President George H W Bush and the First Iraq War (1991)
excerpted from the book
Lying for Empire
How to Commit War Crimes With A Straight Face
by David Model
p198
George H. W. Bush discovered a way to go back in time. You take a modern, industrialized country with a modern infrastructure and drop 88,500 tons of explosives on it and, presto, you have bombed it back into the pre-industrialized age.
p198
From about 1968 to 1991, Iraq enjoyed considerable economic progress with electricity and water available to the entire country. Since 1982 the government built 18 new hospitals some of which were renowned in the Middle East. Health care was virtually free and education was universal and free through college. Food was both inexpensive and abundant. People without land were offered low-interest loans on the condition that the land became productive within five years. Malnutrition was non-existent. A strong infrastructure of highways, dams, hydroelectric power, flood control, irrigation systems, and an efficient telephone system contributed to the growing strength of the economy.
Iraq was at the forefront of the Arab world in its treatment of women. In 1969, the government created the General Federation of Iraqi Women to campaign on behalf of women's rights. By 1983, the Federation launched a four-year plan to encourage women to seek employment.
Overshadowing these advances was the rule of Saddam Hussein who assumed the presidency in 1979 and maintained his rule through one of the most oppressive internal security apparatuses in the world.
Added to the hardships imposed by Saddam Hussein, George H. W. Bush bombed the country resulting in a loss of electricity and clean water, factories in ruins and many homes a mass of rubble. The economy was virtually annihilated. Over 100,000 people were killed in a period of several months. Iraq was again in ruins. After several months of primarily U.S. bombing, one of the most advanced nations in the Middle East was virtually reduced to rubble.
p208
The United States used Kuwait as the spark to ignite the Iraqi tinderbox. f Capitalizing on all of the disputes between Iraq and Kuwait, U.S. leaders encouraged Kuwait to continue the above policies in order to provoke Iraq into an invasion in which the Americans would claim to be neutral. In fact, as discussed below, they planned to use the invasion as a pretext to declare war on Iraq. The war on Iraq would bring Iraq and its oil into the American Empire.
Saddam Hussein was not prepared to invade Kuwait without either the approval or indifference of the United States. Saddam Hussein met with the American ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie on July 25, 1990, to seek out the U. S. position on an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The following is part of the transcript of the conversation:
U.S. Ambassador Glaspie-I have direct instruction from President Bush to improve our relations with Iraq. We have considerable sympathy for your quest for higher oil prices, the immediate cause of your confrontation with Kuwait. As you know, I lived here for years and admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. We can see that you have employed massive numbers of troops in the south. Normally that would be none of our business but when this happens in the context of your threats against Kuwait, then it would be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this reason, I have received instructions to ask you, in the spirit of friendship, not confrontation-regarding your intentions. Why are your troops massed so very close to Kuwait's border?
Saddam Hussein-As you know, for years I have made every effort to reach a settlement in our dispute with Kuwait. There is to be a meeting in two days. I am prepared to give negotiations this one more brief chance. But if we are unable to find a solution, then it would be natural that Iraq will not accept death.
U.S. Ambassador Glaspie-What solutions would be acceptable?
Saddam Hussein-(A list of conditions). What is the United States opinion on this?
U.S. Ambassador Glaspie-We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary of State James Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America. (http://www.whatreallyhappened. com!ARTICLES/APRIL.html)
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The Invisible Babies Snatched from Incubators
The stage was set for the inevitable war against Iraq. Iraq had invaded ( Kuwait, Saudi Arabia had agreed to become the staging ground, and Saddam Hussein had been depicted as the Middle Eastern equivalent of Hitler who posed a threat to the region. To win the support of the American people, Washington hired a number of public relations firms to educate the American people about the necessity of declaring war against Iraq. Kuwait funded an estimated 20 public relations firms, lobby groups, and law firms including the Rendon Group (public relations) for a retainer of $100,000, Neill & Co. (lobbyists) for $50,000 per month, and Hill & Knowlton (the world's largest public relations firm at the time) which served as mastermind for the Kuwaiti campaign. Craig Fuller who ran the Washington office of Hill & Knowlton was one of President Bush's closest friends and advisors. Some of their activities included arranging media interviews for visiting Kuwaitis, setting up days of observance such as National Free Kuwait Day, organizing public rallies, releasing hostage letters to the media, distributing news releases and information kits, contacting politicians at all levels, and producing dozens of video news releases which were distributed to the media.
Hill & Knowlton invented a horror story to evoke a strong emotional response to strengthen public support for a war against Iraq. On October 10 the Congressional Human Rights Caucus on Capitol Hill held a hearing on Iraqi human rights violations. Although the hearing bore a resemblance to a congressional proceeding, the ad hoc Human Rights Caucus was, in fact, nothing more than an association of politicians. The caucus was chaired by Democrat Tom Lantos and Republican John Porter who were also cochairs of the Congressional Human Rights Foundation whose offices were located in Hill & Knowlton's Washington office and were rent-free. John R. MacArthur, in Second Front, observed that:
On October 10, the congressional Human Rights Caucus provided the first formal opportunity for Amnesty [International]-and Hill & Knowlton present their evidence against Iraq on Capitol Hill. Conveniently for the Washington war party and its burgeoning Saddam-is-Hitler industry, the caucus provided the appropriately informal setting in which to spread hysteria. The Human Rights Caucus is not a committee of Congress and therefore it is unencumbered by the legal accoutrements that would make a witness hesitate before he or she lied.
The emotionally-charged horror story came from a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl named Nayirah who supposedly could not reveal her last name for fear of putting friends and family still in Kuwait at risk. She tearfully recounted that she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers taking babies from incubators and leaving them on the cold floor to die. She also provided written testimony, which was packaged in media kits prepared by Citizens for a Free Kuwait.
The story was repeated frequently by President Bush who claimed that 312 babies had suffered the same fate. It was also repeated on television, radio and at the Security Council. According to the Center for Media and Democracy in How PR Sold the War in the Persian Gulf
Public opinion was deeply divided on Bush's Gulf policy. As late as December 1990, a New York Times/CBS News poll indicated that 48 percent of the American people wanted Bush to wait before taking any action if Iraq failed to withdraw from Kuwait by Bush's January 15 deadline. On January 12, the US Senate voted by a narrow, five-point margin to support the Bush administration in a declaration of war. Given the narrowness of the vote, the babies-thrown-from-incubators story may have turned the tide in Bush's favor.
The real horror story was not about babies and incubators but about how the U.S. government used a lie to sell a war in which over 100,000 people died. Hill & Knowlton had omitted a minor detail about the identity of the 15-year-old Kuwaiti volunteer, namely that she was, in fact, the daughter of Saud Nasir al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. They also failed to mention that she had been coached by Hill & Knowlton before her appearance in front of the Caucus.
After the war, human rights investigators and reporters completely discredited the story. John Martin, an ABC news reporter, traveled to Kuwait and on March, 15 1991, and interviewed Dr. Mohammed Matar, director of Kuwait's health-care system and his wife Dr. Fayeza Youseff, chief of obstetrics at the maternity hospital. They both denied any knowledge of babies being snatched from incubators. Martin also visited al-Addan hospital where Nayirah had claimed that she witnessed the removal of 15 babies from incubators. Dr. Fahima Khafaji, a pediatrician at the hospital, refuted the stories of Nayirah.
Amnesty International, a highly respected international human rights group, had lent support to the story in a report on human rights abuses in Kuwait. In its press release, Amnesty promoted the story as fact. It cited two unidentified doctors and Nayirah's testimony to the Caucus. The Bush administration should have been given credit for duping an organization which prides itself on its scrupulous research. One month later, Amnesty discovered the truth and issued a retraction on April 1991.
In Second Front, John R. MacArthur quotes John Chancellor of ABC when he wrote that:
"The conflict brought with it a baggage train of myth and misconception, exaggeration and hyperbole... Accounts of lraqi atrocities were accepted without question. There was the tale of premature babies thrown out of incubators in a L Kuwait hospital and left to die. It never happened..."
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/American_Empire/BushI_Iraq_LFE.html
