Middle East Posturing and the NATO Summit

There is much evidence that the Bush regime was committed to a new, large-scale war in the Middle East from the very day of its inauguration. The following analysis was filed on Palm Sunday, March 19, 1989 by one of the authors of the present study, and was published in Executive Intelligence Review under the title "Is Bush courting a Middle East war and a new oil crisis?":

Is the Bush administration preparing a military attack on Iran, Libya, Syria, or other Middle East nations in a flight forward intended to cut off or destroy a significant part of the world's oil supply and drastically raise the dollar price of crude on the world markets? A worldwide pattern of events monitored on Palm Sunday by Executive Intelligence Review suggests that such a move may be in the works. If the script does indeed call for a Middle East conflict and a new oil shock, it can be safely assumed that Henry Kissinger, the schemer behind the 1973 Yom Kippur war, is in the thick of things, through National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and the State Department's number-two man Lawrence Eagleburger. [...]

Why should the Bush administration now be a candidate to launch an attack on Libya and Iran, with large-scale hostilities likely in the Gulf? The basic answer is, as part of a manic flight-forward fit of "American Century" megalomania designed to distract attention from the fiasco of the new President's first 60 days in office. [24]

Despite the numerous shortcomings in this account, including the failure to identify Iraq as the target, it did capture the essential truth that Bush was planning a Gulf war. By August, 1988 at the latest, when Iraq had emerged as the decisive victor in the 8-year long Iran-Iraq war, British geopolitical thinkers had identified Iraq as the leading Arab state, and the leading threat to the Israeli-dominated balance of power in the Middle East. This estimate was seconded by those Zionist observers for whom the definition of minimal security is the capability of Israel to defeat the combined coalition of all Arab states. By August of 1988, leading circles in both Britain and Israel were contemplating ways of preventing Iraq from rebuilding its postwar [Iran-Iraq war --ed] economy, and were exploring options for a new war to liquidate the undeniable economic achievements of the Baath Party. Bush would have been a part of these deliberations starting at a very early phase.

During June and July, this warning was seconded by King Hussein of Jordan, Yassir Arafat of the PLO, Prince Hassan of Jordan, and Saddam Hussein himself.

The Bush regime's contributions to the orchestration of the Gulf crisis of 1990-91 were many and indispensable. First there was a campaign of tough talking by Bush and Baker, designed to goad the new Likud-centered coalition of Shamir (in many respects the most belligerent and confrontational regime Israel had ever known) into postures of increased bellicosity. Bush personally referred to Israel as one of the countries in the Middle East that held hostages. In early March, 1990, Bush said that the U.S. government position was to oppose Israeli settlements not only on the West Bank of the Jordan and the Gaza Strip, but also in East Jerusalem. A few days before that, Baker had suggested that U.S. support for a $400 million loan guarantee program for settling Soviet Jews in Israel would be forthcoming only if Israel stopped setting up new settlements in the occupied territories. Bush's mention of East Jerusalem had toughened that line. [26] Baker had added some tough talk of his own when he had told a Congressional committee that if and when the Israeli government wanted peace, they had only to call the White House switchboard, whose number he proceeded to give. But on June 20, Bush suspended the U.S. dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) which he had caused to be started during December, 1988. The pretext was a staged terror incident at an Israeli beach.

July, 1990 was full of the hyperkinetic travel and diplomacy which has become George's trademark. Over the July Fourth weekend, Bush went to Kennebunkport to prepare for the London NATO summit and the successive Houston summit of the seven leading industrial nations. There is evidence that he was already in the full flush of the manic phase, and that the "read my lips" press conference and the Neil Bush affair had produced massive psychic carnage. According to a press account, Bush passed the time in Kennebunkport with his usual breakneck round of throwing horseshoes, casting fishing lures, bashing golf balls, and careening across the waves in his speedboat. Instead of arriving in London a day before the meeting began, Mr. Bush squeezed in one more golf game on Wednesday morning, and left that night. But here, it seemed that the bottomless well of energy had a bottom after all. Mr. Bush got off Air Force One looking tired, eyes puffy and his stride less spry than the "spring colt" to which he always compares himself.

During the London summit, Bush appears to have been unusually irritable. One small crisis came when he found himself waiting for his limousine in front of Lancaster House while his aides scrambled to bring his car around. Bush "craned his neck around, pursed his lips, stuck his hands in his pockets, and glared at the nearest aide until his car finally appeared." [27]

The secret agenda at this summit was dominated by the NATO "out-of-area" deployments, transforming the alliance into the white man's vengeful knout against the third world. According to a senior NATO consultant, the Lancaster House summit focussed on "increasing tension and re-armament in a number of countries, in North Africa, the Middle East including Palestine, and Asia through, increasingly, to Southeast Asia. There are new dangers from new directions. We are shifting from an exclusive focus on the east-west conflict, to a situation of risk coming eventually or potentially from all directions."

The talk in London in that July was about a possible new Middle East war, which "...would tend to escalate horizontally and vertically. A real conflict in the Levant would extend from the Turkish border to the Suez canal. It would involve the neighbors of the main combatants. The whole thing would be in a state of flux, because the great powers couldn't afford just to sit there."

In order to avoid public relations problems for the continental European governments, who still had qualms about their domestic public opinion, these debates were not featured in the final communique, which complacently proclaimed the end of the Cold War and invited Gorbachev to come and visit NATO headquarters to make a speech. [28]

After hob-nobbing with Thatcher, Queen Elizabeth II, and other members of the royal family, Bush flew to Houston to assume the role of host of the Group of 7 [or 'G7'] yearly economic summit. At this summit, the Anglo-Saxon master race as represented by Bush and Thatcher found itself in a highly embarrassing position. Everyone knew that the worst economic plague outside of the communist bloc was the English-speaking economic depression, which held not just the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada but also Australia, New Zealand, and other former imperial outposts in its grip. The continental Europeans were interested in organizing emergency aid and investment packages for the emerging countries of eastern Europe, and the Soviet republics, but this the Anglo-Saxons adamantly opposed. Rather, Bush and Thatcher were on a full trade-war line against the European Community and Japan when it came to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and other matters of international economics. Bush's Tex-Mex menus and country and western entertainment programs were unable to hide an atmosphere of growing animosity.

In the following week, the Anglo-Saxon supermen were once again plunged into gloom when Gorbachev and Helmut Kohl, meeting on July 16 in the south Russian town of Mineralny Vody near Stavropol, announced the Soviet acquiescence to the membership of united Germany in NATO. This was an issue that Bush and Thatcher had hoped would cause a much longer delay and much greater acrimony, but now there were no more barriers to the successful completion of the "two plus four" talks on the future of Germany, which meant that German reunification before the end of the year was unavoidable.

Iraq Threatens Kuwait, Bush Stays Quiet

On the same day that Kohl and Gorbachev were meeting, satellite photographs monitored in the Pentagon showed that Iraq's crack Hammurabi division, the corps d'elite of the Republican Guard, was moving south towards the border of Kuwait. By July 17, Pentagon analysts would be contemplating new satellite photos showing the entire division, with 300 tanks and over 10,000 men, in place along the Iraq-Kuwait border. A second division, the Medina Luminous, was beginning to arrive along the border, and a third division was marching south. [29]

The disputes between Iraq and Kuwait were well-known, and the Anglo-Americans had done everything possible to exacerbate them. Iraq had defended Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the other Gulf Cooperation Council countries against the fanatic legions of Khomeini during the Iran-Iraq war. Iraq had emerged from the conflict victorious, but burdened by $65 billion in foreign debt. Iraq demanded debt relief from the rich Gulf Arabs, who had not lifted a finger for their own defense. As for Kuwait, it had been a British puppet state since 1899. Both Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates were each acknowledged to be exceeding their OPEC production quotas by some 500,000 barrels per day. This was part of a strategy to keep the price of oil artificially low; the low price was a boon to the dollar and the U.S. banking system, and it also prevented Iraq from acquiring the necessary funds for its postwar demobilization and reconstruction.

Kuwait was also known to be stealing oil by overpumping the Rumaila oil field, which lay along the Iraq-Kuwait border. The border through the Rumaila oil field was thus a bone of contention between Iraq and Kuwait, as was the ownership of Bubiyan and Warba islands, which controlled the access to Umm Qasr, Iraq's chief port and naval base as long as the Shatt-el-Arab [waterway] was disputed with Iran. It later became known that the Emir of Kuwait was preparing further measures of economic warfare against Iraq, including the printing of masses of counterfeit Iraqi currency notes which he was preparing to dump on the market in order to produce a crisis of hyperinflation in Iraq. Many of these themes were developed by Saddam Hussein in a July 17 address in which he accused the Emir of Kuwait of participation in a U.S.-Zionist conspiracy to keep the price of oil depressed.

The Emir of Kuwait, Jaber el Saba, was a widely hated figure among Arabs and Moslems. He was sybaritic degenerate, fabulously wealthy, a complete parasite and nepotist, the keeper of a harem, and the owner of slaves, especially black slaves, for domestic use in his palace. The Saba family ran Kuwait as the private plantation of their clan, and Saba officials were notoriously cruel and stupid. Iraq, by contrast, was a modern secular state with high rates of economic growth, and possessed one of the highest standards of living and literacy rates in the Arab world. The status of women was one of the most advanced in the region, and religious freedom was extended to all churches.

Anglo-American strategy was thus to use economic warfare measures, including embargos on key technologies, to back Saddam Hussein into a corner. When the position of Iraq was judged sufficiently desperate, secret feelers from the Anglo-Americans offered Saddam Hussein encouragement to attack Kuwait, with secret guarantees that there would be no Anglo-American reaction. Reliable reports from the Middle East indicate that Saddam Hussein was told before he took Kuwait that London and Washington would not go to war against him. Saddam Hussein was given further assurances through December and January, 1991 that the military potential being assembled in his front would not be used against him, but would only permanently occupy Saudi Arabia. It is obvious that, in order to be believable on the part of the Iraqi leadership, these assurances had to come from persons known to exercise great power and influence in London and Washington-- persons, let us say, in the same league with Henry Kissinger. One prime suspect who would fill the bill is Tiny Rowland, a property custodian of the British royal family and administrator of British post-colonial and neo-colonial interests in Africa and elsewhere. Tiny Rowland had been in Iraq in July, shortly before the Iraqi military made their move.

It is important to note that every aspect of the public conduct of the Bush regime until after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait had become a fait accompli was perfectly coherent with the assurances Saddam Hussein was receiving, namely that there would be no U.S. military retaliation against Iraq for taking Kuwait.

The British geopoliticians so much admired by Bush are past masters of the intrigue of the invitatio ad offerendum, the suckering of another power into war. Invitatio ad offerendum means in effect "let's you and him fight." It is well known that U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson, a close associate of Averell Harriman, had in January, 1950 officially and formally cast South Korea outside the pale of American protection, providing encouragement to Kim Il Sung to start the Korean war. There is every indication that the North Korean attack on South Korea in 1950 was also secretly encouraged by the British. Later, the British secretly encouraged Chinese intervention into that same war. The Argentinian seizure of the Malvinas Islands during 1982 was evidently preceeded by demonstrations of lethargic disinterest in the fate of these islands by the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington. Saddam Hussein's attack on Iran in 1980 had been encouraged by U.S. and British assurances that the Teheran government was collapsing and incapable of resistance.

As we have seen, the Pentagon knew of Iraqi troops massing on the border with Kuwait as for July 16-17. These troop concentrations were announced in the U.S. press only on July 24, when the Washington Post reported that

"Iraq has moved nearly 30,000 elite army troops to its border with Kuwait and the Bush administration put U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf on alert as a dispute between the two gulf nations over oil production quotas intensified, U.S. officials and Arab diplomats said yesterday."

The Iraqis had invited a group of western military attaches to travel by road from Kuwait City to Baghdad, during which time the western officers counted some 2,000 to 3,000 vehicles moving south with a further reinforcement of two divisions of the Republican Guards. [30]

If Kuwait had been so vital to the security of the United States and the west, then it is clear that at any time between July 17 and August 1 --and that is to say during a period of almost two weeks-- Bush could have issued a warning to Iraq to stay out of Kuwait, backing it up with some blood-curdling threats and serious, high-profile military demonstrations. Instead, Bush maintained a studied public silence on the situation and allowed his ambassador to convey a message to Saddam Hussein that was wholly misleading, but wholly coherent with the hypothesis of a British plan to sucker Saddam into war.

On July 24, press releases from the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon were balanced between support for the "moderate" Kuwaitis and Saudis on the one hand, and encouragement for an Arab-mediated peaceful settlement. Margaret Tutwiler at the State Department stressed that the United States had no committment to defend Kuwait:

"We do not have any defense treaties with Kuwait and there are no special defense or security committments to Kuwait. We also remain strongly committed to supporting the individual and collective self-defense of our friends in the Gulf, with whom we have deep and long-standing ties."

An anonymous U.S. military official quoted by the Washington Post added that if Iraq seized a small amount of Kuwaiti territory as a means of gaining negotiating leverage in OPEC, "the United States probably would not directly challenge the move, but would join with all Arab governments in denouncing it and putting pressure on Iraq to back down." Two U.S. KC-135 air tankers were about to carry out refueling exercises with the United Arab Emirates Air Force, it was announced, and the six ships of the U.S. Joint Task Force Middle East based in the Persian Gulf were deployed Monday July 23 for "communications support" for this air exercise, according to the Pentagon. Two of these U.S. ships were in the northern Gulf, near the coasts of Iraq and Kuwait. [31] But there was nothing blood-curdling about any of this, and Bush's personal silence was the most eloquent of all. In addition, the Bush administration was lobbying in Congress during this week in opposition to a new round of Congressional trade sanctions against Iraq. Iraqi capabilities to take Kuwait were now in place, and the Bush regime had not reacted.

On July 25, U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie met with Saddam Hussein, and conveyed a highly misleading message about the U.S. view of the crisis. Glaspie assured Saddam Hussein that she was acting on direct instructions from Bush, and then delivered her celebrated line: "We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflict, like your border disagreement with Kuwait." There is every indication that these were indeed the instructions that had been given directly by the chief agent provocateur in the White House, Bush. "I have direct instructions from the president to seek better relations with Iraq," Glaspie told Saddam. According to the Iraqi transcript of this meeting, Glaspie stressed that this had always been the U.S. position: "I was in the American embassy in Kuwait during the late 1960's. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and the issue is not associated with America." [32] Saddam Hussein illustrated Iraq's economic grievances and need of economic assistance for postwar reconstruction, points for which Ms. Glaspie expressed full U.S. official comprehension. Shortly after this, April Glaspie left Kuwait to take her summer vacation, another signal of elaborate U.S. government disinterest in the Kuwait-Iraq crisis.

According to the Washington Post of July 26, Saddam Hussein used the meeting with Glaspie to send Bush a message that "'nothing will happen' on the military front while this weekend's mediation efforts are taking place." The mediation referred to an effort by Egyptian President Mubarak and the Saudi government to organize direct talks between Iraq and Kuwait, which were tentatively set for the weekend of July 28-29 in Jeddah. Over that weekend, Bush still had absolutely nothing to say about the Gulf crisis. He refused to comment on what Thurgood Marshall had said about him and his man Souter: "I have a high regard for the separation of powers and for the Supreme Court," was Bush's reply to reporters. (Attorney General Thornburgh said he was "saddened" by Marshall's comment.)

According to the Washington Post of July 30, the Saudi government announced on July 29 that the Iraqi-Kuwaiti talks, which had been postponed, would take place in Jeddah starting Tuesday, July 31. The Kuwaiti delegation abruptly walked out of these talks, a grandstanding gesture obviously calculated to incense the Iraqi leadership. On the morning of July 31, the Washington Post reported that the Iraqi troop buildup had now reached 100,000 men between Basra and the Kuwaiti border. At the Penatagon, when spokesman Pete Williams was pressed to comment on this story, he replied:

"I've seen reports about the troops there, but we've never discussed here numbers or made any further comments on that. I think the State Department has some language they've been using about obviously being concerned about any buildup of forces in the area, and can go through, as we've gone through here, what our interests in the Gulf are, but we've never really gotten into numbers like that or given that kind of information out." [33]

Even the escalation of the Iraqi troop buildup had not disturbed the official U.S. posture of blase' indifference in the face of the crisis. It was a deliberate and studied deception operation, what the Russians call maskirovka.

Bush would have known all about the additional Iraqi troops at least 36 hours earlier, through satellite photos and embassy reports. But still Bush remained silent as a tomb. Bush had plenty of opportunity that day to say something about the Gulf; he met with the GOP Congressional leadership for more than an hour on the morning of July 31 and, according to participants, told them he was "annoyed" at the pace of the budget talks, which remained stalemated. At this time the White House was receiving intelligence reports that made an Iraqi invasion seem more likely, and some officials were quoted in the New York Times of the next day as having "expressed growing concern that hostilities could break out...." But Bush said nothing, did nothing.

Then, in the afternoon, Bush reluctantly received a Latvian delegation led by Ivars Godmanis. The Latvian request for an audience had at first been rudely rejected by the White House, but then acceded to under pressure from some influential senators. Godmanis wanted recognition and aid, but Bush made no committments, and limited himself to asking several "very exact questions." On Wednesday, August 1, Bush was undoubtedly not amused by a New York Times account showing that one of his former top White House aides, Robert L. Thompson, had abused his access to government information in order to help his clients to make advantageous deals for themselves in buying S&Ls.

Iraq Invades Kuwait, Bush and Thatcher Discuss Strategy

In the evening [of Aug 1], about 9 PM, reports began to reach Washington that Iraqi forces had crossed the border into Kuwait in large numbers. From the moment the crisis had emerged on July 16-17 until the moment of the invasion, Bush had preserved a posture of nonchalant silence. But now things began to happen very rapidly. Scowcroft and Bush drafted a statement which was released by 11:20 PM. This strongly condemned the Iraqi invasion and demanded "the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all Iraqi forces." The New York Times of August 2, in reporting the Iraqi invasion, recorded the surface posture of the Bush regime:

"Despite its efforts to deter an attack on Kuwait, the Bush Administration never said precisely what the United States would do if Iraq launched a small scale or large scale attack on Kuwait. The vagueness of the American pronouncements, which eschewed any explicit promise to come to Kuwait's assistance, disturbed some Kuwaiti officials, who hoped for a firmer statement of American intentions that would be backed up by a greater demonstration of military force."

On Thursday, Bush was scheduled to fly to Aspen Colorado for a meeting with Margaret Thatcher, a personage of whom Bush was in awe. Thatcher, whose rise to power had included a little help from Bush in sweeping the Labour Party out of government in accordance with the designs of Lord Victor Rothschild, had now been in power for over 11 years, and had assured her place in the pantheon of Anglo-Saxon worthies. This dessicated mummy of British imperialism had been invited to Aspen, Colorado, to hold forth on the future of the west, and Bush was scheduled to confer with her there. At 5 AM, Bush was awakened by Scowcroft, who had brought him the executive orders freezing all Iraqi and Kuwaiti assets in the U.S. At 8 AM the National Security Council gathered in the Cabinet Room. At the opening of this session there was a photo opportunity to let Bush put out the preliminary line on Iraq and Kuwait. Bush told the reporters:

We're not discussing intervention.

Q: You're not contemplating any intervention or sending troops?

Bush: I'm not contemplating such action, and I, again, would not discuss it if I were.

According to published accounts, during the meeting that followed the one prospect that got a rise out of Bush was the alleged Iraqi threat to Saudi Arabia. This, as we will see, was one of the main arguments used by Thatcher later in the day to goad Bush to irreversible committment to massive troop deployment and to war. A profile of Bush's reactions on this score could easily have been communicated to Thatcher by Scowcroft or by other participants in the 8 AM meeting. Scowcroft was otherwise the leading hawk, raving that "We don't have the option to appear not be acting." [34] This meeting nevertheless ended without any firm decisions for further measures beyond the freezing of assets already decided, and can thus be classified as inconclusive. During Bush's flight to Aspen, Colorado, Bush got on the telephone with several Middle East leaders, who he said had urged him to forestall U.S. intervention and allow ample time for an "Arab solution."

Bush's meetings with Thatcher in Aspen on Thursday, August 2, and on Monday, August 6 at the White House are of the most decisive importance in understanding the way in which the Anglo-Americans connived to unleash the Gulf war. Before meeting with Thatcher, Bush was clearly in an agitated and disturbed mental state, but had no bedrock committment to act in the Gulf crisis. After the sessions with Thatcher, Bush was rapidly transformed into a raving, monomaniacal warmonger and hawk. The transition was accompanied by a marked accentuation of Bush's overall psychological impairment, with a much increased tendency towards rage episodes.

The impact of Bush's Aspen meeting with Thatcher was thus to brainwash Bush towards a greater psychological disintegration, and towards a greater pliability and suggestibility in regard's to London's imperial plans. One can speculate that the "Iron Lady" was armed with a Tavistock Institute psychological profile of Bush, possibly centering on young George's feelings of inadequacy when he was denied the love of his cold, demanding Anglo-Saxon sportswoman mother. Perhaps Thatcher's underlying psychological gameplan in this (and previous) encounters with Bush was to place herself along the line of emotional cathexis associated in Bush's psyche with the internalized image of his mother Dorothy, especially in her demanding and domineering capacity as the grey eminence of the Ranking Committee. George had to do something to save the embattled English-speaking peoples, Thatcher might have hinted. Otherwise, he would be letting down the side in precisely the way which he had always feared would lose him his mother's love. But to do something for the Anglo-Saxons in their hour of need, George would have to be selfless and staunch and not think of himself, just as mother Dorothy had always demanded: he would have to risk his entire political career by deploying U.S. forces in overwhelming strength to the Gulf. This might have been the underlying emotional content of Thatcher's argument.

On a more explicit level, Thatcher also possessed an array of potent arguments. Back in 1982, she might have recalled, she had fallen in the polls and was being written off for a second term as a result of her dismal economic performance. But then the Argentinians seized the Malvinas, and she, Thatcher, acting in defiance of her entire cabinet and of much of British public opinion, had sent the fleet into the desperate gamble of the Malvinas war. The British had reconquered the islands, and the resultant wave of jingoism and racist chauvinism had permitted Thatcher to consolidate her regime until the present day. Thatcher knew about the "no new taxes" controversy and the Neil Bush affair, but all of that would be quickly suppressed and forgotten once the regiments began to march off to the Saudi front. For Bush, this would have been a compelling package.

As far as Saddam Hussein was concerned, Thatcher's argument is known to have been built around the ominous warning, "He won't stop!" Her message was that MI-6 and the rest of the fabled British intelligence apparatus had concluded that Saddam Hussein's goal would be an immediate military invasion and occupation of the immense Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with its sensitive Moslem holy places, its trackless deserts and its warlike Bedouins. Since Thatcher was familar with Bush's racist contempt for Arabs and other dark-skinned peoples, which she emphatically shared, she would also have laid great stress on the figure of Saddam Hussein and the threat he posed to Anglo-Saxon interests. The Tavistock profile would have included how threatened Bush felt in his psycho-sexual impotence by tough customers like Saddam, whom nobody had ever referred to as little Lord Fauntleroy.

At this moment in the Gulf crisis, the only competent political-military estimate of Iraqi intentions was that Saddam Hussein had no intent of going beyond Kuwait, a territory to which Baghdad had a long-standing claim, arguing that the British Empire had illegally established its secret protectorate over the southern part of the Ottoman Empire's province of Basra in 1899. This estimate that Iraq had no desire to become embroiled with Saudi Arabia was repeated during the first week of the crisis by such qualified experts as former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia James Aikens, and by the prominent French military leader Gen. Lacaze. Even General Schwarzkopf though it highly unlikely that Saddam would move against Saudi Arabia.

In her public remarks in Aspen, Thatcher began the new phase in the racist demonization of Saddam Hussein by calling his actions "intolerable" in a way that Syrian and Israeli occupations of other countries' lands seemingly were not. She asserted that "a collective and effective will of the nations belonging to the U.N." would be necessary to deal with the crisis. Thatcher's travelling entourage from the Foreign Office had come equipped with a strategy to press for mandatory economic sanctions and possible mandatory military action against Iraq under the provisions of Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. Soon Bush's entourage had also picked up this new fad.

Bush had now changed his tune markedly. He had suddenly and publicly re-acquired his military options. When asked about his response, he stated: "We're not ruling any options in but we're not ruling any options out."

Bush also revealed that he had told the Arab leaders with whom he had been in contact during the morning that the Gulf crisis "had gone beyond simply a regional dispute because of the naked aggression that violates the United Nations charter." These formulations were I.D. format Thatcher-speak. Bush condemned Saddam for "his intolerable behavior," again parrotting Thatcher's line. Bush was now "very much concerned" about the safety of other small Gulf states. Bush also referred to the hostage question, saying that threats to American citizens would "affect the United States in a very dramatic way because I view a fundamental responsibility of my presidency [as being] to protect American citzens."

Bush added that he had talked with Thatcher about British proposals to press for "collective efforts" by members of the United Nations against Iraq. The Iraqi invasion was a "totally unjustified act," Bush went on. It was now imperative that the "international community act together to ensure that Iraqi forces leave Kuwait immediately". Bush revealed that he and his advisors were now examing the "next steps" to end the crisis. Bush said he was "somewhat heartened" by his telephone conversations with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, King Hussein of Jordan, and Gen. Ali Abdallah Salib of Yemen.

There is every reason to believe that Bush's decision to launch U.S. military intervention and war was taken in Aspen, under the hypnotic influence of Thatcher. Any residual hesitancy displayed in secret councils was merely dissembling to prevent his staffs from opposing that decision. Making a strategic decision of such collossal implications on the basis of a psycho-manipulative pep talk from Thatcher suggests that Bush's hyperthyroid condition was already operating; the hyperthyroid patient notoriously tends to resolve complicated and far-reaching alternatives with quick, snap decisions. Several published accounts have sought to argue that the decision for large-scale intervention did not come until Saturday at Camp David, but these accounts belong to the "red Studebaker" school of coverup. The truth is that Bush went to war as the racist tail on the British imperial kite, cheered on by the Kissinger cabal that permeated and dominated his administration. As the London Daily Telegraph gloated, Mrs. Thatcher had "stiffened [Bush's] resolve."

Bush had been scheduled to stay overnight in Aspen, but he now departed immediately for Washington. Later, the White House said that Bush had been on the phone with Saudi King Fahd, who had agreed that the Iraqi invasion was "absolutely unacceptable." [35] On the return trip and through the evening, the Kissingerian operative Scowcroft continued to to press for military intervention, playing down the difficulties which other avdisers had been citing. Given Kissinger's long-standing relationship with London and the Foreign Office, it was no surprise that Scowcroft was fully on the London line.

Before the day was out, "...the orders started flooding out of the Oval Office. The president had all of these diplomatic pieces in his head. The U.N. piece. The NATO piece. The Middle east piece. He was meticulous, methodical, and personal," according to one official. [36]

The Bush Team Plans a Response

The next morning was Friday, August 3, and Bush called another NSC meeting at the White House. The establishment media like the New York Times were full of accounts of how Iraq was allegedly massing troops along the southern border of Kuwait, about to pounce on Saudi Arabia. Scowcroft, with Bush's approval, bludgeoned the doubters into a discussion of war options. Bush ordered the CIA to prepare a plan to overthrow or assassinate Saddam Hussein, and told Cheney, Powell, and Gen. Schwarzkopf to prepare military options for the next day. Bush was opening the door to war slowly, so as to keep all of his civilian and military advisers on board.

Later on Friday, Prince Bandar, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington, met with Bush. According to one version, Bush pledged his word of honor to Bandar that he would "see this through with you." Bandar was widely reputed to be working for the CIA and other western intelligence agencies. There were also reports that he had Ethiopian servants in the Saudi embassy in Washington, near the Kennedy Center, who were chattel slaves according to United Nations definitions.

When the time came in the afternoon to walk to his helicopter on the White House south lawn for the short flight to the Camp David retreat in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland, Bush stopped at the microphones that were set up there, a procedure that became a habit during the Gulf crisis. There was something about these moments of entering and leaving the White House that heightened Bush's psychological instability; the leaving and arriving rituals would often be the moments of some of his worst public tantrums. At this point Bush was psyching himself up towards the fit that he would act out on his Sunday afternoon return. But there was already no doubt that Bush's bellicosity was rising by the hour. With Kuwait under occupation, he said, "the status quo is unacceptable and further expansion" by Iraq "would be even more unacceptable." This formulation already pointed to an advance into Kuwait. He also stressed Saudi Arabia: "If they ask for specific help-- it depends obviously on what it is-- I would be inclined to help in any way we possibly can." [37]

On Saturday morning, August 4, Bush met with his entourage in Camp David, present were Quayle, Cheney, Sununu, William Webster, Wolfowitz, Baker, Scowcroft, Powell, Schwarzkopf, Fitzwater, and Richard Haass of the NSC staff. Military advisers, especially Colin Powell, appear to have directed Bush's attention to the many problems associated with military intervention. According to one version, Gen. Schwarzkopf estimated that it would take 17 weeks to move a defensive, deterrent force of 250,000 troops into the region, and between 8 and 12 months to assemble a ground force capable of driving the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. For the duration of the crisis, the Army would remain the most reluctant, while the Air Force, including Scowcroft, would be the most eager to open hostilities.

Bush sensed that he had to stress the defense of Saudi Arabia to keep all of his bureaucratic players on board, and to garner enough public support to carry out the first phase of the buildup. Then, perhaps three months down the line, preferably after the November elections, he could unveil the full offensive buildup that would carry him into war with Iraq. "That's why our defense of Saudi Arabia has to be our focus," Bush is reported to have said at this meeting. This remark was calculated to cater to the views of Gen. Powell, who was thinking primarily in these defensive terms. [38]

When the larger NSC meeting dispersed, Bush met with a more restricted group including Quayle, Sununu, Baker, Scowcroft, Cheney, Powell, and Webster. This session was dominated by the fear that the Saudi Arabian monarchy, which would have to be coerced into agreeement with plans for a U.S. military buildup on its territory, would prefer a compromise solution negotiated among the Arabs to the Anglo-Saxon war hysteria. The Saudis were not all as staunch as the American agent Prince Bandar; the presence of large contingents of infidel ground troops, including Jews and women, would create such friction with Saudi society as to pose an insoluble political problem. There was great racist vituperation of the Arabs in general: they could not be trusted, they were easy to blackmail. This meeting produced a decision that Bush would call Saudi King Fahd and demand that he accept a large U.S. ground force contingent in addition to aircraft.

As Bush feared, Fahd was inclined to reject the U.S. ground forces. There was a report that Iraq had announced that its forces would leave Kuwait on Sunday, and Fahd wanted to see if that happened. Fahd had not yet been won over to the doctrine of war at any cost. Through an intrigue of Prince Bandar, who knew that this difficulty might arise, King Fahd was prevailed upon to receive a U.S. "briefing team" to illustrate the threat to him and demand that he approve the U.S. buildup on his territory. Fahd thought that all he was getting were a few briefing officers. But Bush saw this as a wedge for greater things. "I want to do this. I want to do it big time," Bush told Scowcroft. [39]

By now Bush had launched into his "speed-dialing" mode, calling heads of state and government one after the other, organizing for an economic embargo and a military confrontation with Iraq. One important call was to Sheikh Jabir al Ahmed al Sabah, the degenerate Emir of Kuwait, representative of a family who had been British assets since 1899 and Bush's business partners since the days of Zapata Offshore in the late 1950's. Other calls went to Turgut Oezal of Turkey, whom Bush pressed to cut off Iraq's use of oil pipelines across his territory. Another call went to Canadian Prime Minister Mulroney, who was also in deep domestic political trouble, and who was inclined to join the Anglo-Saxon mobilization. During the course of Saturday, White House officials began to spread a deception story that Bush had been "surprised by the invasion this week and largely unprepared to respond quickly," as the next day's New York Times alleged.

At 8 AM on Sunday morning, there was another meeting of the NSC at Camp David with Bush, Baker, Cheney, Scowcroft, Powell and various aides. This time the talk was almost exclusively devoted to military options. Bush designated Cheney for the Saudi mission, and Cheney left Washington for Saudi Arabia in the middle of Sunday afternoon.

Bush Meets the Press

Bush now boarded a helicopter for the flight from Camp David back to the White House south lawn. Up to this point, Bush was firmly committed to war in his own mind, and had been acting on that decision in his secret councils of regime, but he had carefully avoided making that decision clear in public. We are now approaching the moment when he would do so. Let us contemplate George Bush's state of mind as he rode in his helicopter from Camp David towards Washington on that early August Sunday afternoon.

According to one published account, Bush was "in a mood that White House officials describe variously as mad, testy, peevish, and, to use a favorite bit of Bush-speak, spleen-venting." This observer, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, compared Reagan's relaxed or somniferous crisis style with Bush's hyperkinesis: Reagan, she recalled, "slept peacefully" during clashes of U.S. and Libyan planes over the Mediterranean, but "Mr. Bush, by contrast, becomes even more of a dervish" in such moments. According to Ms. Dowd,

"...by the time the president came home from Camp David on Sunday afternoon, he was feeling frustrated and testy. He was worried that the situation in Kuwait was deteriorating, and intelligence reports showed him that the Iraqis were beginning to mass at the Kuwait-Saudi border. He was also disappointed in the international response." [40]

As Bush was approaching Washington, Bush called his press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, to ask him his opinion about whether to pause at the microphones on the south lawn before going into the White House. Fitzwater appears to have supported the idea.

According to Ms. Dowd, an eyewitness, Bush was "visibly furious" when he climbed out of his helicopter. As Bush walked towards the microphones, he was accosted by Richard Haass of the NSC staff who thrust a cable into Bush's hands. Bush read the cable, scowling. However ugly his mood had been before he had seen the memo, reading it sent him into an apoplectic rage. According to White House officials, this cable contained information about the dimensions of the Iraqi troop buildup and indicated that the Iraqi troops were moving south towards the Saudi border, and not leaving Kuwait. [41] According to Ms. Dowd, this was the secret memo that "seemed to spark the President's irritation at his news conference". In any case, Bush now launched into a violent diatribe that left no doubt that as far as he was considered, the desired outcome was now war.

In Bush's opening statement, he summarized the result of his frenetic "speed dialing" exercise: Oezal, Kaifu, Mulroney, Mitterrand, Kohl, Thatcher, the Emir of Kuwait had all been reached. The alleged result:

"What's emerging is nobody is -- seems to be showing up as willing to accept anything less than total withdrawal from Iraq, from Kuwait of the Iraqi forces, and no puppet regime. We've been down that road, and there will be no puppet regime that will be accepted by any countries that I'm familiar with. And there seems to be a united front out there that says Iraq, having committed brutal, naked aggression, ought to get out and that the-- this concept of their installing some puppet leaving behind will not be acceptable. So, we're pushing forward on diplomacy. We've gotten-- tomorrow I will meet here in Washington with the Secretary General of the United Nations-- I mean, the Secretary General of NATO-- and Margaret Thatcher will be coming in here tomorrow, and I will be continuing this diplomatic effort."

What about the situation on the ground? Had Iraq pulled out? "Iraq lied once again. They said they were going to start moving out today and we have no evidence that they're moving out."

A question about the embassies in Kuwait City launched Bush into his enraged crescendo, punctuated by menacing histrionics:

"I'm not trying to characterize threats. The threat is the vicious aggression against Kuwait. And that speaks for itself. And anything collaterally is just simply more indication that these are outlaws -- international outlaws and renegades. And I want to see the United Nations move soon with Chapter 7 sanctions. And I want to see the rest of the world join us, as they are in overwhelming numbers, to isoltate Saddam Hussein."

When asked how a puppet regime could be prevented, Bush snapped, "Just wait. Watch and learn." Since he had made so many calls, had he tried to get through to Saddam Hussein? "No. No, I have not." The policy of refusing to negotiate with Iraq would be maintained all the way to the end of the war. What about King Hussein of Jordan, who was known to be attempting a mediation? "I talked to him once and that's all," hissed Bush. "But he's embraced Saddam Hussein. He went to Baghdad and embraced--" said one questioner. "What's your question? I can read," raged Bush. Was Bush disappointed with King Hussein?

"I want to see the Arab states join the rest of the world in condemning this outrage and doing what they can to get Saddam Hussein out. Now. He was talking-- King Hussein-- about an Arab solution, but I am disappointed to find any comment by anyone that apologizes or appears to condone what's taken place."

Bush elaborated a few seconds later that there was no possibility of an Arab solution:

"Well. I was told by one leader that I respect enormously-- I believe this was back on Friday-- that they needed 48 hours to find what was called an Arab solution. That obviously has failed. And of course I'm disappointed that the matter hasn't been resolved before now. This is a very serious matter. I'll take one more and then I've got to go to work over here."

The last question was about possible steps to protect American citizens, a question that the administration wanted to play down at the beginning, and play up later on. Bush concluded:

"I am not going to discuss what we're doing in terms of moving of forces, anything of that nature. But I view it very seriously, not just that, but any threat to any other countries as well, as I view very seriously our determination to reverse this aggression. And please believe me, there are an awful lot of countries that are in total accord with what I've just said. And I salute them. They are staunch friends and allies. And we will be working with them all for collective action. This will not stand. This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait. I've got to go. I have to go to work. I've got to go to work." [42]

This was the beginning of the war psychosis, and there is no doubt that the leading war psychotic was Bush himself. A number of aspects of this performance merit underlining. The confusion of Manfred Woerner with Perez de Cuellar will be the first of a number of such gaffes committed by Bush over the next few days. "Naked aggression" is once again Thatcher's term. Thatcher is mentioned twice in a way that suggests that Bush had been on the phone with her again after leaving Aspen. Indeed, the code word "staunch" towards the end, which for Bush can only be associated with the British, implies that Bush's entire episode had been coordinated with Thatcher in advance.

In regard to Saddam Hussein, in addition to the direct contact that was never attempted we have here the beginning of a cascade of verbal abuse that would continue through the course of the buildup and the war. According to many observers, the purpose of these gratuitous insults was to make a compromise settlement through negotiations impossible by casting aspersions on Saddam Hussein's honor. This might have reflected advice from Arabists of the type known to inhabit the British Foreign Office. Bush's responses concerning King Hussein of Jordan were very ominous for the Hashemite monarch, and left no doubt that Bush regarded any Arab-sponsored peaceful solution as an unfriendly act. Indeed, Bush here declared the Arab solution dead. No greater sabotage of peace efforts in the region could be imagined. Bush's stress on Kuwait indicates that his subsequent presentation of his troop deployments as serving the defense of Saudi Arabia was disinformation, and that the U.S. occupation of Kuwait was his goal all along.

Finally, the combination of the manic tone, the confusion of the two Secretaries General, and the obsessive "I've got to go to work" repeated three times at the end combine to suggest a state of psychological upheaval, with the thyroid undoubtedly making its contribution to Bush's flight forward. But, for the positive side of Bush's ledger, notice that there were no questions about new taxes or Neil Bush.

"Was Bush's Sunday diatribe staged?", asked the Washington Post some days later. White House officials denied it. "He did it because he felt that way," said one. "There was no intention beforehand to assume a posture just for the impact." [43] Dr. Josef Goebbels was famous for his ability to deliver a speech as if it were a spontaneous emotional outburst, and then afterward cynically review it point by point and stratagem by stratagem. There is much evidence that Bush did not possess this degree of lucidity and internal critical distance.

Economic Sanctions and a Naval Blockade

Bush went into the White House for yet another meeting of the NSC. At this meeting, it was already a foregone conclusion that there would be a large U.S. military deployment, although that had never been formally deliberated by the NSC. It had been a solo decision by Bush. There was now only the formality of Saudi assent.

Monday at the White House was dominated by the presence of Margaret Thatcher at her staunchest. Thatcher's theme was now that the enforcement of the economic sanctions voted by the U.N. would require a naval blockade in which the Anglo-Saxon combined fleets would play the leading role. Thatcher's first priority was that the sanctions had to be made to work. But if Washington and London were to conclude that a naval blockade were necessary for that end, she went on, "you would have to consider such a move." Thatcher carted out her best Churchillian rhetoric to advertize that Britain already had one warship stationed in the Persian Gulf, and that two more frigates, one from Mombassa and one from Malaysia, were on their way. "Those sanctions must be enforceable," raved Thatcher, who had never accepted economic sanctions against South Africa. "I cannot remember a time when we had the world so strongly together against an action as now."

Bush immediately took Thatcher's cue:

"We need to discuss full and total implementation of these sanctions, ruling out nothing at all. These sanctions must be enforced. I think the will of the nations around the world-- not just the NATO countries-- not just the EC, not just one area of the world-- the will of the nations around the world will be to enforce these sanctions. We'll leave the details of how we implement it to the future, but we'll begin working on that immediately. That's how we go about encouraging others to do that and what we ourselves should be doing." [44]

In the midst of these proceedings, NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner showed up, and tried his hand at being staunch, but he could not come close to Thatcher. All of a sudden, the British were at the center of things again, the most important country, all on the basis of the token forces they were deploying. With Thatcher there, Bush had the fig-leaf of an instant international coalition to use as a bludgeon against domestic critics.

The breast-beating about the enforcement of the sanctions signalled that the Anglo-Americans were going on a diplomatic offensive against countries like Germany, Japan, and many in the third world who might have assumed a neutral or pacifist position in the crisis. Baker had been travelling in Siberia with Shevardnadze when Iraq had entered Kuwait, and Soviet condemnation of Iraq had been immediate. Many countries, especially in the third world, now found that with the Soviets closing ranks with the Anglo-Americans, the margin of maneuver they had enjoyed during the Cold War was now totally gone. Countries like Jordan, the Sudan, Yemen, the PLO, and others who expressed understanding for Iraqi motives went to the top of the Anglo-American hit list. Bush assumed the role of top cop himself, with gusto: according to Fitzwater, the "speed dialing mode" had produced 20 calls to 12 different world leaders over slightly more than three days.

U.S. Forces Deployed to Saudi Arabia

When Cheney arrived in Saudi Arabia, the essence of his mission was to convey to King Fahd and his retinue that the first elements of the 82nd Airborne Division would be landing within an hour or two, and that the Saudi monarchy would be well advised to welcome them. In effect, Cheney was there to tell the Saudis that they were an occupied country, and that the United States would assume physical possession of most of the Arabian peninsula, with all of its fabulous oil wealth. Did King Fahd think of protesting the arrogance of Cheney's ultimatum? If he did, he had only to think of the fate of his predecessor, King Feisal, who had been murdered by the CIA in 1975. By the time King Fahd acquiesced, the first U.S. units were already on the ground. Cheney went through the charade of calling Bush to tell him that the dispatch of a U.S. contingent for the defense of Saudi Arabia had been approved by His Majesty, and then formally to ask Bush's approval for the transfer of the troops. "You got it. Go," Bush is supposed to have replied. Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, all the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council would soon be subject to the same process of military occupation.

The U.S. expeditionary force in Saudi Arabia became widely known in Washington on Tuesday, August 7, as White House officials hastened to share the news with journalists. Bush personally wanted to stay out of the spotlight. At a Cabinet meeting, Bush told his advisers that his regime had warned the Saudi government that the threat posed by the Iraqi military to Saudi Arabia was also a threat to the national security of the United States. According to Fitzwater, Saddam Hussein met with the U.S. charge d'affaires in Baghdad, Joseph Wilson, to tell him that "he had no intention of leaving Kuwait and every intention of staying and claiming it as his own."

On Wednesday morning, Bush delivered a televised address to the American people from the Oval Office. This was still a format that he disliked very much, since it made him seem maladroit. Bush grinned incongruously as he read his prepared text. He told the public that his troop deployments were "to take up defensive positions in Saudi Arabia." These U.S. forces would "work together with those of Saudi Arabia and other nations to preserve the integrity of Saudi Arabia and to deter further Iraqi aggression." He inaugurated the Anglo-American Big Lie that the Iraqi actions had been "without provocation," which readers of daily newspapers knew not to be true. He also minted the story that Iraq possessed "the fourth largest military in the world," a wild exaggeration that was repeated many times. The "new Hitler" theme was already prominent: "Appeasement does not work," Bush asserted. "As was the case in the 1930's, we see in Saddam Hussein an aggressive dictator threatening his neighbors....His promises mean nothing." Bush summed up the goals of his policy as follows:

"First, we seek the immediate, unconditional and complete withdrawal of all Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Second, Kuwait's legitimate government must be restored to replace the puppet regime. And third, my administration, as has been the case with every president from President Roosevelt to President Reagan, is committed to the security and stability of the Persian Gulf. And fourth, I am determined to protect the lives of American citizens abroad. [45]

None of this appeared to include offensive military action. Bush attempted to re-enforce that false impression in his news conference later the same afternoon. It was during this appearance that the extent of Bush's mental disintegration and psychic dissociation became most evident. But first, Bush wanted to stress his "defensive" cover story:

"Well, as you know, from what I said, they're there in a defensive mode right now, and therefore that is not the mission, to drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait. We have economic sanctions that I hope will be effective to that end."

The purpose, he stressed, was the "defense of the Saudis." "We're not in a war," Bush added. After several exchanges, he was asked what had tipped his hand in deciding to send troops and aircraft into Saudi Arabia? If this had been a polygraph test, the needles would have jumped, since this went to Bush's collusion with Thatcher long before any annoucement had been made. Bush replied:

"There was no one single thing that I can think of. But when King Fahd requested such support we were prompt to respond. But I can't think of an individual specific thing. If there was one it would perhaps be the Saudis moving south when they said they were withdrawing...."

The press corps stirred uneasily and one or two voices could be heard prompting Bush "The Iraqis...the Iraqis" There was acute embarrassment on the faces of Sununu and Fitzwater; this was the classic gaffe of cold war presidents who confused North Korea and South Korea, or East Germany and West Germany. Bush's forte was supposedly international affairs; he had travelled to both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as a government official and before that as a businessman. So this gaffe pointed to a disorder of the synapses. Bush realized what he had done and tried to recover:

"...I mean the Iraqis, thank you very much. It's been a long night. The Iraqis moving down to the Kuwait-Saudi border, when indeed they have given their word that they were withdrawing. That heightened our concern."

Why had it been a long night for Bush? He had made all of his important decisions on the troop movements during the day on Tuesday. What had robbed him of his sleep between Tuesday and Wednesday? Those who have read this far will know that it was not conscience. A little later there was another sensitive question, touching on the mission of the troops and the possible future occupation of Saudi Arabia, postwar bases, and the like: "Could you share with us the precise military objective of this mission? Will the American troops remain there only until Saddam Hussein removes his troops from the Saudi border?" Bush, obviously in deep water, answered:

"I can't answer that because we have to-- we have a major objective with those troops, which is the defense of the Soviet Union, so I think it beyond a defense of Saudi Arabia. So I think it's beyond the-- I think it's beyond just the question of tanks along the border...

The defense of the Soviet Union! But Bush pressed on: "I'm not preparing for a long ground war in the Persian Gulf." "My military objective is to see Saudi Arabia defended." Did he feel that he had been let down by his intelligence?

"No, I don't feel let down by the intelligence at all. When you plan a blitzkrieg-like attack that's launched at two o'clock in the morning, that's pretty hard to stop, particularly when you have just been given the word of the people involved that there won't be any such attack. And I think the intelligence community deserves certain credit for picking up what was a substantial boycott-- a substantial buildup-- and then reporting it to us. So when this information was relayed, properly, to interested parties, that the move was so swift that it was pretty hard for them to stop it. I really can't blame our intelligence in any way, fault them, on this particular go-round."

Once again, the gaffe on 'boycott/buildup' occurs at a moment of maximum prevarication. Bush's gibberish is dictated by his desire say on the one hand that he knew about the Iraqi troop buildup almost two weeks before the invasion, but on the other that the invasion came as a bolt from the blue. There was no follow-up on this theme.

The final portion of the press conference was devoted to the very important theme of the U.N. sanctions railroaded through the Security Council by the Anglo-Americans with the help of their willing French, Soviet and Chinese partners. The sanctions were in themselves an act of genocide against Iraq and the other populations impacted in the region. The sanctions, maintained after the war had ceased with the pretext that Saddam Hussein was still in power, have proven more lasting than the war itself, and they may yet prove more lethal. The Congressional debate in January was fought almost exclusively between the stranglers of the Democratic Party, who wanted to "give the sanctions more time to work," and the bombers of the Bush Administration and the Republican Party who wanted to initiate an air war. Both positions constituted high crimes against humanity. Bush wanted to argue for the inviolability of these sanctions, but he did so in such a way as to underline the monstrous and hypocritical double standard that was being applied to Iraq:

"...And that's what has been so very important about this concerted United Nations effort, unprecedented, you might say, or certainly not enacted since-- what was it, 23 years ago? 23 years ago. So I don't think we can see clearly down that road."

What Bush has in mind here, but does not mention by name, were the United Nations sanctions against the racist Ian Smith regime in Rhodesia [which is now Zimbabwe, under the racist Mugabe --ed]. Perhaps Bush was reluctant to mention the Rhodesian sanctions because the United States officially violated those sanctions by an act of Congress, and U.N. Ambassador George Bush as we have seen, was one of the principal international apologists for the U.S. policy of importing strategic raw materials from Rhodesia because of an allegedly pre-eminent U.S. national interest. Bush's final response shows that he was fully aware that the economic sanctions designed by the State Department and the Foreign Office would mean genocide against Iraqi children, since they contained an unprecedented prohibition of food imports:

"Well, I don't know what they owe us for food, but I know that this embargo, to be successful, has got to encompass everything. And if there are-- you know, if there's a humanitarian concern, pockets of starving children, or something of this nature, why, I would take a look. But other than that this embargo is going to be all-encompassing, and it will include food, and I don't know what Iraq owes us now for food. Generally speaking, in normal times, we have felt that food might be separated out from-- you know, grain, wheat, might be separated out from other economic sanctions. But this one is all-encompassing and the language is pretty clear in the United Nations resolutions." [46]

As a final gesture, Bush acknowledged to the journalists that he had "slipped up a couple times here," and thanked them for having corrected him, so that his slips and gaffes would not stand as a part of the permanent record. Bush had now done his work; he had set into motion the military machine that would first strangle, and then bomb Iraq. Within two days, Bush was on his way to Walker's Point in Kennebunkport, where his handlers hoped that the dervish would pull himself together.

Bush Refuses to Negotiate

During August, Bush pursued a hyperactive round of sports activities in Kennebunkport, while cartoonists compared the Middle East to the sandtraps that Bush so often landed in during his frenetic daily round of golf. On August 16, King Hussein of Jordan, who was fighting to save his nation from being dismembered by the Israelis under the cover of the crisis, came to visit Bush, who welcomed him with thinly veiled hatred. At this time Bush was already talking about mobilizing the reserves.

Saddam Hussein's situation during these weeks can be compared with Noriega's on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Panama. The U.S. was as yet very weak on the ground, and a preventive offensive thrust by the Iraqis into Saudi Arabia towards Dahran would have caused an indescribable chaos in the U.S. logistics. But Saddam, like Noriega, still believed that he would not be invaded; the Iraqi government gave more credit to its secret assurances than to the military force that was slowly being assembled on its southern border. Saddam therefore took no pre-emptive military actions to interfere with the methodical marshalling of the force that was later to devastate his country. The key to the U.S. buildup was the logistical infrastructure of NATO in Europe; without this the buildup would have lasted until the summer of 1991 and beyond.

It was during these August days that Scowcroft coined the slogan of Bush's Gulf war. On August 23, Scowcroft told reporters, "We believe we are creating the beginning of a new world order out of the collapse of U.S.-Soviet antagonisms." [47]

Bush was now conducting a systematic "mind war" campaign to coerce the American people into accepting the war he had already chosen. On August 20, Bush introduced a new rhetorical note, now calling the American citizens detained in Iraq "hostages." Under international law, the imminent threat of acts of war against a country entitles that country to intern enemy aliens as a matter of self-defense; this had been the rule in earlier wars. Henceforth, Bush would attempt to turn the hostage issue on and off according to his propaganda needs, until Iraq freed all the Americans in early December.

On August 27, Bush opined that "Saddam Hussein has been so resistant to complying with international law that I don't yet see fruitful negotiations." [48] Statements like these were made to cloak the fact that Bush was adamantly refusing to negotiate with Iraq, and preventing other nations from doing so. Bush's diplomatic posture was in effect an ultimatum to Iraq to get out of Kuwait, with the Iraqi departure to come before any discussions. Bush called this a refusal to reward aggression; it was in fact a refusal to negotiate in good faith, and made clear that Bush wanted war. His problem was that the U.S. military buildup was taking longer than expected, with ship convoys forced to turn back in the Atlantic because freighters broke down and were left dead in the water. Bush strove to fill the time with new demagogic propaganda gambits.

Bush returned to Washington at the end of August to address members of Congress. In the public part of this meeting, Bush reiterated that his goal was to "persuade Iraq to withdraw." There followed an executive session behind closed doors. The next day Bush recorded a broadcast to the U.S. forces in the Gulf, which was beamed to Saudi Arabia by the Armed Forces Radio. "Soldiers of peace will always be more than a match for a tyrant bent on aggression," Bush told the troops.

During early September, it became evident that that the U.S. and Soviet approaches to the Gulf crisis were beginning to show some signs of divergence. Up to this point, Foreign Minister Shevardnadze had backed every step made by Bush and Baker, but the U.S. Gulf intervention was not popular among Red Army commanders and among Soviet Moslems who were disturbed by the infidel occupation of the holy places [in Saudi Arabia]. On September 9, Bush met with Gorbachev in Helsinki, Finland in order to discuss this and other matters of interest to a condominium in which the Anglo-Saxons were now more than ever the senior partners. Gorbachev spoke up for "a political solution" to the conflict, but his government willingly took part in every vote of the U.N. Security Council which opened the way to the Gulf war. A few days later, on September 15, Bush received precious support from his masonic brother Francois Mitterrand, who exploited a trifling incident involving French diplomatic premises in Kuwait -- the sort of thing that Bush had done repeatedly in Panama -- massively to escalate the French troop presence and rhetoric in the Gulf. "C'est une aggression, et nous allons y repondre," said the master of the Grand Orient; the spirit of Suez 1956, the spirit of the Algerian war and of Dienbienphu were alive and well in France.

To while away the weeks of the buildup, Bush busied himself with extortion. This was directed especially against Germany and Japan, two countries that were targets of the Gulf war, and whom Bush now called upon to pay for it. The constitutions of these countries prevented them from sending military contingents, and intervention would have been unpopular with domestic public opinion in any case. Japan was assessed $4 billion in tribute, and Germany a similar sum. By the end of the crisis, Bush and Baker had organized a $55 billion shakedown at the expense of a series of countries. These combined to produce the first balance of payments surplus for the United States in recent memory during the first quarter of 1991, obtaining a surcease for the dollar.

But even prediscounting this extorted tribute, the fiscal crisis of the U.S. Treasury was becoming overwhelming. On September 11, 1990, Bush was to address the Congress on the need for austerity measures to reduce the deficit for the coming fiscal year. But Bush did not wish to appear before the Congress as a simple bankrupt; he wanted to strut before them as a warrior. The resulting speech was a curious hybrid, first addressing the Gulf crisis, and only then turning to the dolorous balance sheets of the regime. It was in this speech that Bush repeated the Scowcroft slogan that will accompany his regime into the dust bin of history: The New World Order. After gloatingly quoting Gorbachev's condemnation of "Iraq's aggression," Bush came to the relevant passage:

"Clearly, no longer can a dictator count on East-West confrontation to stymie concerted United Nations action against aggression. A new partnership of nations has begun, and we stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment. The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation.

Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective -- a New World Order -- can emerge: A new era-- freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, east and west, north and south, can propser and live in harmony." [49]

(see note [E1])