PART FOUR: THE IRAQI PERSPECTIVE

Kuwait is a single industry country and that industry is run as a family business. Thus Kuwait is effectively owned and run by the al-Sabah family. Most of the country, with a few isolated exceptions, is desert and, as a consequence, all of the population is concentrated in cities. Kuwait city is an artificially sustained metropolis which survives only by using its oil revenues to import all that it needs - even the water has to be piped in from desalination plants on the Persian Gulf. It is one of many desert cities in the Gulf which Jeremy Seabrook described as, "a shining monument to the power of human beings to live independently of the resource base of the earth; a celebration of the conquest of nature. The fact that they can be sustained only at the expense of environmental ruin and monstrous social injustice elsewhere in the world is rigorously excluded from the accounting system,.." (New Statesman 15.2.91. p.12).

The al-Sabahs were a Bedouin family who in 1756 merged with two other families and settled down in the area known as Kuwait. This outpost of the Ottoman empire would have remained of no significance if it had not been for the fact that in the 'Great Game' the British unilaterally designated the area an independent domain in order to block German access to the Persian Gulf and prevent the Germans increasing their influence in the Gulf. The country was granted its independence by Britain in 1961.

Today, Kuwait has 1.9 million residents, less than a million are nationals of whom only 60,000 have the vote (no women). Parliament has no constitutional independence of its own but exists solely at the whim of the ruler and has been suspended for the last three years.

The primary role of the Kuwaiti ruling family is to extract the area's oil resources, sell them, for a huge profit, to multinational oil companies and thus perpetuate their cornucopian dicatorship. The al-Sabah's have acquired a colossal fortune and enjoy a sumptious, extravagant lifestyle. Kuwait, therefore, is little different from the enclave that South Africa has created in Namibia in order to retain ownership of the area's precious resources.

The government provides a relatively lavish and comprehensive scheme of social welfare for its subjects but migrant workers, like anywhere else in the world, are not well treated. The only people who do not benefit are the Arab masses who live in relative poverty. They not only have to suffer the indignity of poverty; the injustice of being denied a fair share of what are their own resources; the injustice of watching their own resources being stolen out of their mouths for the benefit of prodigal Northern consumers; they also have to endure the revolting spectale of a few thousand grossly over-privileged, decadent, individuals belonging to the al-Sabah family living it up at their expense. These resources rightfully belong to Arab masses.

After the ravages of the war with Iran, Iraq found itself facing a mountain of debt that some have estimated at nearly $60 billion and Iraq needed to rebuild after the damage that had been caused by the war with Iran. Whilst Saddam's position as President was under no immediate threat, the debt threatened to cause severe long term domestic troubles which would eventually have undermined his survival in power. This predicament was heightened by moves to impose sanctions against Iraq, even before the invasion of Kuwait, which would have caused considerable domestic turmoil. At that time, it was only Bush who kept such pressures in check. Saddam was being squeezed from a number of directions and the answer to many of his problems lay in oil rich Kuwait.

Saddam deperately needed Kuwait's natural resources and its huge investment portfolios to repay Iraq's mounting foreign debts.

Iraq had a valid, although not legitimate, claim to the area that British imperialists had unilaterally and illegally bequeathed to Kuwait - although this does not justify its invasion of Kuwait. The explanations of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait that have been presented by the British media tend to concentrate on the personality of Saddam Hussein who is variously described as power hungry, a new Hitler or a madman. But, Saddam didn't just pop into Kuwait to exercise his lust for power. There is a tradition of Iraqi leaders who have claimed Kuwait as part of Iraq, so the desire to annexe it is nothing peculiar to Saddam's personality.

The strongest case Iraq could have put forward for the annexation of Kuwait was a moral one that it would redistribute the area's resources more fairly amongst the Arab masses. Hoever, Saddam Hussein's preoccupation with military expansion undermined the validity of this claim.

The Middle East is divided up at one end of the spectrum, into small countries with huge oil reserves and, at the other end, large countries with massive populations and much smaller natural resources. The wealth owned by the small, oil rich countries is staggering and has led to the adoption of sumptious lifestyles whose extravagance borders on the revolting. The divide between the rich and the poor in the Arab world is considerable and is a constant source of social tensions and instability.

What increases the gulf in wealth between the rich and the poor and exacerbates the hatred between them is that many of the small, oil rich states earn more from their investments in the West than they do from their oil revenues. This means it is in their interests to keep oil prices down even though this is at the expense of impoverishing the great mass of Arab people. The ruling elites are getting richer and richer because they are willing to sacrifice the Arab masses who consequently find themselves increasingly impoverished.

It is intolerable that millions of people live in semi-poverty whilst a few enjoy such utter luxury they can afford to own luxury homes in some of the major capital cities thoughout the world. When the Iraqi troops moved into Kuwait and took over the palaces and homes of the ruling elite, which had fled abroad, they were confronted by a level of wealth they had probably never even been able to dream about. The fact that many of these luxury homes were looted had nothing to do with the aggressiveness of the Iraqi army but the sheer outrage that many soldiers from poor backgrounds must have felt when confronted by such opulence, and the injustice that revenues earnt from oil had been expropriated by this elite rather than shared with everyone. Arab oil belongs to the Arab people not an elite propped up by western governments.

The looting and pillaging that took place when Iraqi troops entered the city was all too understandable given the intense hatred which many poor Arabs have for those who luxurious lifestyles were nothing less than obscene. 

It was extremely pleasing, then, to hear that the luxury apartments of the Kuwaiti' elite had been ransacked and burnt and the sooner the remainder of this decadent bunch of parasites can be dispossessed of their ill-gotten loot, much of it invested in luxury homes in Britain, the better. It is hoped that one day the same will happen in Saudi Arabia and the other tiny, oil rich Gulf states. These people are nothing but criminals and should be treated as such. If those currently in power do not radically change their policies to meet the needs of the Arab masses then they should be dragged out of power. This injustice between the rich and the poor in the Middle East was one of Saddam's most justifiable reasons for invading Kuwait.

Public opinion in Britain didn't seem to be in the least bit disturbed that British troops would lay down their lives for an excessively wealthy set of despots who couldn't give a damn about them. If British people knew about the Kuwaiti' elites lifestyle then it is highly likely that many would think twice about lifting a finger to go to their defence. Wealthly Kuwaitis are nothing more than casino capitalists.

Even worse is that it doesn't seem to ranckle the great British public that there are thousands of homeless people in London whilst wealthy Kuwaitis own mansions which they rarely used except on rare visits to their art collections. The wealth of the Kuwaiti elite is so vast they own homes in many of the major cities in countries all over the world, "August in Kuwait is usually escape time. It is the time to go to that second home in London or Cannes or California." (Kathy Evans, Guardian 3.8.90. p.2). It is time these homes were turned over to the homeless.

Social justice, however, is not merely confined to the redistribution of wealth but to civil rights. No matter how repressive the Iraqi dictatorship may have been as a semi-secular society it allowed far more individual rights than either Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. It has already been pointed out that women are not allowed to drive cars in Saudi Arabia. This has nothing to do with Islamic culture - the Prophet Mohammet could hardly be expected to oppose the prospect of women at the wheel. In Saudi Arabia there are signs in public places which prohibit women from certain areas, "I have seen not dissimilar signs before, in another country with the initials SA, but it is a long while since we have fought shoulder to shoulder with them for Truth, Justice and the American Way." (Matthew Engel Guardian 22.2.91. p.3).

It is one of those bloody ironies of history that the British deliberately created Kuwait to block German access to the Persian Gulf and then found itself having to go to war because land-locked Iraq wanted better access to the sea.

There were a number of conflicts between Iraq and Kuwait which increased the temptation Saddam had to invade Kuwait. Firstly, prior to the invasion, Kuwait had been extracting more than its fair share from the Rumaila oilfield, which straddles the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border. Secondly, it had been deliberately flouting its OPEC oil quotas thereby breaking its agreements with its Arab neighbours including, of course, Iraq. It was in Kuwait's financial interests to keep down oil prices because it obtained bigger profits from its investments than from its sales of oil. Unfortunately, this inflicted substantial financial losses on Iraq just at the time when it needed to rebuild after the war.

On the other hand, Kuwait had given huge loans to Iraq, "Kuwaiti officials say that the sum was not more than $14 billion but others put it as high as $40 billion." (Jasper Becker, Guardian 26.2.91. p.4). These loans had been offered to enable Iraq to conduct the war against Iran since Kuwait feared that it might be invaded by Iran. 

Middle East politics is a complex phenomenon but the most important trend over the last few years has been Zionist expansionism triggered off by the end of the Cold War and America's success in persuading Russia to allow its Jewish population to emigrate. The prospect of Israel increasing its population by almost 50% sent shock waves through the Arab world because, in the long run, it meant that a bigger and richer Israeli economy, which could fund a bigger and more powerful military, would considerably enhance the Israeli government's prospects of pursuing its increasingly expansionist objectives, "Yitzak Shamir, Israel's Prime Minister said, "Big immigration requires Israel to be big as well. We need the space to house all those people." (Daily Telegraph 16.1.90. p.9).

The prime reason tempting Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, therefore, was to acquire the economic and strategic resources necessary to defend itself and the Arab world from the long term expansionist designs of the Israeli government. The invasion of Kuwait was a defensive move against Zionism.

However, given all of these influences, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait he did not do so in the hope or the expectation that he would be attacked. If anything he looked upon Kuwait as Iraq's reward for its proxy American war against Iran. And he believed the American government was willing to pay the price for the hundreds of thousands of gallons of Iraqi blood that had been shed on its behalf during the war with Iran. He had shown his cautiousness by waiting at the Kuwaiti border for a week and this had led him to believe that, with the exception of a few angry denunciations and the usual meaningless resolutions in the United Nations, he wouldn't be punished for the invasion. Little did this devious dictator realize that he was dealing with someone who was even more devious.

xvi) IRAQ'S WAR AIMS; RADICALIZING THE ARABS/MOSLEMS 

The invasion of Kuwait was easy, its annexation turned out to be a little more difficult. When Saddam Hussein realized that he had made a mistake and that the world community intended to punish Iraq for its invasion, he believed the Allies would never attack. But, when it became evident that he had made yet another miscalculation, and that the Allies intended to go to war against Iraq, he believed the Allies were just bluffing. And yet, when it became obvious that the Allies were not bluffing, he refused to withdraw. Saddam entertained hopes for a military victory but, at the very least, he could absorb a military defeat if it meant a political victory. 

Saddam's hopes for a military victory stemmed from three sources. Firstly, after the grisly experience of the Vietnam war, the American public might be unable to stomach the sight of large numbers of body bags (or 'Human Remains Pouches' as they were to be called later) being flown back to America. Secondly, the longer the war could be kept going, the greater the Allies' economic costs, until the point was reached where the war became too expensive. Thirdly, the hope of sparking off popular Islamic revolts which could, in the short term, force Islamic governments to withdraw from the Allied Coalition, and in the longer term, lead to revolutions in which Islamic fundamentalist governments took power and joined Iraq in the war against the infidels.

The first hope proved to be mistaken. The Allies were aware of the threat and imposed far tighter reporting restrictions on the media than those prevailing during the Vietnam war. Very few of the war reports shown on television were shocking enough to revolt Allied audiences and turn them against the war - virtually the sole exception being the devastation of the Al Amiriya civilian air raid shelter in Baghdad which happened a month into the war. When the ground war came, far from being a nightmare it turned to be a celebratory lap of dishonour - the war had already been won.

The second hope also turned out to be forlorn. When the war started, contrary to expectations, the price of oil fell and remained at a low level throughout the duration of the war which prevented any serious damage to the global economy. The financial costs of the war on the American economy were also minimized by huge donations from countries which supported the Allied effort. In the long term, however, there will be costs to the global economy but these will not be of any help to Saddam Hussein.

Thirdly, for a long while Saddam had regarded himself as a secularist and an Arab nationalist (sometimes referred to as a pan Arabist) who sought to unite the Arab world. However, when the Islamic revolution in Iran threatened to undermine his regime (especially because most Iraqi's are Shi'ites like those in Iran whilst Iraq's ruling elite was drawn primarily from the Sunni minority) he adopted the trappings of Islam in order to retain his grip on power. As a result, his ambitions mutated and expanded, "Islam has entered the battleground as a powerful ideological weapon. The struggle for the mantle of the 'true' Islam is no longer between Tehran and Riyadh but between Baghdad and Riyadh." (Falih 'Abd al-Jabbar, Guardian 11.2.91).

Instead of trying to win international recognition by focussing upon Arab nationalism he started to present himself as a Moslem leader to tap support from Muslim nations around the world which, in addition to the Arab countries, includes Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, Russia (70 million Moslems make up one-fifth of the Soviet population), Indonesia, Malaysia, etc., "Saddam's ambitions seem no longer restricted to becoming the leader of the Arab world but the military, political and spiritual Imam of all Muslims." (Falih 'Abd al-Jabbar, Guardian 11.2.91).

The scale of the potential conflict which Saddam hoped to ignite was profound. One pundit believed, "The war of 1991 will eventually unleash an Arab and Islamic response that will battle on indefinitely even if it takes a 100 years. This conflict is the beginning of a long war between the United States and the Arabs, a struggle between Western fundamentalism (George Bush praying for victory with Billy Graham) and the faith of Islam." (Richard Gott, Guardian 29.1.91. p.19). The Gulf war threatened to radicalize and militarize a billion Arabs/Moslems throughout the world which would make global, let alone regional, 'peace and security' extremely difficult to maintain.

To a significant extent Arab/Islamic nationalism is a legitimate objective. It has been pointed out in an earlier section that it is essential for the Arab/Muslim world to unite so that it can take its place alongside the other power blocs that are emerging around the world. If it does not then the Middle East will continue to be treated as a looting ground for the benefit of western consumers.

Saddam's three main tactics for radicalizing the Moslems were, firstly, to bring Israel into the war; secondly, to show how heroic the Iraqi military and people could be in the face of overwhelming military odds in order to inspire Moslems all over the world into action; and, thirdly, to expose the Allies' real war aim and thus prove to the Islamic world just how monstrous the Allies were so that Moslems would feel compelled to come to Iraq's rescue. 

Saddam's hopes for a military victory, however, did not lie in mere wishful thinking, as if what we are concerned with here is merely a ruthless idealist. They rested on other, more structural, considerations. But, as it transpired, these considerations were no less fleeting because Saddam utterly failed to change the allegiance of any of the Arab governments in the Allied Coalition and no Moslem government outside the coalition came to his support. At the end of the war there was greater Arab/Moslem unity against him than for him.

xvii) IRAQ'S STRUCTURAL IMPERATIVE

It has been argued in an earlier section that behind the United Nations' mandate for the war the Allies had a 'secret' objective - the destruction of the Iraqi military and its industrial military capability and the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The Iraqis had been aware of this objective ever since Thatcher publicly expressed her desire to see Saddam tried by a war crimes' tribunal.

To most political leaders this threat, and the frightening carnage it implied, would have been enough to force them to back down and avoid the conflict. But, to Saddam Hussein, this threat was regarded as an opportunity since he calculated that it would be completely unacceptable not merely to the vast majority of Moslem peoples but, much more importantly, to most Arab/Moslem governments around the world and to the Soviet Union which allowed military advisers to work alongside the Iraqi military all through the war. No matter how much they might wish to see Iraq evicted from Kuwait; no matter how much they might personally detest him; no matter how much they might believe he deserved to be cut down to size; and no matter how much they might wish to see him toppled; they would not want to see Iraq destroyed and then occupied. Saddam believed he was invincible sheltering behind this fig leaf.

The reasons why Moslem governments would not approve of Iraq's destruction have been outlined earlier; they would lose out economically, since trade with Iraq would collapse, and they feared the instability that would be caused if neighbouring countries tried to annexe parts of Iraq. But, most of all they feared that if Iraq was destroyed then Israel would step into the vacuum and exercise its expansionist objectives. With a few exceptions, most Moslem governments hated the Israelis far more than they could ever hate Saddam Hussein. If he could trigger Israel into the war there would be an immediate response from Moslem states. Even assuming that by some miracle, Israel could be kept out of the war, many Moslem governments were concerned about the long term threat posed by Zionist expansionism.

Saddam calculated that, given the threat posed by Zionist expansionism, it would not be in the interests of the vast majority of the Moslem world to allow the Allies to inflict wholesale destruction on Iraq and that the longer the destruction went on, the greater the pressure that Islamic states would exert on the Allies to call off the war and thus come to Iraq's rescue.

Similar considerations applied to the Soviet Union. As a former superpower, it would be reluctant to allow the destruction of an old ally. Also, the war would cause turmoil amongst the Soviet Union's huge Moslem populations that this would force the Soviet government to go to Iraq's aid in its hour of need.

This, then, was the structural imperative, the safety net, behind Saddam's war aims should the radicalization of Islamic peoples fail to materialize. However, the success of these calculations depended almost entirely on how much damage Iraq was willing to absorb during the aerial bombardment and how long it could hold out during a ground war.

These calculations, like all the others, turned out to be a disasterous mistake. After soaking up six weeks of the biggest aerial bombardment in history which virtually knocked the country out of the industrial age, Saddam had succeeded in arousing Moslems around the world but had failed to dislodge any Moslem government. His only success in winning support from Moslem leaders was King Hussein of Jordan, "This war is a war against all Arabs and Muslims." (Guardian 8.2.91. p.21) but even this did not bring Jordan into the war. The economic clout that the Allies had at their disposal would have made it suicidal for any Moslem government to support Iraq since it would have been severely punished financially after the war. This was true even for the Soviet Union. Saddam failed to realize that the Soviet Union was no longer a superpower.

Given the fact that the Allied Coalition held together and that neither Iran nor the Soviet Union seemed willing to go to Iraq's rescue, it was only a question of when Saddam would admit his diplomatic failures and withdraw from Kuwait. It came with the bombing of the Al Amiriya shelter which was used by the families of the Iraqi elite. If anything brought home the nightmare of the war to those who were most bunkered against it, this was it. The day after the strike, Saddam made his first plea for peace.

xviii) SADDAM'S PUBLICITY VICTORIES

Whilst domestic opinion in Allied countries was busy demonizing Saddam Hussein, Iraq had been doing the same to Allied leaders in the hope of radicalizing the Islamic world. Many people in Allied countries would find it inconceivable that Saddam was anything but a monster and that the Allies were anything but angels, but Iraq's attempts to expose the Allies as monstrous, evil, barbarians was, unfortunately, all too easy. The Allies seemed to go out of their way to present Saddam Hussein with publicity gifts.

The Allies' first major publicity giveaway to Saddam Hussein was the United Nations' sanctions on food and medicines. It is difficult to imagine a more callous, cruel or despicable act than to deny people medicines and it was bound to provoke revulsion amongst any decent human beings, Moslems or not. Whilst the war was in progress, film footage of people lying injured in a hospital without medicines was bound to provoke fury. And justifiably so. Societies which deny medicines to civilian or military casualties of war are utterly sick.

The second was Thatcher's gory elaboration of her own personal war aims in which she warned about the need for war crimes' trials. This produced wonderment even in Britain but to Moslems it must have smacked of an almost medieval imperialism. The prospect of Saddam's head being served on a plate to her Imperial Majesty Salami Thatcher must have produced a spasm of outrage amongst Moslems throughout the world - even those who found Saddam Hussein politically repugnant and opposed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Nevertheless, Thatcher's threat to put Saddam on trial was taken up by an increasing number of politicians, military experts, academics and other over-paid, over-privileged, lunatics enjoying their moment of megalomania. They were so busy indulging in their power fantasies they didn't seem to realize that to Saddam Hussein these were welcome political gifts.

Thirdly, the point was often made in Allied countries that it would be easier to assassinate Saddam Hussein than fight a long and bitter war. The American government has a long record of assassination attempts on political leaders, e.g. Allende, Castro, Gaddafy etc., but although Congress had passed a law to prohibit this practice, General Michael Dugan, Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, was quoted as saying the air force would target Saddam. Obviously, he'd forgotten that it was one thing to disobey the law and secretly assassinate heads of state but quite another to boast about it in public and, as a result, he was sacked. (Throughout the war the Allies continued to deny this was a war aim. However, they pointed out, in consolation, that they were entitled to kill him as leader of Iraq's armed forces, and to bomb the buildings in which he might be doing military work. If this didn't work there was always the possibility of a war crimes' trial after the war in which the Iraqi leader would be hung).

The fourth publicity victory which the Allies handed the Iraqi's was the discovery that Israeli was refusing to issue gas masks to the Palestinians. Not even Saddam Hussein had held hostages in so many numbers as the Israeli government.

One of the most substantial publicity scoops the Allies laid at Saddam's feet, was their insistence that, in this dispute, there was no linkage with Israel. Every time the Allies reiterated this view, and they did so with considerable regularity, more and more Moslems shifted their support to Iraq because it showed how evil and partisan the Allies were. If the United Nations had been unwilling to make Israel leave the occupied areas why should it force Iraq to leave Kuwait? If Moslems were to support the Allies in ejecting Iraq from Kuwait (after all the only way to get Israel out of the occupied areas was if Iraq withdrew from Kuwait) they wanted some guarantee from the Allies that Israel would also be forced to withdraw and one way of providing this assurance was to accept linkage. There were no ifs or buts about it; Moslems saw a linkage and, perhaps more crucially, fervently desired a linkage because the Palestinian problem was a psychological sore which desperately needed to be healed. If the Allies wanted to win the peace, and not merely the war, they should have admitted a linkage. 

But, in its way, the Allies' non-linkage stance was a publicity boost for the Palestinians. The Americans and the Israelis had tried to keep the Palestinian cause out of the news but everytime they proclaimed there was not a linkage they ended up publicizing it.

The greatest publicity victory for Saddam, however, was the Allies' widely debated 'secret' war aim to conquer and demilitarize Iraq. Before the start of the war, everytime they failed to clarify their war aims; everytime they talked about the need for putting Saddam on trial; and, everytime they emphasized the need to destroy the Iraqi military machine, etc., Moslems feared that the Allies had decided to obliterate Iraq.

If there was more than enough evidence before the war that the Allies had a secret war aim, the aerial war proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Allies were pursuing this objective. The bombing clearly went far beyond military targets and military related targets. The Allies deliberately terrorized the civilian population in order to turn the Iraqi people against their leader. The reason the Allies bombed Baghdad so heavily was because when the ground war started Baghdad would have been their first objective had Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons.

Gradually, as the aerial war proceeded, more and more Moslems became convinced that the Allies had deceived the United Nations and were pursuing their own war aims far beyond the remit of resolution 678. This was confirmed, at the highest possible level, when Perez de Cuellar, General Secretary of the United Nations, stated that, "This is a United States war, not a United Nations war." (Guardian 13.2.91. p.21). The more that Saddam Hussein succeeded in exposing this secret war aim, the more the Islamic world perceived that the Allies really were akin to 'The Great Satan' and must be stopped.

Given the central role played by the media in the life of all the Allied countries it was peculiar in the extreme that the Allies committed so many publicity gaffes. It is difficult to determine the cause; perhaps it was due to their confidence in achieving their objective. Perhaps it had something to do with the poverty of their political life. Given America's vast wealth, its huge population, its vast educational, scientific and technological facilities, it seems incapable of electing as Presidents talented, political heavyweights. Instead there have been a succession of narrow minded, wallies from President Ford, to Reagan and then Bush. It is something of a shock to find that an allegedly backward, country like Iraq is capable of producing a leader who has transparently more gravitas than either Bush or Major.

Another possible reason for these public relations' disasters was that Allied politicians were so preoccupied with maintaining domestic support for the war they were oblivious to the effect their statements were having on Moslem opinion. They continually addressed themselves to their domestic audience as if they were the only people who really mattered and yet the fear of a Moslem backlash to the Allies' attack on Iraq was a commonly held view in Allied countries.

Whilst the Allies concentrated on winning over domestic opinion and virtually ignored the Moslem world, the reverse was true for Iraq. Saddam's main audience was not Iraq but the Moslem world. Although he made some efforts to win Allied public opinion, he seemed willing to undermine peace movements in Allied countries for gains within the Moslem world. What is more, he was even prepared to outrage Allied public opinion for gains in the Moslem world. Saddam seemed to commit minor breeches of the Geneva Convention, such as the keeping of civilian hostages, showing captured pilots on television etc., in order to ferment Allied talk about war crimes' trials and their 'secret agenda' because this infuriated Moslems and drove them to support Iraq.

On the political front, Saddam won a number of fleeting victories; the most obvious of which was that in both the Moslem, and the Third, World he was regarded for six weeks or so as a hero for having dared to stand up to the vast might of the American military. He gave Moslems a sense of dignity and self respect. But, these victories were soon swept aside by the 100 hour ground offensive.

His political failures like his military failures were catastrophic. At the end of the war Iraq stood in total isolation against the vile revengeful wroth of the Allies. It has to be concluded that his biggest political liability was himself - if he hadn't been such a bloody tyrant: if he had created a fairer society; if he hadn't treated immigrant workers in Iraq so badly; if he hadn't attacked another Moslem country; if he hadn't gassed thousands of people; then he would have won the respect of more Moslem governments. But even then it wouldn't have made much difference. Even if he had been another Nasser the economic clout the Allies had at their disposal to maintain the support of Arab countries in the Coalition was as great as their military superiority.

But, Saddam achieved one political victory which was so successful it must have exceeded his greatest expectations. On February 15th, a day after the Al Amiriya tragedy, and a couple of days before the outbreak of the ground war, Saddam Hussein accepted United Nations' resolution 660 and promised to withdraw from Kuwait. This offer was a considerable climbdown. It showed that Iraq was willing to end the war and start peace negotiations. It was an admission that his political efforts to radicalize the Moslem masses, his diplomatic efforts to win the support of Moslem governments and even his safety net had all collapsed.

But strings were attached to the offer for three reasons; firstly, to avoid making it appear that Iraq had totally capitulated to the United Nations' demand for an unconditional withdrawal which, given that the Allies had been flouting United Nations' resolutions for over two decades, would have been a profound humiliation for both Iraq and other Moslems; secondly, to prove to the Moslem world that if the Allies rejected these peace overtures then they were less concerned about Kuwait than the annihilation of Iraq; and thirdly, to show the Iraqi people that they were fighting an unavoidable war in which the Allies' were determined to humiliate them. It was a peace offering but one which was crafted so that if it was rejected it would prepare the Iraqi people for the inevitable.

The reaction to this peace offer was swift. Three hours after the peace initiative was launched George Bush declared the offer was a "cruel hoax"; asked the people of Iraq to overthrow their leader; and insisted that, "There must be full implementation of all Security Council resolutions." (Guardian 16.2.91. p.3).. Such a reaction may have won the approval of many people in America but to Moslems it must have been yet another confirmation of American belligerence and double standards. What the Americans seemed to be saying was that if Iraq didn't abide by the strict wording of United Nations' resolution 660, then the Allies would use this as an opportunity to proceed with their own, illegal, war aims and destroy Iraq.

The Americans have flouted United Nations' resolutions for decades; they manipulated the United Nations over the Gulf war; and, pursued an illegal war aim which went far beyond the remit of resolution 678 and yet, when a peace offer was made, they turned around and demanded absolute conformity to United Nations' resolutions. Only a government which has acted strictly in accordance with United Nations' resolutions has the moral authority to demand such conformity - and America was certainly not that government. From the perspective of those who believed in the so-called 'nightmare scenario' Iraq's peace offer was could be seen only as a "cruel hoax." Saddam Hussein stood on the edge of the precipice and was about to achieve his greatest ever political victory.

xix) ALLIED EXTERMINISM

Prior to the start of the ground war, Saddam Hussein not only achieved some political victories, he also won the admiration of many Moslems for Iraq's heroic stance against overwhelming military odds.

Many military experts and politicians in Allied countries had predicted that Iraq would never survive the biggest aerial bombardment in history and that it would be defeated within six days. As a consequence, when Iraq survived this onslaught it was regarded throughout the Moslem world as a considerable triumph.

Another Iraqi military achievement was the continual launch of Scud missiles. Within a few days of the start of the war, the Allies claimed to have destroyed dozens of Scud missile launchers and were on their way to disabling the rest. So it was a considerable embarrassment when the first one was launched. Despite the most sophisticated, high tech, detection systems, and despite the huge effort to search for these weapons the Allies were unable to eliminate them and, as a result, the Iraqis kept up a periodic bombardment of Israel and Saudi Arabia throughout the war. Firing Scuds was a futile military gesture but every missile launched was seen as an act of defiance; a morale booster for the Iraqi military; and the superiority of Iraqi cunning over the Allies' vast technological superiority. The Allies have smart weapons but the Iraqis proved to be smarter.

Within a matter of days after the start of the aerial war, the Allies claimed to have destroyed most of the Iraqi air force and to have put its airfields out of action. Yet subsequently nearly 140 aircraft managed to slip away to Iran. Every time this happened it was a military defeat but it also represented a political victory.

The attempt to take the coastal town of Khafji was regarded as a remarkable military strike which threw the Allies completely off guard. Again there were traces of a political success even if it turned into a military rout. 

Many of these Iraqi successes were due to what in Russia is called, 'Maskyrovka' - deception. The marriage between the Iraqi and Russian militaries was a handy match. During the Iran-Iraq war the Americans had provided the Iraqis with satellite intelligence about Iranian military positions, (Paul Rogers, Guardian 24.1.91. p.21). The Iraqis learnt a great deal about satellite intelligence; its capabilities, limitations and how it could be deceived. On the other side, the Russians have a long military tradition of employing deception to defeat invading armies. That the Iraqis' survived the war for so long was due in large measure to Maskyrovka. This won increasing admiration amongst Moslems. America's expensive, technologically advanced, smart weapons had been countered by cheap, low tech, smart decoys.

But, whilst the political benefits obtained from these military defeats may have thrilled and inspired down trodden Moslems around the world, they did little for Iraqi troops other than confirm the hopelessness of their position. The Iraqi army had no air cover and no air support. They were relatively safe only if they remained permanently in their fox-holes. If tanks emerged from their dugouts they were vulnerable to an air attack. If they used their artillery, their position could be located within minutes and then picked off either from the air or the ground. Very early on in the war, the Khafji expedition proved that if the Iraqis tried to move then they would be routed. Saddam Hussein should have agreed to withdraw his army from Kuwait as soon as the Khafji expedition failed because from that time on it must have been obvious that the ground war would be a disaster. 

Despite George Bush's rejection of Iraq's first peace offer, Tariq Aziz went to Moscow to elaborate upon this initiative where Gorbachev presented his own peace proposal. The Allies politely rejected this proposal. As the Russians and Iraqis were in the process of amending this proposal, George Bush deliberately sabotaged these discussions by issuing an ultimatum that Saddam Hussein should either agree to leave Kuwait before 5 pm Saturday 23rd February or the ground war would commence. His position was supported by John Major who demanded that "Saddam Hussein must implement Security Council Resolutions in full." (Speaking in the House of Commons 19.2.91_; and that, "Unless Saddam Hussein adopts Security Council resolutions in full there will be a land conflict." (John Major, House of Commons; Guardian 22.2.91. p.8).

If Saddam agreed to Bush's ultimatum, the Iraqi' army would have a week to withdraw. which would have prevented them taking many of their weapons with them. Just to make sure his offer was not too tempting, George Bush said there would be no ceasefire and anyone who withdrew with their weapons would be treated as a threat and attacked. This ultimatum went beyond the United Nations' resolutions. Resolution 660 demanded that Iraq should withdraw from Kuwait; it did not give George Bush the right to shoot Iraqi troops in the back as they withdrew into Iraq.

Two days before the deadline for the withdrawal, the Iraqi army began to set fire to Kuwaiti oil wells, destroy buildings in the capital and round up Kuwaitis. Many observers believed the Iraqis were preparing for the dreaded ground war. They expected the use of chemical weapons. There was still the prospect that Iraq would use its remaining aircraft to provide protection for the army and mount suicide attacks on Allied shipping. The Iraqi's might even use their helicopters which didn't seem to have made an appearance up to that point.

Schwarzkopf said, "Our assessment of them (the Iraqi army) is that they are on the verge of collapse." (Guardian 21.2.91).

And yet, contrarily, American officials claimed that the oil wells had been torched not to prepare for battle but to cover up the army's withdrawal. Shortly after the deadline, the ground war was launched. When announcing the start of the ground war President Bush used the terminology of American military supremacy and stated that, it would be "swift and decisive." He was outraged about the destruction of the oil wells and called it a 'scorched Earth' policy, i.e. the action of an army in retreat. After a month of bombing in which huge parts of Iraq's oil installations had been demolished, the President of the US stated that the pretext for the ground war was the destruction of the oil wells. George Bush was incensed by the Iraqi army's destruction of the oil installations and the burning of the city. George Bush's scorched EArth  policy. Its time that United States citizens rose up and depose this sickening Satannic Earth wrecker. Having blown up Iraq's oil refineries, its oil storage depots, and huge parts of the Iraqi economic and industrial infrastructure, he stated that he couldn't believe how the Iraqis could do such a thing. These actions were taken as the excuse for launching the ground war even though their officials were saying that the Iraqi army was retreating. George Bush's scorched Earth policy. Thois from the man who has sabotaged global warming and whose energy policvies allows America to be the worst polluter on Earth.

The Allies launched their strike into Iraq rather from the sea. The Allies would have gone to Baghdad if Saddam had used chemical weapons. At one point General Swachkopf said the Allies were withjin 120 miles of Baghdad. "It is clear that this is a battle to encircle and capture Iraqi forces, not push them back." (Martin Woollacott Guardian25.2.91. p.23).

The demoralized state of the Iraqi army quickly became apparent as thousands gave themselves up. Saddam Hussein was beginning to pay the price for his tyrannical rule. He had treated people badly and they were not prepared to die for him. They saw less dishonour in surrender than they did in dying for him.

The Allies had made a huge protest early on in the war about Iraq's showing film of captured Allied air pilots. The media in Allied countries used this to 'prove' yet again that Saddam was a sick and evil person. And yet within hours of the capture of the first Iraqi prisoners pictures of their capture were being shown around the world. There is no difference between George Bush and Saddam Hussein.

The fact that chemical weapons were not used and aircraft were not used proved the Iraqis regarded the war was over.The Iraqis did not iuse fuel air bombs. Nor helicopters

As more and more Iraqi troops gave themselves up, Saddam Hussein announced, over Baghdad radio, on Tuesday 26th February 11 pm, that Iraqi troops should leave Kuwait. It was a shock announcement to those fearing the ground war and yet clearly ikt was more of a decision that was being taken by his army.

George Bush described Saddam's anouncement ordering his troops to withdraw as an 'outrage' and said, "The Coalition will continue to prosecute the war with undiminished effort. The Allies will not attack retreating troops. ... "We will not attack unarmed soldiers in retreat. We have no choice but to consider retreating combat units as a threat and respond accordingly." (George Bush Guardian 27.2.91. p.1). Even though the Iraqis accepted UN resolutions and were withdrawing from Kuwait they were regarded as being hostile. They were attacked by B52 carpet bombing and by cluster bombs. Allied troops rapidly encircled Kuwait "You can't trust the Iraqis an inch." (Sir Crispin Tickell, Panorama 25.2.91).

Iraqi troops evacuated Kuwait so quickly that the rapidly advancing Allied forces on the outskirts of Kuwait city refused to believe they had gone and suspected a trick. After all it was well known that Saddam was devilishly evil and so it must be a trick. As a result of their uncertainties, CBS correspondent Bob McKeown, who was the first member of the Coalition forces to enter Kuwait city and was this was the first time ever that a journalist had led the liberation of a city.

Despite the Iraqi statement that they were withdrawing, the Allies continued to prosecute the war. They were attacking withdrawing troops. It was cold blooded murder. The Belgrano mentality which shoots people in the back.

Reporters stated that only a tiny minority of the vehicles on the road to Basra were tanks. Most were civilian vehicles, coaches, buses,

The Allies condemned the taking ofhostages and now they were killing them.

Iraqi troops fleeing "commandeered trucks, fire engines, ambulances and luxury cars to make a quick getaway." (Joseph Albright Guardian 4.3.91. p.6).

The Allies continued to fight even in Iraq. This was illegal. UN resolutions demanded that Iraqi troops withdrew from Kuwait it did not give them the right to attack Iraqi troops once they'd withdrawn into Iraq. So having forced Iraq to comply strictly to Un resolutions the Allies were treating the rsolutions with disdain.

The war went on for x days past the order for Iraqi troops to leave Kuwait. Ceasfir declared at 5am Thursday March 28th. "All but one of the 42 Iraqi divisions deployed in the Gulf war were wiped out by the Allies." (Guardian 1.3.91 p.3). We'll never know the total number killed. There was a collusion between Saddam Hussein and George Bush, as there has been all along, about keeping quiet about how bad the slaughter really was.

Worse than Chatilla because it was cold bloddedly calculated. The British army really is going to get a bad repiutation. First it was the Belgrano, then the SAS in Gibralter and now the biggest test, murdering thousands of Iraqis in civilian vehicles.

For over two decades the Allied countries had blocked United Nations resolutions about violence, contrived to ignore United Nations resolutions. This had set such a bad example that it encouraged Iraq to invade Kuwait which it believed it was entitled so to do as a reward for fighting America's proxy war against Iran. The Allies then insisted that Iraq totally obeyed United Nations' resolutions in order to pursue war aims which went far beyond those sanctioned by UN resolutions.

The Allies were clearing pursuing their illegal, secret war aim of defending Israel by destroying Iraq's military power. This is a simple exterminist war designed to cull what has been defined by the west as an unacceptably large military force. The Allies had taken it upon themselves to determine the size of Iraq's military force. The seem intent on reducing it until it is smaller than Kuwait's even though this will leave it vulnerable to attack by othert countries.

The Allies had taken it upon themselves to determine the size of a country's armed forces and to reduce it to the level of its smnallest neigh bour even though this will leave it vulnerable to attack by its larger neighbours.

"What Arab people are witnessing now is the destruction of an Arab country by a coalition which is determined to fight to the bitter end - to the point of total Arab humiliation." (Tahar Ben Jelloun, Guardian 18.2.91. p.23).

Mr Hurd said, "Iraq cannot expect to be re-admitted to the community of nations while it has a delinquent regime. Iraq needs a leadership that will respect her commitments as a member of the ZUnited Nations and the Arab League." (Douglas Hurd Guardian 2.3.91. p.1).

Saddam Hussein had won a terrible publicity victory. He had claimed that the Allies were evil and that America was the "Great Satan". There can be no doubt that the Gulf war proved him right.

xx) ALLIED BIGOTRY; A CASE IN POINT

On February 14th the Americans used two smart bombs to destroy what it defined as a "legitimate military target of a command bunker." (Guardian 14.2.91. p.1). First estimates put the number of civilian casualties at around 500. It was a tragedy which outraged the whole world.

The Al Amiriya shelter was located in a residential area and was surrounded by a mosque and a school. Jeremy Bowen a BBC television reporter in Baghdad was allowed to look around the bombed out ruins of the shelter and found no evidence that it was being used as anything other than what the Iraqis claimed it was - a civilian air raid shelter.

Ignoring the evidence that this was a shelter, and showing the most callous disregard for the human tragedy that had occurred, "The United States defence secretary, Richard Cheney said the two United States bombs were dropped intentionally "with great precision" on a reinforced Baghdad command and control bunker." (Guardian 14.2.91. p.1). There was not the slightest attempt to admit that this bombing had been a mistake and there was not the slightest hint of an apology. A sound bite's worth of regret but nothing as humane as an apology. 

The horror of this devastation was compounded not merely by the Allies' lie that this was a command and control bunker nor by the cover up in which Allied military psychophants came forward to state categorically, on the flimsiest of evidence such as the fact that the shelter was surrounded by a wire net and that the stairways were covered by tiles (ITV News 15.2.91) that this was definitely a military bunker, but by the even more odious claim that Saddam Hussein, whom by this time the West could no longer regard as anything other than a monster and another Hitler, had deliberately placed the civilians in the bunker to win a ghoulish propaganda battle. Dick Cheney stated, "The suggestion that he urged civilians to occupy what he knew was a military facility is possible. He has demonstrated repeatedly a readiness to use his civilian to shield his military." (Guardian 14.2.91. p.1). When, on the first day of the ground war, a Scud missile killed 40 American troops, it was stated that the military base was located in a residential area.

Cheney's suggestion was regurgitated in the most vile terms by the sewage press in this country and by their counterparts on television, ITV, whose coverage of the bombing was nothing less than scandalous bigotry. This revealed the extent to which a war madness has gripped the Allies. They were so convinced that Saddam Hussein was absolute evil they automatically suspected that he was responsible for any evil event. And yet clearly, this incident showed that the evil was in their minds. They were projecting their own evil onto Saddam Hussein. Any independent psychologist, not on the government's payroll, would have to say that Dick Cheney was a psychopath who ought to be incarcerated in a political insane asylum, where he would reside alongside those American political leaders and academics who believed it was morally correct for America to spray millions of acres of Vietnam with Agent Orange and riddle the country with 26 million bomb craters just for the sake of the domino theory. Instead of showing their humanity the Allied leaders showed us their inhumanity.

In order to show how revolting the Allies' stance over the Al Airiya bombing was, it is easy to speculate that the Americans knew this shelter was used by the families of Iraq's top military leaders and that they had deliberatley bombed it in order to break the will of the Iraqi leadership which had refused to cave in for six weeks against the most sustained bombing in human history. And this is exactly what it achieved. The day after the bombing the Iraqis made their first peace offer. As has been mentioned, George Bush condemned this peace offer as a "cruel hoax" and, doubtlessly because of his belief that Saddam had deliberately put civilians in the al Amirya shelter to embarrass the Americans - this from the man who was allowing the carpet bombing of Baghdad - and called on the Iraqi army and people to overthrow Saddam Hussein so that Iraq could rejoin, in what was a classic Stalinist phrase, "The family of peace loving nations" (15.2.91).

xxi) ALLIED WAR CRIMES

Ever since Thatcher had first raised the important issue of Nuremburg style, war crimes' trials in Iraq, there was considerable talk amongst the Allies' stools about the validity of the proposal. However, the Allies themselves committed war crimes which, unfortunately, will go unpunished.

United Nation's Sanctions against Iraq.

These sanctions included food and medicines. This was illegal. Given the fact that tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Iraqi civilians could have been seriously wounded by the war and left without medical treatment this would constitute a war crime.  

Weapons of Mass Destruction.

It should be remembered that Britain used chemical weapons on Iraqis in the 1920s a long time before Saddam Hussein. (This was an historical precedent had Saddam Hussein decided to use these weapons. It would have been interesting for the Allies to explain this away if they had held war crimes trials for the use of chemical weapons). Iraq's chemical weapons were greatly feared but they are hardly comparable to some of the devastating weapons the Allies had at their disposal.

The Rockeye Cluster bomb (Mark 20).

This is an area impact munition which wipes out anything within an area covering 8 football fields. It, "is composed of 24 bomblets, each in an 'anti-personnel' grenade that explodes into 2,000 high velocity needle sharp fragments." (John Pilger 'Turkey Shoots' New Statesman 15.2.91). 

The Multiple Launch Rocket System.

Another area impact munition; "One version consists of 12 rockets, each containing over 600 bomblets that can saturate an area the size of 60 football pitches." (Guardian 20.2.91. p.3). 

The 'Daisy Cutter'.

An incendiary bomb, a fuel air device. This creates a vapour cloud which, when ignited, produces a huge explosion equivalent to a small nuclear weapon. It is, "a 15,000 lb device which detonates before it reaches the ground. America's biggest unconventional weapon, its blast effect is comparable to that of a tactical nuclear weapon." (Guardian 20.2.91. p.3). Incendiary weapons like this make Iraq's chemical weapons look like a laughing gas.

Finally there was the return of the B52s and carpet bombing. Carpet bombing is by its nature indiscriminate. 

Talking about cluster bombs and carpet bombing Ramsey Clarke, America's former Chief Law officer said, "These are violations of the Hague Conventions, the Geneva Conventions and Nuremburg. They are war crimes." (John Pilger 'Turkey Shoots' New Statesman 15.2.91)

Israel's Hostages.

Israel's refusal to grant gas masks to Palestinians was a war crime.

The Israeli Curfew.

The continual 24 hour imprisonment imposed on all Palestinians in the occupied zones was a war crime.

In conclusion, the Gulf war was not so much a war against a dictator (after all Americans prop up far more murderous dictators throughout the world and were intent on restoring a dictatorship to Kuwait when the war was over); it was not so much a war to 'liberate' Kuwait or protect Saudi Arabia (since these objectives could have been just as easily achieved through sanctions or some regional alliance); it was not so much a racist or religious crusade between Christians and Arab/Moslems (the Allies were supported by many Arab/Moslem states and no Arab/Moslem state supported Iraq); it was not so much an imperialist war between the rich North and poor Third world countries, ("Britain is now fighting an old fashioned colonial war typical of the 19thC. It is a war in defence of Western interests against the interests of the people's of the Third World." [Richard Gott, Guardian 29.1.91. p.19], because, firstly, the Allies were supported by a number of Third World countries, and secondly, if the Allies managed to keep oil prices low this would help the Third World who are the worst affected by oil price rises); and, it was not so much a war to protect the West's oil supplies (the West simply does not need Kuwaiti oil, "The American energy specialists Amory and Hunter Lovins suggest that America would not have needed any oil from the Gulf at all had it continued to save oil even just at the rate it did from 1977 to 1985." [Mallen Baker p.22]; although it was in America's perceived interest to protect its oil supplies, it did not objectively need the oil because of the availablity of alternatives fuels).

The Gulf war certainly contained elements of all of these influences. It did have racist elements in so much as the Iraqis were attacked with a ferocity only usually seen in racist conflicts; it did have elements of anti-Islamic behaviour; it did have elements of a war against the Third World in which one set of rich capitalists came to the aid of another set of rich capitalists, (irrespective of their race, creed or colour); it did have elements of protecting oil and proifits. And yet, ultimately none of these explanations are adequate. None of these explanations are able to decisively characterize the war.

The Gulf war was provoked by Israel's fear of Iraq growing military power. Israel issued an ultimatum to the Bush administration that if America did not attack Iraq then it would. The Bush administration agreed to attack Iraq to prevent an Arab-Israeli war which would have resulted in the use of weapons of mass destruction. America proceeded to lure Iraq into an invasion of Kuwait as an excuse to exterminate a large proportion of its armed forces and its industrial capacity and leave Israel with total military dominance in the region.

This was a proxy Israeli war. To the extent that it was a war to prevent a bigger war, it was a pre-emptive and defensive war. The Gulf war had little to do with Kuwait. The Allies were primarily protecting Israel not Kuwait. Kuwait was simply an excuse to attack Iraq. It is wrong to argue that if Kuwait grew carrots there wouldn't have been a Gulf war because this ignores the critical role played by Israel. The unresolved issue is whether the Allies were fighting not so much a proxy-Israeli war as a proxy Zionist war. The true character of the war will not be known for a long while yet.