I was for the war bigtime. Then I found out some of the things that fueled my fire for the war, turned out to be questionable and in some cases downright bullshit. So if I had only seen the truth back then, I don't know if I would have been for the war, certainly I wouldn't have been half as angry.
Few know that the 1990 Iraq war was also began using
lies and false intelligence. This was when
President G.H.W Bush used deceit and lies literally inviting Saddam to invade Kuwait. Kuwait in 1989 had been
encouraged by the CIA to slant drill from disputed border areas into Iraq reserves. Kuwait then pumped vast quantity of oil onto the world market, helping cause an Int'l-Oil glut and oil prices dropping to $11.00/bbl. Saddam before taking action against Kuwait called in the US ambassador and advised of his intentions. The action Bush (sr) took upon learning of Saddams intent of invading Kuwait, was to send diplomat April Glaspie with a
message that effectively permitted Saddam to invade Kuwait. The message was to inform Saddam we (US gov) would not get involved in this border dispute. A second message from US Sect-State re-emphasized our permission. Immediately after this Saddam began the invasion, just as immediately the American public were treated to a total facade about Iraq atrocities in Kuwait (documents say a total of 203 people died in the invasion), lies again used to prepare America for war... do you remember...
Hill & Knowlton PR-agency, Nayirah, and the Incubator Baby Atrocities.On October 10, 1990, a 15-year old Kuwaiti girl here in America was shown on nation wide TV. This young girl delivered an emotionally moving testimony to the
Congressional Human Rights Caucus. Her written testimony was passed out in a media kit by her CFK handlers. "I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital," Nayirah said. "While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where ... babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die."
Her story of course was not corroborated before broadcast. It was later proved false, but not until after it had successfully been used to argue the case for the first Persian Gulf War to the US Public, the US Congress, and the UN. Bush (sr) calling it a war for Democracy, that was more accurately a war for Monarchy which Kuwait is. Nayirah declined to reveal her last name, allegedly out of fear of Iraqi reprisals. She, as it turned out, was no ordinary Kuwaiti hospital volunteer. Nayirah was actually the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the US, and a member of the al-Sabah royal family. Later investigations by Amnesty International proved that she had never worked at the al-Addan hospital at all, and there were no accounts to corroborate her story. The royal family spurned all subsequent attempts by the media to interview her.
Adding another, less obvious layer to the overall deception, the Congressional Human Rights Caucus was not a real Congressional committee, either. It was only a name that was given to an association of politicians, chaired by California Democrat Tom Lantos and Illinois Republican John Porter, who were both members of the Congressional Human Rights Foundation. Employing the sort of double blind twist one might expect to find only in classical CIA-type foreign government front organizations, the Congressional Human Rights Foundation itself was not a real Congressional body, either. It was a legally separate entity from the US Congress, occupying free office space, valued at $3,000 per year, at Hill & Knowlton's Washington DC office. H&K created the entire fiction of Nayirah's testimony for a fee of $11.5 million from the Kuwaiti government, laundered through CFK.
The facts now documented show that the
US government had produced a military power in Iraq that dwarfed those in the Middle East, also once Iraq stopped fighting
(our war) against Iran in mid-1980's, the
US-gov had to regain control of the monster we had created. This was accomplished with the aid of the neighboring
regime in Kuwait, the details are as follows.
Following the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, Iraq was heavily indebted to several Arab countries, including a $14 billion debt to Kuwait. Iraq hoped to repay its debts by raising the price of oil through OPEC oil production cuts, but instead, Kuwait increased production, lowering prices, in an attempt to leverage a better resolution of their border dispute. In addition, Iraq charged that Kuwait had taken advantage of the Iran-Iraq War to drill for oil and build military outposts
Iraqi soil near Kuwait. Furthermore, Iraq charged that it had performed a collective service for all Arabs by acting as a buffer against Iran and that therefore Kuwait and Saudi Arabia should negotiate or cancel Iraq's war debts. Ideologically, the invasion of Kuwait was justified through calls to Arab nationalism with Kuwait described as a natural part of Iraq carved off by British imperialism.
In late July, 1990, as negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait stalled, Iraq massed troops on Kuwait's borders and summoned American
ambassador April Glaspie for a meeting with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. In that meeting, Saddam outlined his grievances against Kuwait, while promising that he would not invade Kuwait before one more round of negotiations. Although Glaspie expressed concern over the troop buildup, people have perceived her answers as giving tacit approval for an invasion, by saying that the US “[has] no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.” To emphasize this point, she also said at the meeting, Secretary of State “James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction.”
Videotaped meeting of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and US Ambassador April Glaspie:
July 25, 1990 (Eight days before the August 2, 1990 Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait)
US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie: "I have direct instructions 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. We can see that you have deployed massive numbers of troops in the south. Normally that would be none of our business."
President Saddam Hussein: "As you know, for years now I have made every effort to reach a settlement on our dispute with Kuwait. There is to be a meeting in two days; I am prepared to give negotiations only this one more brief chance. (pause) When we (the Iraqis) meet (with the Kuwaitis) and we see there is hope, then nothing will happen. But if we are unable to find a solution, then it will be natural that Iraq will not accept death."
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 1960's, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America."
President Saddam Hussein: (smiles)
In November 1989, CIA director William Webster met with the Kuwaiti head of security, Brigadier Fahd Ahmed Al-Fahd. Subsequent to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Iraq claimed to have found a memorandum pertaining to this conversation. It was reported that Kuwaiti's foreign minister fainted when confronted with this document at an Arab summit in August. Later, Iraq cited this memorandum as evidence of a
CIA-Kuwaiti plot to destabilize Iraq economically and politically. The CIA and Kuwait have described the meeting as routine and the memorandum as a forgery. The document reads in part:
We agreed with the American side that it was important to take advantage of the deteriorating economic situation in Iraq in order to put pressure on that country's government to delineate our common border. The Central Intelligence Agency gave us its view of appropriate means of pressure, saying that broad cooperation should be initiated between us on condition that such activities be coordinated at a high level.
Author and former U.S. Department of State official
William Blum argues in his book, 'Killing Hope', that Iraq was right about the CIA-Kuwait plot. The plot, Blum argues, was in response to increasing Iraqi warnings about American hegemony in the Gulf region, as well as to help stanch expected cuts in defense spending and boost President Bush's domestic popularity.
Another interesting outcome of the 1990 Iraq war, is that it may not have been Iraqi forces that began the Kuwait oil well fires, instead there is now a report by US veterans of that war, that
special US Military forces began the oil well fires. Not only this, but outlawed bombs such as Napalm and other incinderary devices were used against fleeing Iraqi forces, this operation referred today as the
"Turkey Shoot."
