Deep Blade Archive
Cutting through the machinations and
effects of the U.S. empire
1991 Archive
Archive of 2003 War Resources
Archive of 1991 Gulf War Articles
911 Archive
Writings on the 1991 Gulf War
“If you're going to go in and try to
topple Saddam Hussein, you have to go to Baghdad. Once you've
got Baghdad, it's not clear what you will do with it. It's not
clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one
that's currently there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a
Sunni regime or a Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the
Ba'athists, or one that tilts toward the Islamic
fundamentalists. How much credibility is that government going
to have if it's set up by the United States military when it's
there? How long does the United States military have to stay to
protect the people that sign on for the government, and what
happens to it once we leave?”
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney
Interview with the New York Times on April
13, 1991
Introduction
Here follow three pieces written in the
period from February to April 1991. The first piece starts on
this page just below. (Please follow the links to the others.)
It was written during the bombing campaign but before the
ground action of the February 1991 Gulf War. It originally
appeared in the Maine Peace Action
Committee Newsletter that
month. Much of what is written here is perfectly applicable
today as the Administration of G. W. Bush prepares a new
assault on Iraq. Perhaps it was not so evident that the Iraqi
army would be dispatched and massacred with so little
resistance at that point in February 1991, but much of the
surrounding material is still right on.
More details of U.S. support for Saddam
Hussein during the 1980s and beyond have come out in pieces
since this time, including the major double-cross of the
internal forces arrayed against Saddam just after the Gulf War
in March 1991. The recent stories by Jeremy Scahill and in Newsweek about
the complicity of figures like current Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld in arming Iraq during the 1980s were not just
“mistakes” as these actions are portrayed in the
rare times they are discussed, but rather give much insight
about how the future Iraq will be handled. The prevailing
notion amongst war planners just after the Gulf War was that
unless we could get a more U.S.-compliant dictator like Saddam
to take over, we might as well just leave Saddam in power. The
result was Saddam stayed, flew his helicopters, and killed
perhaps 100,000 Kurds and Shiites in the immediate
post-Gulf-War aftermath.
Now it seems U.S. planners feel enough
mettle to boot the Iraqi regime while the population is
severely weakened by a decade plus of bombing and
starvation—and then dictate the course of the region all
by themselves. Despite the fact that the Administration knows
that the population of Iraq will pay the highest price in a
war, it is an opportunity too ripe and too serendipitous for G.
W. Bush and his cabal of megalomaniacs to ignore.
The second historical piece included in
this archive is from the Bangor
Daily News, March 9–10,
1991. The serious effects on our own troops of killing a weak,
ragtag “enemy” in the most grisly manner whether
they intend to or not are palpable in this article.
Finally, U. Maine philosophy professor
Doug Allen wrote a striking article on the Persian Gulf War as
myth in April 1991. This piece greatly helped me as a peace
activist to understand the public outpouring of worship set
upon returning Gulf War soldiers. Times like this may or may
not be at hand again. This depends on what happens in what is
sure to be a much more dangerous new war.
Gulf War Essay
Maine Peace Action Committee Newsletter, February 1991
The scourge of war is upon us in spite of
our best efforts at prevention. War would not have started if
education of the U.S. public about the roots of the crisis and
truth of Bush Administration policy had been possible.
I believe that if enough people act upon
the truth, spontaneous political action would be adequate to
force an immediate cease-fire and a diplomatic settlement. This
is a tall order. I fear much death and destruction will occur
before it can possibly be filled. Like Vietnam before it, this
war is happening under the cloak of an Administration’s
lies.
Perhaps the biggest lie is that anything
will be solved. The region will remain in turmoil. The U.S. can
flatten much of Iraq and kill thousands of its people. This
action will only accentuate hostility felt region-wide towards
the U.S. and its lieutenants. We can expect regional resistance
to U.S. power and use of U.S. sponsored force against this
resistance for a long, long time.
But the Administration has successfully
manipulated public opinion in favor of carnage. A January 25
Newsweek pole showed that 86% of Americans surveyed approve of
the way George Bush is handling the situation in the Persian
Gulf region. This is true despite the feeling among 81% of
those polled that the fighting will continue for months or more
than a year (up from 43% a week earlier).
Of course, these numbers are volatile. It
remains to be seen what will happen if fighting drags on and
the Administration no longer can paint a rosy,
“winning” picture of the war. Still, we among the
12% disapproving of the policy are left in wonderment about how
easily war fever has swept up people. So we need to explore the
war agenda and explain it’s history, it’s effects
and how it has been fed to the public by the corporate media.
We cannot let up in our vigilance to help people understand
that the killing is unnecessary.
The role of George Bush
Why does the Administration behave as
though it has the right to use violence against
Iraq? As with most U.S. wars fought for elite interests,
the President used his position to whip up public hatred and
racism toward the target country.
Initially, the public did not accept
going to war over a tank of gasoline. Even when Mr. Bush
suggested that at stake is “our whole way of life,”
most people were doubtful that a major war was warranted. Last
summer, in terms remarkably straightforward, he spoke of oil in
this context. Essentially he said then that the military was
sent to preserve and protect from Saddam Hussein our access to
a way of life made out of oil. Bush underscored the point by
delivering it from his cigarette boat and on his frequent
shuttle flights from DC to Kennebunkport.
But the public did not accept access to
oil as a rationale for going to war. By November of last year,
Bush needed to pretend that oil had “nothing to do”
with U.S. war policy. Instead, “naked aggression”
was served up in order to foment support for Bush’s own
aggression. War fantasies so overcame Americans that many
people became convinced that Hitler with nukes had been
reincarnated in Saddam Hussein.
Elation from the White House was evident
when on November 20 the NY Times published a poll in which 54%
of the respondents felt that force against Iraq was justified
if it prevented Saddam from obtaining nuclear weapons. Bush had
found an angle with which to build his war consensus. Bush
showed how important the nuclear angle was in selling the war
policy that his January 16 speech upon commencement of
hostilities stated in its opening line that,
“Iraq’s nuclear capability has been
destroyed.” Later in this article, I will offer some
truth about the Iraqi nuclear threat.
Adding up the lies told by George Bush
could go on for many more pages. But it is clear that he has
filled the role of a leader who has purged much public
squeamishness about going to war.
Oil Profits versus human
life—The basis for war
Oil is more important than human life.
That is clear and is driving policy now, as it has at least
since US State Department documents noted that the Saudi oil
reserves constituted “a stupendous source of strategic
power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world
history.” (Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945,
VIII, 45, cited in Chomsky, Towards a New Cold War, 1982) We
have prepared for this war for at least 50 years. Oil profits
from Iraq, Kuwait and the Arabian Peninsula are quite simply
the densest source of capital available to U.S. and British
elites. Oil from Arabian wells literally bursts to the surface.
It is easier and cheaper to produce and refine this oil, thus
the region has the highest potential for oil profits. This oil
wealth is essential for its owners who live within the
chronically weak U.S. and British economies. The Middle East
can be likened to a “wealth pump” for these elites.
Given this incomparable energy resource, U.S. interests have
time and time again acted to defend the pot of black gold. When
an anti-monarchist revolution occurred in Iraq in 1958, the
headline on the front page of the July 18, 1958 New York Times
was “West to Keep Out of Iraq Unless Oil is
Threatened.” The message from the US State Department
under John Foster Dulles was clear- under your country is our
oil. The oilmen are allergic to nationalist movements that
might ruin their concessions. George Bush is an oilman. Saddam
Hussein is a nationalist.
Saddam Hussein—A moderate?
Saddam is dangerous, mainly to his fellow
Iraqis. But he had been a consistent provider of support for
U.S. policy until August 2. Before August 2, no amount of
torture or even use of chemical weapons against his own people
reduced his status as a “moderate” in U.S. eyes.
Note too that U.S. based companies had not been too shy about
doing business with him. We bought 90.45 million barrels of oil
from Iraq from January through May 1990, up 46% over the same
period in 1989. A cynical example of the tight nexus of
business relationships between U.S. based companies and Iraq is
the sale of thiodiglycol to Iraq by Phillips Petroleum. The
company had, of course, “no idea” that the chemical
was being used in the manufacture of mustard gas.
One might examine the record of CIA
involvement in Saddam’s war against the Kurdish
population in northern Iraq. When the Pike Committee was
completing its investigation of the CIA in 1976, pressure was
applied by the new CIA Director at that time to keep certain
findings about Iraq under wraps. Concurrently, Saddam began a
massive military terror program in order to crush the Kurdish
rebellion. Who was this CIA director? George Bush, of course.
Saddam has wonked on the Kurds ever since, killing thousands in
a 1988 poison gas attack.
Murder is fine as long as it’s done
under U.S. aegis. Example of U.S. sponsored murder on scales
even grizzlier than Saddam’s operations are well known to
regular readers of the Newsletter: El Salvador, Guatemala,
Chile, East Timor, Haiti and even Vietnam could be discussed.
Million of people in these countries have been thrashed by
“moderate” U.S. sponsored regimes. Saddam stopped
being “moderate” when he rolled into Kuwait in
order to murder independently. Then, he became an opportune
target for out-of-work U.S. military power.
If the U.S. was really concerned about
Saddam’s military, it could take measures to reverse
policies of the last decade that allowed him to arm vigorously.
Iraq could also be taken up on its offer for an international
peace conference where all regional weaponry would be placed on
the arms control table. But these policies are unacceptable to
a diplomatically and economically weak superpower, with only
force as its strong suit. U.S. (and British) elites would lose
wealth shares in the region with any policy other than force.
