwaiti In Baghdad, U.S. Ambassador April not make it the only option left with which we army. Iraqi troops picked Kuwait clean in a Glaspie pressed for a clarification of Iraqi can protect our dignity." After the meeting, methodical campaign of looting. Containers intentions. Her work became more urgent in the Glaspie cabled Baker and urged him to "ease off were loaded with valuables and shipped up to third week of July when Iraqi Republican Guard on public criticism of Iraq" until Saddam had Basra. Iraqi pilots seized Kuwait Airways' jets units began deploying to Basra in preparation been given the chance to negotiate with the and flew them up to Baghdad, along with for what satellite imagery suggested could only Kuwaitis at a Saudi-arranged conference in Kuwait airport's runway lights and baggage be an invasion of Kuwait. She counseled Jedda. At the Pentagon, hawkish deputies like handling equipment. Cars, trucks, buses, patience. Paul Wolfowitz were disturbed by the defeatist tractors and just about anything with an engine Bush's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tone of Glaspie's cable, but the actual was stolen or stripped for parts. Seats were General Colin Powell, was as hesitant as presidential letter to Saddam drafted for Bush's ripped out of Kuwait's stadiums and movie Glaspie. His military options to retake Kuwait, signature by his N.S.C. ran in a Glaspian vein. theaters for use in Iraq. Kuwait's hospitals, National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft Saddam's saber-rattling, his accumulation of universities and libraries were stripped to the groused, "had not seemed designed by anyone weapons of mass destruction, his brutal police bare walls. Beef carcasses were heaved out of eager to undertake the task." The Powell state, and anti-American and anti-Israeli Kuwaiti meat freezers and shipped to Iraq. Doctrine, conceived after Reagan's disastrous rhetoric were resolutely downplayed -- "certain Kuwait's gem market was picked clean, and 1 intervention in Lebanon, still prevailed in 1990: Iraqi policies and activities" -- and Bush million ounces of gold were seized from the U.S. forces would only be introduced into pronounced himself "pleased" with Saddam's Central Bank of Kuwait and deposited in conflicts with clear, achievable aims, a visible willingness to attend the Jedda conference that Baghdad. Iraqi emissaries circulated around the exit, and strong popular and congressional Saddam himself had convened at the point of a Middle East boasting that they had taken $500 support. Powell considered that none of those gun. Although Bush was about to announce a 25 billion in cash out of Kuwait; they offered to criteria were fulfilled in the case of Iraq's percent reduction in U.S. armed forces -- the share the loot with friendly states who would takeover of Kuwait. He proposed a different post-Cold War "peace dividend" -- no cuts had accept the Iraqi invasion and annexation. Iraqi strategy: "grind down" Saddam through "a yet been made. Secretary of Defense Dick looters, bused in by Saddam to take their places policy of containment or strangulation." Cheney's top deputies at the Pentagon as "Kuwaitis" in case there were a U.N. April Glaspie met with Saddam on July recommended a stern rewrite explicitly warning referendum on Kuwait's future, swept through 25, 1990. She believed wholeheartedly in the Saddam not to attack Kuwait, but the shilly- Kuwait's shops, houses and apartments stealing Bush plan to "moderate" Saddam Hussein and shallying N.S.C. letter went out over Bush's everything in sight: televisions, stereos, sinks, make him a U.S. ally. She took as her brief a signature. Nothing was done to reinforce the toilets, lamps, rugs, curtains, even cutlery and memo that had arrived from Secretary of State Kuwaitis, or to open Saudi bases to U.S. forces. light bulbs. James Baker the previous day. Baker had A 2,000-man Marine Expeditionary Unit condemned Iraqi efforts to bully the weaker remained in the Philippines; no B-52s were sent (Continued onPage 10)