HIDDEN WARS OF DESERT STORM (Part I of II)

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"On August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein's forces cross the border into Kuwait, triggering the largest international crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union, A coalition-force led by the United States is assembled and then launches a massive air-assault against Iraq before finally starting the largest ground offensive ever since WW2 in the name of liberating Kuwait. On February 28, 1991, having fulfilled its mission, the international coalition abruptly stops the war against Iraq : the last Iraqi troops are evicted from Kuwait or taken prisoners. Victory is total. However, a decade after it was imposed to force Saddam out of Kuwait, the embargo over Iraq is still in place."

The assault had absolutely nothing to do with freedom and democracy (Ramsey Clark) -You had to keep the image of the good guys (Randa Habib) - So the press was kept out (Paul Sullivan) - It is a trap and Iraq fell in it (Jordan Foreign Minister) - The US wanted that war (Phyllis Bennis) - The mosquitoes and flies put up a bigger fight than they did (Morocco Oman) - A large portion of Saddam's army never came into Kuwait (Norman Schwarzkopf) - They didn't see tank tracks in the desert (Jean Heller) -There was no war, Iraq was defenseless (Ramsey Clark) - It is a genocide, period (Labib Kamhawi) -Very na'ive to think that the embargo would remove Saddam Hussein from power (Dennis Halliday) - The embargo strengthened the regime of Saddam Hussein (Fadel Chalabi) - The CIA actually supported Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath Party (Bill Hartung) - Perhaps they have other secret intentions I am not aware of (Ahmed Al-Jabar) - If indeed the government lied, does that surprise anyone ? (Jean Heller)

"To understand why this embargo still stands and why the Gulf War happened in the first place, it is necessary to look at the history of Western involvement in the Middle-East. "

"In the 1920s, European and American oil companies discover and begin to exploit the first oil-fields in the Middle-East. The potential of these fields would become particularly critical to oil-poor western Europe. The profit-margins are huge while the cut to local regimes is minimal and the price of oil at the well is almost the same as mineral water. " "WW2 changes this equation. Despite their victory over Nazi Germany, both France and England are gravely debilitated and begin losing their grip over their former colonies. In the Middle-East, new leaders come to power, removing monarchies no longer protected by the former colonial forces and swept away by popular revolutions. "

"However, the British and French role in the Middle-East is now being taken over by the big winner of the War, the United States of America. Despite its own oil resources, the US comes to realize the strategic importance of the Middle-East oil, to contain the Soviet Union, to rebuild Western Europe and to confirm the American industrial boom. But Washington hopes to maintain the inexpensive Middle-East oil bonanza of before WW2. The new Middle-East regimes think otherwise and when they seek to retake control of their own national wealth, it strikes a cord of panic in Washington, London and Paris. It is war against Egypt when Nasser seizes the Suez Canal, In Iran, Mossadegh nationalizes oilfields and kicks the British oil companies out. He is subsequently ousted by a CIA-orchestrated coup that puts the Shah back in command. In Iraq, as General Abdel Karim Qassem takes over and nationalizes the oilfields, the West cries "communism "."

Ahmed Al Bayati, London Rep. of Supreme Council for Islamic Revol. In Iraq:
Saddam came to power in 1968. This coup came as a result of an oil deal between Iraq and a French company, IRAB. This contract upset the West and the Americans in particular. So they encouraged a coup in Iraq at that time.

Bill Hartung, International Arms Market specialist:
The United States has had sort of a love-hate relationship with Saddam Hussein, which is not something many people in this country are aware of, going back to the late 50s and early 60s when the CIA supported Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath Party in the coup that brought him to power.

Fadel Chalabi, Former Iraqi Oil Minister:
The vice Prime Minister, a Ba'athist who died, called Al Saadi said in a book which he published in Beirut that "we, the Ba'athists, came to power in an American train, he said that".

"Despite his already well-known ruthlessness, Saddam Hussein remains the "Good Guy" of the West until 1972. This year, the OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, agrees to raise the price of the barrel from $ 3.00 to $ 22.00. Iraq follows suit and nationalizes its oilfields. Saddam is then deemed unreliable by Washington and as a result branded a terrorist leader. The US then shifts all of its support to its long-standing ally in the region, the Shah of Iran. "

Former Attorney-General Ramsey Clark:
For 25 years, from 1953, the Shah of Iran was the US surrogate in the Persian Gulf and in the Middle-East region. The US sold him about $ 22 billion in arms from 1972 to 1976. The Shah was our man. "The hope of control by the West of the Middle-East Jades in 1979 when the Shah is overthrown by anti-Western, fundamentalist leader Ayatollah Khomeini. By then, Saddam Hussein becomes again a viable card in Washington's hand. He becomes the actual President of Iraq after 11 years of being its acting Vice-President, and then perpetrates a sweeping purge of his opponents and attacks Iran -without provocation or apparent reason."

Arms expert Bill Hartung:
The Stockholm Peace Research Institute has found that 52 different countries supplied weapons to Iran or Iraq during the war and 29 countries supplied both sides. The very same countries that were saying how horrible the war was were using that war to stimulate their arms industries, to test some of their new weapon designs.

State Rep. Iraq Program Director David Welch:
We did have some very limited engagement with the government of Iraq, actually a lot less so that other governments and both protagonists were under arms embargoes during that period, arms embargoes that the United States for its part didn't violate.

Bill Hartung:
The United States was perhaps the most hypocritical of the countries that supplied arms to the war because its public position was "we're not gonna arm Iran, we're not gonna arm Iraq" when quietly, secretly they were actually arming both sides of the conflict.

"Saddam Hussein's ambition however is to develop Iraq's own non-conventional, mass-destruction weapons. An inquiry conducted by US Congress in 1992 reveals that the American contribution to this effort is quite significant as well and is fully monitored by the CIA and the US State Department whose reports as early as the late 70s have been detailing the extent of Iraq's mass-destruction weapon-programs and its repetitive use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and Kurdish opponents. "

State Rep. David Welch:
In 1988, we had no idea that Saddam Hussein would be using chemical weapons on his own people. If we had known all this in advance, well, we would have made our policy quite a bit different in 1988, I'm sure.

"Voices start being heard within the US Government asking about the wisdom of giving Iraq huge credits intended for purchasing US agricultural goods but used instead to buy helicopters, armored trucks, unreasonable amounts of pesticides, germs and advanced arms-making technologies. The US State Department and the White House under Presidents Reagan and then Bush systematically quell all the inquiry attempts from Congress and the Treasury Department."

"From massive arms-purchases to the development of costly military research programs, Saddam Hussein has ruined formerly rich Iraq. By the end of his war against Iran in 1988, the country is in the red for $ 40 billion. It is precisely at this time, starting in 1988, when Iraq is most desperate to maximize its oil income that yet another crisis begins unfolding."

Oil market expert Siu Hin Lee:
OPEC keeps the price of oil stable by limiting how much oil each OPEC member-country can produce. In 1989, after the end of the Iraq/Iran war, Kuwait suddenly exceeded its quotas by 20 %, driving the price of oil down on the world market. As a result of Kuwait's production hike, Iraq lost almost a third of its oil income. And this was at a time when Iraq was desperate for money. So the Iraqis felt that Kuwait was stabbing them in the back.

"Welcomed by the West, this move by Kuwait hurts both the Iraqis' economy and pride as they remember that Kuwait used to be part of their territory before it was carved off by the British in 1928. Over the following months, tension escalates to the point of Saddam Hussein publicly threatening Kuwait. Given that Kuwait remains one of the primary oil-suppliers to the west, the official response of the US State Department to Saddam's saber-rattling is rather surprising:" US State Rep, briefing (6 days prior to Kuwait invasion):
There is no special security commitment with Kuwait.

AFP Randa Habib:
The Americans had given indirectly an encouragement to Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait.

"If the Middle-East stability is indeed a desirable goal for all, why did the West fuel such a brutal dictator as Saddam Hussein with credits, weapons and advanced technologies ? And why would the US State Department repeatedly tell Saddam it has no defense agreement with Kuwait ? "

State Rep. David Welch: You know, it should come as no surprise that at the end of one war and to reduce the threat that we saw in this region from the consequences of that conflict, we would seek to direct either party in a more productive way, including Iraq.

Former Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Al-Kasem:
I do not say that what Iraq committed in invading Kuwait is acceptable to any of the Arab countries, no, it is not, but the way and the attitude that preceded the crisis made everyone aware that there must have been other plans to entrap Iraq into this situation. It is a trap, unfortunately Iraq fell in it.

"On August2, 1990, convinced the US Government would not interfere, Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait. While US officials publicly express shock and surprise, the Pentagon is ready for action, having rehearsed this very situation for several months prior to Iraq's attack on Kuwait".

General Norman Schwarzkopf:
We went ahead and did an exercise, what is called a command post exercise, which is what Internal Look was, to test our ability to deal with this particular scenario, and also to uncover any commanding control problem that might exist, any doctrine problem that might exist between the air force, the Navy and the Armed Forces. And it just so happened that we were in the middle of conducting the Internal Look command post exercise at the same time when the crisis developed in the Gulf.

Former US Marine & Gulf War Veteran Morocco Omari:
Prior to that, when I was doing my training, all the officers were telling us about the built-up..., the thing with Iraq possibly going to Kuwait and attacking Kuwait, and they told us to be prepared for it because it was very serious and they said that they had been knowing this for about two years prior to this, you know. So a lot of this stuff was already going on, they knew that they would probably be going to..., and they were preparing us to go over to Desert Storm.

"Hardly a few hours after Saddam's invasion, all Iraqi assets in the US are frozen and the US Navy starts enforcing a blockade of the Iraqi coast even before the UN gets a chance to convene. A couple of days later, delegations from the US Departments of State and Defense fly to Ryad to try to convince the Saudi Government that the Iraqi troops are indeed threatening their borders. The official press release mentions showing the Saudis satellite picture evidence of the Iraqi build-up at the Saudi border. "

St. Petersburg Times investigative reporter Jean Heller:
The Defense Department never made public any photographs that proved their point. And I doubt that they exist.

"In January 1991, the St. Petersburg Times along with ABC runs a story based on commercial satellite pictures that happened to have been taken over Kuwait and Saudi Arabia at the time of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait."

Jean Heller:
The airport in the Kuwaiti capital appeared to have been abandoned which it wouldn't be. If you think about it for a minute, if you're trying to supply a quarter of a million troops, it takes a lot of food, a lot of camping equipment, a lot of fuel for the tanks. They didn't see tanks tracks in the sand in the desert and they would not have worn away because satellites pictures are still pickling up images of sand tracks in the desert of Northern Africa that were left during WW2. I happened to know the Press Secretary of Defense personally, and I asked him : "look, you know me, we've known each-other for a long time, let me look at some of the US intelligence satellite photos, prove to me that I'm wrong. I don't need to take them out of the building, I don't need to copy them. Prove to me that we are wrong and we won't run the story". And he refused to so that. He refused to do it on a number of occasions. As a reporter, I'm not supposed to conclude anything, but everyone else who was familiar with this story and familiar with the satellite photographs has concluded that the administration lied to the Saudis, to the world in order in order to get the invitation to come into the Middle-East to protect the innocent. What does it say about the government ? If in fact the fact the government lied, does that surprise anyone ?

"If indeed the US Government misled the Saudis about the Iraqis threatening their borders, what was the purpose ? Ever since WW2, the US administration had been making countless efforts to convince the Saudis to allow the largely Christian US troops onto the holy land of Mecca, supposedly to protect Saudi Arabia but namely to secure its vast oil-fields. Ever since OPEC raised the price of oil in the early 70s, this concern has become even more acute, epitomized by State Secretary Henry Kissinger 's famous statement: "Oil is too important to be left to the Arabs ".

Gen. Schwarzkopf:
Well, you have to understand that there were principal focuses over the world amounting to military commands. You had the focus of the European command on the NATO situation, you had the focus of the Pacific Command, for instance on the Pacific, the Atlantic on the battle in the Atlantic, but there were certain areas in the world that had no focus. The Middle-East was an area. The problem was that no Arab country wanted a major US military headquarters in their country.

St. Petersburg Times' Jean Heller:
In 1990, the Bush administration was trying to convince the Saudis that the threat from the Iraqis was real because we couldn't go in there, the Allies, the British, the French, the Americans and the others could not go in there without an invitation from the Saudis. The Saudis had to feel threatened in order to invite the allies to come in for protection.

"On August 7, 1990, the Saudi Government officially accepts the insisting protection offer from Washington. The very next day, the US military steam-roller starts flying in -without even notifying Congress. Within a few months, over half-a million American troops would be deployed in Saudi Arabia. After persuading the Saudis, the US Government now has to convince the American public and the world that the threat is real and that it justifies a gigantic US military build-up in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, at the United Nations headquarters in New York, the pressure is on to find a diplomatic and peaceful solution to the crisis. However, war is already in the minds of others. UN Secretary-General Perez de Cuellar himself flies to Baghdad and meets with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. He fails though to convince him that the international threat will be real if he chooses to remain in Kuwait. His failure however doesn 't meet only despair and frustration upon his return to New York. "

Former UN Iraq Program Dir. Dennis Halliday:
Saddam Hussein had indicated a willingness to compromise, mediate and withdraw his troops. Also the Arab states were given a chance to mediate but they were given 48 hours, I believe, by President Bush. So in summary, I think the Americans didn't want a diplomatic solution at that late stage, I am talking about after the invasion.

World & UN affairs specialist/writer Phyllis Bennis:
Yemen voted against the use-of-force resolution. And no sooner had the Ambassador of Yemen put down his hand after the vote that there was a US representative at his side saying : "that will be the most expensive no-vote you will ever cast". And sure enough, three days later, the US cut-off its entire aid-budget to Yemen, the poorest nation in the Arab world.

"On November 29, 1990, driven by the US delegation, the UN Security Council passes the war resolution with a deadline set for January 15. There would be no turning back at this point."

Phyllis Bennis:
That was the US itself that made the decision of the Gulf crisis, the crisis brought about by Iraq's illegal invasion of Kuwait, would not be solved by diplomatic means but only by military means. The US wanted that war.

"January 17, 1991, 3:00 am Iraq-time. Hell breaks loose on Baghdad. The formidable firepower of the coalition amassed primarily by the United States over the past five months reveals its awesome might. Televisions worldwide start showing images of a supposedly fool-proof, high precision campaign of so-called surgical bombings said to hit nothing but Iraqi military targets."

President of National Gujf War Veterans Resource Center Paul Sullivan:
During the Gulf War, the Government decided to keep the Press out, so the Press was kept out and you didn't know what was going on.

Ramsey Clark:
Typically, the US military claimed that its bombing of Iraq was highly accurate. Nothing can be further from the truth. 110,000 aerial sorties and 85,000 tons of bombs, the equivalent of seven and a half Hiroshimas in 42 days, you could see the indiscriminate nature of the bombing. It probably killed 150,000, maybe 200,000 people, thousands and thousands of civilians indirectly. There is no question from the evidence of the bombing that the United States deliberately planned the destruction of the economic support system for the Iraqi population. If you just take water, they knocked out reservoir dams in the North, they knocked out pumping stations for water pipelines bringing the water down, they knocked out filtration plants to purify the water so you can drink it without getting sick. On food, they systematically attacked the food chain from one end of the country to the other. They knocked out all electrical power within hours, they knocked out transportation, they showed you can destroy a country and deprive it of essential life-support systems without ever setting foot on it, through cruise-missiles and aerial bombardments.

"February 23, 1991, five weeks after the start of the most formidable bombing campaign in history, the coalition ground forces start rolling in Kuwait. The allied offensive gets fast and deep into Kuwait without encountering significant resistance. The Iraqi military leviathan is nowhere in sight and the troops still present in Kuwait are simply no match for the modern coalition forces. "

USMC Morocco Omari:
When we went to Kuwait, we were expecting, you know, this 5 million-man army, these big monsters, and when we got there, they were like chihuahuas. I mean, the mosquitoes and flies put up a bigger fight than they did.

General Schwarzkopf:
We knew our capability was much better than theirs.

USMC Morocco Omari:
These people were just like regular Joe's. Hey somebody comes to your house and says "either fight the Americans or I kill your family". Of course, you're gonna say : "gimme the gun", you know, they had no other choice". These guys didn't even know how to shoot their weapons. They wore regular clothes, you'd pick up AK 47, they are filled with sand, it is just like what is it ?

"By the end of February 1991, when the dust from the coalition ground offensive starts to settle, the big surprise is not finding the large Iraqi force previously reported by Washington."

Jean Heller:
In mid-September, the Bush administration was saying that there were 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks amassing at the Saudi border for possible invasion. Now, I'm not saying there were none there. The people fleeing Kuwait passed Iraqi soldiers. They passed quite a few Iraqi soldiers. So there were some there, just probably not a force of the size that would invade Saudi Arabia.

General Schwarzkopf:
You have to remember that a very large portion of Saddam's army never came into Kuwait. He kept a large part of his army back along the border with Iran and within the capital, his Republican Guards specifically. "On February 28, 1991, the other big surprise is the announcement of a cease-fire when the allied forces were already pushing deep into Iraq. "

USMC Morocco Omari:
We took Kuwait, all of Kuwait, in less than 24 hours, the Marines. The Army went through Southern Iraq and took within a 24-hour period. And we stopped. And everybody was like "wow, why didn't we get Saddam ? You felt like you went over there, you did your job, but you didn't get to finish your job.

Ramsey Clark:
The United States military could have moved at the end of the bombing period straight into Baghdad in less than 24 hours. It was a political decision not to do it.

"On February 26, 1991, two days prior to Washington declaring cease-fire, a new element had appeared in the Iraqi equation. Tired of twelve years of ruthless dictatorship, a great portion of the Iraqi population had started an uprising against the regime in Baghdad. The news was withheld by the media as the Bush administration didn 't want to make it look like they would stop the war to spare Saddam Hussein's regime."

Jordanian journalist Michel Haj:
People began to demonstrate on the streets, carrying arms and destroying things. The demonstrations continued on the following day. President Bush at that moment began thinking: "we have to stop the war". And that's how he surprised General Colin Powell on the 27th of February by telling him: "let us stop the war now". And when he asked : "what do you mean by now ?", he said : "now at that moment". And he did that in spite of the objections of Schwarzkopf.

General Schwarzkopf:
If we had been allowed to go on for one or two more days, we have totally destroyed the Iraqi forces and that would have a battle of annihilation. I said that when they first called me from Washington and asked me what my plans were, I said : "we plan to continue the operations".

"By early March 1991, the rebellion is starting to spread all across Iraq. The Bush administration's response is a surprising support of Saddam's regime. "

Jordanian journalist Michel Haj
What happened of course in Safwan, the way that General Schwarzkopf gave a lot to the Iraqis on the 3rd of March when they met in Safwan at the border with Kuwait. When he allowed them to use helicopters, even armed helicopters, 1 came to the conclusion that there was some kind of deal.

General Schwarzkopf:
I said yes, you can fly your helicopters. (...) Now subsequently, helicopters were used to suppress the rebels.

Michel Hai:
The Americans would cease-fire, which was a very unexpected early cease-fire in order to give a chance to the Iraqis, to allow the Iraqis to be able to eliminate the rebellion in the South. For the next two years, there was no real attempt to topple the Iraqi regime in Baghdad. And there were no American attack although there were so many reasons, and President Bush threatened so many times to go back to war because Iraq is not supervising their promise in the 687 UN resolution. But real fighting did not happen, real war didn't happen.

Go on to [Part II]

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