From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
Subject: Background to IRAQ-GATE: The Background to the War
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 20:16:53 GMT


    Bush regularly intervened to block congressional censure of their 
    friend's [Saddam's] atrocious human rights record, strenuously 
    opposing any actions that might interfere with profits for US 
    corporations or with Iraq's military build-up. 
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    Saddam's record was already so sordid that the conquest of Kuwait 
    added little to it, but that action was a crime that matters: the 
    crime of independence.  Torture, tyranny, aggression, slaughter of 
    civilians are all acceptable by US-UK standards, but not stepping 
    on our toes.  The standard policies were then set into motion. 
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Section 4 of _What We Say Goes_ by Noam Chomsky, Z magazine's
_Post-War Teach-In_, April 1991 issue. More info on Z by email. 
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@subheading<4. The Background to the War> 

Prior to August 2, 1990, the US and its allies found Saddam 
Hussein an attractive partner.  In 1980, they helped prevent UN 
reaction to Iraq's attack on Iran, which they supported 
throughout.  At the time, Iraq was a Soviet client, but Reagan, 
Thatcher and Bush recognized Saddam Hussein as "our kind of guy" 
and induced him to switch sides.  In 1982, Reagan removed Iraq 
from the list of states that sponsor terror, permitting it to 
receive enormous credits for the purchase of US exports while the 
US became a major market for its oil.  By 1987, Iraq praised 
Washington for its "positive efforts" in the Gulf while 
expressing disappointment over Soviet refusal to join the tilt 
towards Iraq (Tariq Aziz).  US intervention was instrumental in 
enabling Iraq to gain the upper hand in the war.  Western 
corporations took an active role in building up Iraq's military 
strength, notably its weapons of mass destruction.  Reagan and 
Bush regularly intervened to block congressional censure of their 
friend's atrocious human rights record, strenuously opposing any 
actions that might interfere with profits for US corporations or 
with Iraq's military build-up.@note{See my articles in @u<Z 
magazine>, March and October 1990, Feb. 1991, and @u<Deterring 
Democracy> (Verso, forthcoming).  For further reports (lacking 
sources, hence difficult to evaluate), see Pierre Salinger and 
Eric Laurent, @u<Guerre du Golfe> (Olivier Orban, Paris, 1991); 
Adel Darwish and Gregory Alexander, @u<Unholy Babylon> (St. 
Martin's, 1991).  Also Don Oberdorfer, @u<WP Weekly>, Stuart 
Auerbach, @u<WP Weekly>, March 18-24; Michael Massing, @u<New 
York Review>, March 28; Helga Graham, @u<South>, Feb. 1991.} 

Britain was no different.  When Saddam was reported to have 
gassed thousands of Kurds at Halabja, the White House intervened 
to block any serious congressional reaction and not one member of 
the governing Conservative Party was willing to join a left-labor 
condemnation in Parliament.  Both governments now profess outrage 
over the crime, and denounce those who did protest for appeasing 
their former comrade, while basking in media praise for their 
high principle.@note{Darwish, @u<op. cit.>, 79; Tony Benn, et 
al., letter, @u<Manchester Guardian Weekly>, March 31, 1991.} 

It was, of course, understood that Saddam Hussein was one of the 
world's most savage tyrants.  But he was "our gangster," joining 
a club in which he could find congenial associates.  Repeating a 
familiar formula, Geoffrey Kemp, head of the Middle East section 
in the National Security Council under Reagan, observed that "We 
weren't really that naive.  We knew that he was an SOB, but he 
was our SOB." 

By mid-July 1990, our SOB was openly moving troops towards Kuwait 
and waving a fist at his neighbors.  Relations with Washington 
remained warm.  Bush intervened once again to block congressional 
efforts to deny loan guarantees to Iraq.  On August 1, while 
intelligence warned of the impending invasion, Bush approved the 
sale of advanced data transmission equipment to his friendly SOB. 
In the preceding two weeks, licenses had been approved for $4.8 
million in advanced technology products, including computers for 
the Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization, for the 
Saad 16 research center that was later destroyed by bombing on 
grounds that it was developing rockets and poison gas, and for 
another plant that was repeatedly bombed as a chemical weapons 
factory.  The State Department indicated to Saddam that it had no 
serious objection to his rectifying border disputes with Kuwait, 
or intimidating other oil producers to raise the oil price to $25 
a barrel or more.  For reasons that remain unexplained, Kuwait's 
response to Iraqi pressures and initiatives was defiant and 
contemptuous.@note{Auerbach, Salinger, Darwish, @u<op. cit.>} 

The available evidence can be read in various ways.  The most 
conservative (and, in my view, most plausible) reading is that 
Saddam misunderstood the signals as a "green light" to take all 
of Kuwait, possibly with the intention of setting up a puppet 
government behind which he would keep effective power (on the 
model of the US in Panama and many other cases), possibly as a 
bargaining chip to achieve narrower ends, possibly with broader 
goals.  That was unacceptable: no independent force is permitted 
to gain significant control over the world's major energy 
reserves, which are to be in the hands of the US and its clients. 

Saddam's record was already so sordid that the conquest of Kuwait 
added little to it, but that action was a crime that matters: the 
crime of independence.  Torture, tyranny, aggression, slaughter 
of civilians are all acceptable by US-UK standards, but not 
stepping on our toes.  The standard policies were then set into 
motion. 
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