At 2:00 A. M. (local time) on August second 1990, Saddam Hussein sent the Iraqi military across the border into Kuwait, and sparked a war whose repercussions are still being felt. Today what eventually became known as the Persian Gulf War, featured the largest air operation in history; and a senseless destruction paralleled only to Danzig or Hiroshima. Even though Saddam was the one who physically invaded Kuwait, is balking at United Nations resolutions, and is generally known as a tyrant. He should not be destroyed .
The Gulf War was nothing more than the United States attempting to establish, as former President Bush so aptly ermed, the New Order. The United States supported Saddam Hussein and the Baath regime prior to the Kuwaiti invasion. They even gave Saddam a Green Light to go ahead and invade. If Saddam were to leave power Iraq would either be plunged into a Lebanon style civil war or face another ruler no better than Saddam himself. The United States is contemplating another invasion of Iraq, however it is having a difficult time of gaining support of the Arab countries.
While many people in this country believe Saddam Hussein should be destroyed, that he is a totalitarian dictator and gross human rights violator. He is, in fact, a stabilizing force in his ountry and the Middle-East, standing up to the only remaining superpower. The consensus currently prevalent in this country is that Saddam Hussein, the leader of Iraq, is a totalitarian dictator, thirsty for blood and prestige, who seems dedicated to disobeying the United States.
It would seem Iraq is intent on keeping United Nation inspectors out of its own country, although technically Iraq barred only American members of the inspection teams from carrying on their work(Nelan 54). The Iraqi Dictator seems to have decided he would rather be bombed than inspected. He apparently has no regard for the nternational community, and yet still wants them to lift sanctions.
Also the Iraqi: government stopped Ritter from investigating sensitive sites, calling him a spy and complaining that his team was too Anglo-American… he Iraqis also revealed Ritter was looking for evidence Iraq tested chemical and biological weapons on humans – charge Baghdad called a shear lie (Watson 34). Those reports of human testing are obviously false. [E]ven Saddams strongest foes, including the C. I. A. seems to doubt them(Watson 34). In fact, the only testing done by Iraq was on dogs. There were no inspectors around when the U. S. committed the crimes at Tuskegee, or when hundreds of servicemen were exposed to radiation during the atomic tests in the sixties. The Iraqi dictator has stayed in power for some 6 years since sanctions were imposed.
The sanctions were imposed supposedly to punish and weaken Saddams power, freeing the people to take up arms and oust him. However, the sanctions have hurt only the people of Iraq, and if anything have strengthened Saddams position. If Saddam is a human rights abuser as many maintain then, the U. S. is a human rights abuser as well. When the Soviet Union fell, the United States became the ole superpower, thus, many countries no longer fearing the U. S. S. R. began to loosen their ties with the U. S. The U. S. soon found itself in a precarious position.
It needed to a reason for other countries to appease the U. S. the country also needed to demonstrate the New World Order in which a post-Cold War United States could operate without the bothersome constraints of another world superpower(Simons 3). The United States found itself in a unique position immediately following the collapse of Communist Russia; it was now the only superpower, with the most powerful military, economic, and political might. It now needed to demonstrate how the U. S. would behave without the check of another equal power. An opportunity soon arose however; Iraq, whom we supported the previous decade during the Iran-Iraq War, began sending out hints that it might invade Kuwait.
We Essentially told Saddam go ahead (see below). When Iraq did take over Kuwait the then President Bush decided to disprove his alleged stereotype of being a wimp and decided that the most powerful country on earth should wage war on a third world county. A note on Bushs foreign policy hypocrisy: at the time of the Gulf War George Bush was the one head of tate who stood condemned by the world court for the unlawful use of force. Bush contemptuously dismissed the Courts demand for the payment of reparations to Nicaragua, while eager to demand reparations from Iraq.
In 1975 Bush had become head of the CIA, just in time to support the Indonesian extermination of a third the population of East Timor. He supported Israels invasion of Lebanon, and then opposed U. N. resolution 425 demanding an immediate Israeli withdrawal(Simons 325). President Bush was not the altuistic leader, courageously standing up evil. Rather he embodied the global hypocrisy of he U. S. in the modern world.
The U. S. now began scurrying around the globe threatening and buying consensus (there is an advantage to being the largest provider of economic aid, the U. S. can buy support buy offering the cancellation of debt or threaten to halt humanitarian aid (Simons 321). ). The United States War, nearly did not get U. N. approval. Once the World Consensus had been bought the U. S. began one of the largest air bombardments in history, destroying Iraqs infrastructure and murdering thousands of hapless conscripts (Simons 345). Once Iraq was totally decimated by air, the round forces moved in burying hundreds of bodies in the sifting sand in mass graves with no body count, and in direct violation of the Geneva accords (Simons 346).
Iraq was now pushed to the lowest rungs of civilization. It was no wonder then that with no running water, sanitation destroyed, low on food, short on medical supplies, and still under U. N. sanctions that the Iraqi people had, and still have, a vindictive attitude toward the U. S.. What the U. S. did to Iraq is inexcusable, the U. S. and more specifically George Bush needed to prove themselves and they did at the expense of the Iraqi people.
Iraq, a country formed by the British, had been racked by civil wars and internal power struggles from the time the British left, until Saddam came to power; if he were to quickly or unexpectantly disappear from power, Iraq would be plunged into a Lebanese style civil war and power struggle. From the time the British left until Ahmad Hasan al- Bakr came to power Iraq was in chaos, from a never ending power struggle and civil unrest (Schmidt 547). The trouble for the U. S. is that if it decided to eliminate Saddam it would be left with running Iraq until a new leader could be found.
There is also no uarantee that a successor to Saddam would be less hostile to U. S. interests. Saddamism without Saddam is a real possibility, says Richard Haass (Kramer 37). The new Iraqi leader would be free from sanctions as everyone will want to give the new guy a chance, thereby giving him time to rebuild his country and military and again becoming a threat to the ever important U. S. interests in the area. Also a headless Iraq would go the way of Lebanon, fractured among Kurds in the north, Shiites in the south, and Sunnis in the middle egged on by medaling neighbor states, pursuing oil and ethnic interests(McGeary 61).
Saddam is indeed a stabilizing force in the Mid-East, and were he to leave the scene, there would be yet another area of the Mid-East engulfed in violence. It would seem the United States is again contemplating launching a war on Iraq, it is having some difficulty drumming up support. The leaders of Arab countries have voiced strong public objections to an attack on fellow Arabs in Iraq(Menaker 1A). The Arabs after being forced into the first War are now openly expressing opposition to military actions. They do not want thousands of Western troops running amuck in their own countries.
An attack on Iraq by the West would strengthen extremist groups in these countries. In many Arab countries, a U. S. military strike could in fact, produce horrible repercussions in the Arab world giving ammunition to Islamic extremist(Menaker 10A). This would lead to a weakening of moderate support in these countries. Thus, Arab countries would be less tolerant of the U. S. , causing them to use their one effective weapon they have on us, causing oil prices to skyrocket, Which would thereby cause an economic slowdown in oil dependent industries.
An attack would also hamper the already stalled Palestinian eace process, by increasing animosity toward the U. S. and its allies especially Israel. An attack on Iraq would be unpopular to the Arabs, and would have far reaching repercussions. The United States first began to destroy Iraq because Iraq supposedly began a war with Kuwait; however, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was justified, and supported by a majority of the Arab world. In the spring of 1990 Kuwait began in direct violation of OPEC production quotas… flooded the market with more oil then it needed (Simons 305).
Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia brought pressure on the small Sheikhdom, rging it to observe prior agreements, and to work for the collective benefit of the Arab community. Iraq already short on funds, was hurt greatly by Kuwait when its revenue slumped by more than two billion. Iraq was facing economic suffocation. Undeterred Kuwait having invested heavily in refining and marketing facilities(Simons 305), continued to flood the market. It would seem Kuwait was waging economic war on Iraq. Saddam knew the power of this tool; during the Iran-Iraqi War, both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia had worked to flood the market and thereby damage Iran.
Kuwait was in direct violation of OPEC regulations. The other members were incensed at the Kuwaiti attitude, and over the next few months worked in vain to bring Kuwait in line using argumentation and threat. In May, speaking before the heads of state of the OPEC members: in a belligerent tone [Saddam] declared War doesnt mean just tanks, artillery or ships. It can take subtler and more insidious forms such as the overproduction of oil, economic damage and pressure to an enslaving nation(Simons 307). The Kuwaitis economic War was decimating Iraq. So Iraq, with the support of Saudi Arabia and Iran, massed its forces on the Kuwaiti border.
No longer content with punishing Kuwait Saddam decided to assimilate all of Kuwait. Kuwait now having waged economic war on Iraq faced a conventional war it was not ready to fight. Therefore the leadership fled and begged the U. S. for help. The United States government accepted even supported Saddam Hussein and the Baath regime; in the crucial moments before the Gulf War, the U. S. sent a Green Light to Saddam. On the 25 of July 1990, the then U. S. ambassador to Iraq produced the comment, which was perhaps the biggest “Green Light of all: I admire your extraordinary attempts to rebuild your country.
I know you need funds. We understand that, and our opinions that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on Arab- Arab conflicts like your border disagreements with Kuwait (Simons 375). Eight days later at 2:00 A. M. (local time) on August 2 1990, the Iraqi military invaded Kuwait. By 11:00 A. M. (local time) most of the capitals key buildings were in the hands of Iraq. The Kuwaiti Emir, tipped off an hour before, fled to Saudi Arabia. The Iraqi invasion set in motion a series of events that were to have consequences felt around the globe. In early
August 1990, the U. S. was already working to orchestrate the World Consensus, that was to decimate a third world country. It was not the invasion that caught the U. S. by surprise. The U. S. had figured that Iraq would merely attempt to gain a better access to the Gulf. April Glaspie let the cat out of the bag in September 1990, [when] she commented obviously, I didnt think-and nobody else did-that the Iraqis were going to take all of Kuwait(Simons 379). The U. S. , it would seem, did not mind Iraq taking part of Kuwait so long as U. S. oil interests remained intact.
What bothered the U. S. s that Americas oil interest were now in danger. So when Saddam misunderstood the U. S. s allowance of a partial takeover as one for total takeover, Saddam signed his own fate. The United States would do well to try and not dispose of Saddam. While many believe he is a cruel dictator, he in fact is a stabilizing force in the region. The Gulf War was nothing more than ruthless show of force on this third world country. The United States gave Iraq the go ahead and later decided that we should oust Saddam. His absence would cause much larger headaches than the ones he periodically gives now.