Desert Storm in all it's glory: the strategy, apparently, was to weaken him, but not remove. A 'tame' dictator being better than a fractious Democracy.
"...Examining Gulf War I brings us up-to-date. Then, as now, the official mission was to get Hussein, the latest Hitler -- but when the war ended, he was still there. Going after Saddam personally would have cost American lives, we were told. But then Iraqi rebels tried to depose Hussein, and our troops stood down as Saddam crushed them.
PR firms were hired to promote the war -- described in detail in John MacArthur's book, "Second Front." For example, the fall of the real Kuwait, a dictatorship which was probably stealing Iraqi oil, was not likely to create a great deal of sympathy here. Hill & Knowlton, then the world's largest PR firm, was hired to invent and deploy the now infamous incubator story, in which the Kuwaiti ambassador's daughter falsely claimed to have witnessed Iraqi soldiers dumping newborn babies out of hospital incubators and leaving them to die.
Five years later, Bush senior's advisor Brent Scowcroft told the BBC that the war was really about oil. Not surprising. Weak dictators are preferred for maintaining stability and oil flow in the region. Hussein's flaw, despite the PR, was not his crimes, but that he'd become too strong and independent. The strategy, apparently, was to weaken him, but not remove. With rebels dead and civilians devastated by our sanctions, a weaker Hussein would not be overthrown."
>>> The lack of strategic vision in the Bush I administration could hardly be made more clear. Use of military force to advance 'American' multi-national interests... instead of the national interests of the American Democracy. |
