US strategy for Iraq was supportive up to the end of the GDR and Saddam is said to have been a CIA asset. Iraq was a counterbalance against Soviet client Syria and was the ideal instrument for defeating Iran, which had become a non-aligned power and therefore a menace for the bipolar global system, not to mention oil prices.
After the wall came down, the US and client Gulf states withdrew their support from Iraq and Saddam had to pull out of his war with Iran with nothing to show but a pile of debt. His appeals to the US and former Gulf backers went unanswered. The Gulf states are known to cave in to extortion by heavily armed parties, but in this case they had suddenly become very brave. Kuwait went even a further and taunted Iraq by drilling sideways across the border into Iraqi oilfields.
Growing increasingly desperate, Saddam send his crack Hammurabi division to the border and it was photographed up by a US intelligence satellite on July 16, 1990. The US Ambassador then paid Saddam a visit on July 25, while troop buildup continued, and told him: "We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflict, like your border disagreement with Kuwait." (...)"I have direct instructions from the president to seek better relations with Iraq." I'll quote the rest from George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin, Ch. 24 , available at www.tarpley.net :
"According to the Iraqi transcript of this meeting, Glaspie stressed that this had always been the US 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." [fn 32] Saddam Hussein illustrated Iraq's economic grievances and need of economic assistance for postwar reconstruction, points for which Ms. Glaspie expressed full US official comprehension. Shortly after this, April Glaspie left Kuwait to take her summer vacation, another signal of elaborate US government disinterest in the Kuwait-Iraq crisis."
That no mention of the troops on the Kuwaiti border was made really stretches the limits of plausible deniability.
When Iraq finally did invade, the entire region had fallen into the trap of US deception and provocation. Cheney flew to Saudi and bullied the extremely reticent Fahd into accepting US troops on his soil. By the time Fahd gave his OK, the first US troops had _already landed_. When it was all over, Saddam was still there, and so was the best part of his army. Fahd was trapped and could no longer ask the US to withdraw its troops. In fact, he had to foot a large part of the bill for the war and agree to buy even more arms from the US (with US loans), making Saudi the world's biggest arms buyer. Even Schwartzkopf admitted the Saudis didn't know how to use the stuff they were buying. Pressure from US oil companies and banks followed, and Saudi had to sign over a hefty chunk of oil rights.
So US policy for the Gulf, Iran, and Iraq is based on exploiting the Gulf states politically, militarily, and economically, while keeping Iraq and Iran under control but hostile, so that the Gulf states have no alternative but to cave to US pressure. The architects of this policy are the rapacious, racist, and antidemocratic right-wing coalition headed by George Bush Sr. and inherited by his pathetic offspring.
Hakki Alacakaptan
|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
|| [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Luke Weiger
|| Sent: 11 Kasim 2001 Pazar 04:02
|| To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
|| Subject: Re: Chelsea heckles anti-war rally
||
||
|| Jordan wrote:
|| > Remind me what the policy goal is in Iraq? It's certainly not
|| > "driving a dictator out of power" . . .
|| >
|| > /jordan
||
|| The initial goal was merely cheaper oil, which is why most Democratic
|| Senators voted against the war and also why Bush Sr. was
|| content to pull out
|| before sacking Baghdad (side note: few have mentioned how the fall of
|| Hussein during the Gulf War would've saved the Iraqi lives lost to
|| sanctions). However, deposing Hussein became a policy
|| initiative after the
|| war and continues to be one.
||
|| -- Luke
||