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Bringing The War Home
by William Thomas
Bringing the War Home is a war story unlike any you will ever read.
Drawing on his experiences as a reporter and environmental emergency
response worker in the war-torn Persian Gulf - as well as US
congressional and military records never before assembled in a single
volume - William Thomas takes readers from nighttime missile attacks on
American forces and frantic cries of "gas, gas, gas!" to the dazed
survivors of Baghdad bombing raids and the wreckage-clogged Highway to
Hell.
But this is only the beginning of a book that is really three volumes in
one. In part two, this award winning journalist and former member of the
US military lays bare a Pentagon cover-up intended to bury forever
Washington's complicity in supplying the chemical and biological
weaponry thrown into its soldiers faces. A succession of shocking
disclosures leads us through a labyrinth of political expediency and
military incompetence which saw American troops and support personnel
inoculated with experimental vaccines - including a nerve agent pill
that amplified the effects of the sarin nerve gas repeatedly detected in
their positions. In a climactic courtroom-style drama, US Senator Donald
Riegle confronts the head of the US Army's Chemical Warfare Department
and demands the truth.
Part three of this remarkable and timely book is a mini-medical
thriller. Looking over the shoulders of medical investigators we peer
into powerful microscopes as they search for a mysterious malady first
identified as a syndrome, and later simply called Gulf War Illness. With
official US combat-related casualties now exceeding 6,200 dead - and
more than 100,000 returning American GI's stricken by a confusing
spectrum of degenerative ailments that appear to be spreading to their
spouses and children - researchers race the clock and their own
superiors� orders to desist to find the causes of a disease described as
more baffling than AIDS. This book concludes with good news: Gulf War
Illness can be treated. The chapter on successful treatments will bring
new hope to those afflicted by this multi-faceted disease.
=====
Bringing the War Home
Chapter 2 - Face
by William Thomas Reprinted from Bringing The War Home
Order this item now
It was around five on a Thursday morning, the second of August, 1990,
when King Hussein was roused by an urgent call from King Fahd. The
distraught "Protector of Mecca" announced that Kuwait's defenses had
crumbled. Iraqi troops were racing toward Kuwait City.
As his country burned, the emir who had earlier contained his political
opponents by dissolving parliament was easing his shaken nerves in what
People magazine called "an artificial oasis of green grass and pink
gardenias in Taif, the posh resort town favored by Saudi royalty." In
their haste to reach this Saudi sanctuary, Kuwait's royal rulers had
left splendors behind. Among the discards, journalist Michael Emery
later counted "an irreplaceable collection of ancient Islamic art,
fleets of luxury automobiles, thousands of top-secret documents," and 26
of the emir's wives.
Saudi Arabia's monarch was not worried about expendable females. "It's
all the Kuwaiti's fault," the king blurted to Hussein. "Please tell
Saddam to stop where he is."
King Hussein immediately called Baghdad. It was around 10 in the morning
before he heard Saddam Hussein's voice on the line "What did you do?"
King Hussein asked.
"Well, you heard," said Saddam.
"Please, tell me, don't stay there!"
"Well, I will withdraw. It is a matter of days, perhaps weeks," Saddam
assured the head of Jordan.
"No. Don't talk about weeks, only a matter of days," King Hussein
implored.
"Yes," Saddam answered, "but I have learned that the ministers are
meeting in Cairo and they want to condemn us. If they do I am afraid
that will not help."
As mutual rivals for the mantle of Arab leadership bequeathed by Nasser,
the presidents of Iraq and Egypt were not pals. "Let them look at it
seriously," Saddam continued, "and not take it that way, because if they
do, we will not take it lightly and they will not like our reaction."
Realizing that all chances of striking a deal for an immediate pullout
would evaporate if Egypt denounced Iraq, the king of Jordan mounted his
royal jet and flew immediately to Alexandria. Around four that
afternoon, he met with President Mubarak. Agreeing with the king's call
for discretion, Egypt's president promised to restrain himself until
King Hussein could see Saddam and try to talk him into withdrawing.
Mubarak also offered to carry an invitation to the Iraqi president,
asking him to attend a mini-summit to be hosted by the Saudis in Jeddah
the following Sunday, just three days away.
Hussein replied that he preferred flying first to Cairo to head off
condemnation by the Arab League already meeting there. After offering
the use of his personal helicopter, Egypt's president excused himself to
take a call from George Bush. When he returned, Mubarak told King
Hussein that the American president wished to speak with him.
Bush was preoccupied by two urgent matters. He was worried about
Americans in Kuwait and he wanted Iraq to withdraw. Hussein assured Bush
that he was flying immediately to Baghdad to seek an Arab solution which
could be ratified at the upcoming summit on Sunday.
As Michael Emery later revealed in the Village Voice, "King Hussein then
tried to call King Fahd in Saudi Arabia to get approval of the
mini-summit. But he couldn't get through." Mubarak finally phoned Fahd
and asked the Saudi monarch to talk to Jordan's king. King Fahd said he
would return the call.
He never did. As night fell on the first day of the Iraqi invasion,
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was winding up day-long
meetings with George Bush in Aspen, Colorado. The "Iron Lady's"
determination and uncanny timing would prove pivotal in reinforcing the
American president's resolve.
Before Baghdad announced its annexation of Kuwait, the US and British
governments invoked a total economic blockade against Iraq. "America
stands where it always has, against aggression, against those who would
use force to replace the rule of law," the US president declared.
This was an interesting stance, commented Canada's national newspaper,
the Globe and Mail. "When the French invaded Algeria and occupied it
until 1962, killing more than a million people, where were the
Americans, where was the world? When the Soviets sent their forces into
Afghanistan in 1979, where were the Americans, where was the world? When
Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, where were those Arab forces now pouring
in to 'defend' Saudi Arabia?"
Washington continued to reject any "linkage" with regional issues.
Expressing its "moral revulsion" at the notion of "rewarding an
aggressor" by examining such longstanding regional irritants as arms,
security, and human rights, the American administration instead favored
war.
Support for the US stand was muted in Jordan, Algeria, Yemen, and
Tunisia, where the baiting of a fellow Arab was immediately understood.
But the West had found a new Hitler. Echoing Bush's blast at Iraq's
"unprovoked aggression," Australia's Prime Minister Hawke declared that
"big countries cannot invade small neighbors and get away with it."
Hawke's hawkish sentiment contrasted sharply with his own Foreign
Minister, who had earlier explained his country's acquiescence to an
Indonesian dictator's forcible annexation of East Timor and
extermination of 200,000 East Timorese by explaining that "the world is
a pretty unfair place, littered with examples of acquisition by force."
* * *
Surprised by the forces so quickly arrayed against him, Saddam Hussein
was already looking for a face-saving solution. The day after the
invasion, he received Jordan's king in Baghdad. Agreeing that he or his
representative would attend next Sunday's summit, Saddam told Hussein
that he would begin withdrawing his troops even as that meeting began.
The jubilant Jordanian tried phoning Mubarak with the welcome news. But
Egypt's leader did not return the call. Instead, moving quickly in what
diplomats attending the Cairo talks later called a "heavy atmosphere" of
dread and outside pressure, the Egyptian president sabotaged the peace
bids of both Husseins by breaking his hours-old pledge not to condemn
Iraq. Following the direction of Mubarak's denunciation, Arab League
foreign ministers also slammed Saddam.
"Oh my God," exclaimed the Jordanian king on hearing of Mubarak's
treachery, "the conspiracy is complete."
But it was still unclear whether Saudi sheiks would allow American
infidels on Islam's most sacred soil. Jordan's Hussein considered an
Iraqi invasion of Saudi Arabia, "preposterous." King Fahd agreed. If the
Saudi king held firm, the US plan to disarm Iraq would be stalled before
it even began.
"There was absolutely no way in the world we could rapidly deploy our
air forces if we couldn't go in and use the Saudi military airfields
that were in place. There was no way we could possibly deploy the Marine
Corps and bring in the Marine pre-positioned ships and equipment,
without using the Saudi ports," Schwarzkopf later told the BBC's radio
audience.
* * *
High over the Atlantic Ocean, en route to meet with King Fahd, Secretary
of Defense Dick Cheney drew Schwarzkopf aside and asked the general:
"You've been working in this area for a couple of years now and you know
these people, what do you think will happen?"
Schwarzkopf replied with the candor characteristic of military minds: "I
think what will happen is we'll make our presentation and they'll listen
very carefully and then they'll say, 'Thank you very much, we'll let you
know' and we will get back on the airplane and fly back to Washington
with no decision."
At first, it seemed Schwarzkopf was right. Meeting with the Americans in
Riyadh on the night of August 6, King Fahd argued that if Saddam had
wanted to invade Saudi Arabia, he would have swept on virtually
unopposed. The Americans countered by saying that Iraq was following
standard Soviet military doctrine, which always consolidated initial
advances by stopping to refuel, rearm and regroup before pressing
further.
The king was then handed a sheaf of satellite photos, compliments of the
CIA. When Schwarzkopf showed King Fahd pictures of Iraqi tanks massing
along and inside Saudi territory the king grew more infuriated than
intimidated. The general quickly explained how many troops, ships and
fighter squadrons would soon be arriving "to defend Saudi Arabia against
what looked like to be a very possible invasion from the north."
As if awaiting his cue, Secretary Cheney then stepped forward to assure
the Saudi monarch that while Washington was prepared to commit its
forces for as long as necessary to defend Saudi interests, when the time
came to leave, all US forces would be withdrawn from the Kingdom.
A heated discussion ensued between the King and members of the Royal
Family. Ambassador Freeman, who understood Arabic, later told
Schwarzkopf that the argument centered around not being hasty - and
remembering what the Kuwaitis had done to invite Iraq's attack. King
Hussein later observed that the Saudi king "pressed the panic button"
when he turned to the American general and said, "OK!"
Schwarzkopf reports that he nearly fell out of his chair. Did "OK" mean
thanks for the information or... Cheney quickly interjected, "So, you
agree?"
The King replied, "Yes, I agree."
Making some comment about how many Kuwaitis were living in Saudi hotels
because they weren't willing to make a decision, the Saudi ruler added,
"I'm not going to have that happen."
Schwarzkopf still believes that the satellite photographs of Iraqi tanks
on the Saudi border forced the king's hand. The next morning, Saudi
Minister of Defense Prince Sultan was stunned when Schwarzkopf answered
his query regarding the arrival of the first planes by saying, "Within
12 hours." As the prince struggled to digest the rapidity of the
American response, Schwarzkopf added, "They're...they're on the way, as
we speak."
* * *
As Chuck Horner's first flight of F-16s refueled over the Atlantic,
Jordan's King Hussein was landing in London after conferring with
President Bush in Washington. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was
waiting. "It was one of the rowdiest discussions that I ever had with
anybody," the Jordanian king later recalled. "Thatcher used language I
wasn't used to from anybody."
The Muslim king was unused to hearing a woman curse. "She was very
strong on her side and so was I - very strong language. She said troops
were halfway to their destination before the request came for them to
come."
In fact, advance elements of the US Rapid Deployment Force had begun
landing in Saudi Arabia within 30 minutes of the Saudi-American meeting.
Assuring the world his acts were "wholly defensive," the US president
ordered 40,000 military personnel into Saudi Arabia without consulting
congress. As for the short-lived but widely hailed "Peace Dividend," a
Pentagon official explained to puzzled journalists: "If you're looking
for it, it just left for Saudi Arabia."
Were the Americans rushing into a trap of their own devising? Six days
after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, as the first US Air Force fighter
planes began touching down at Dhahran, an urgent message was flashed
from the Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Command at Fort Detrick,
Maryland. The classified communiqu� warned US commanders of Iraq's
"mature" arsenal of biological weapons that might be unleashed in a
campaign just announced by their Commander-In-Chief. The message further
noted that Iraq had succeeded in "weaponizing" a number of biological
agents. Kuwait's jailers had also acquired "aerosol generators" that
could be mounted on trucks or small boats to launch biological agents.
Follow-up reports explained that Iraq had acquired at least 40 and
possibly 52 Italian-built pesticide sprayers in the spring of 1990.
Loaded from 55-gallon drums, the agricultural sprayers had been custom
built to deliver liquid or dry material at rates approaching 800 gallons
per hour through nozzles adjustable to 10 different particle sizes. The
handy nozzles could be rotated 180 degrees, enabling dissemination of BW
agents either along the ground, or upwards into prevailing winds. A
subsequent bulletin from the Defense Intelligence Agency's "Iraq
Regional Task Force" noted that the portable foggers could fit into the
back of a pickup truck, a small boat or aircraft. The known Iraqi BW
agents named in the message - powdered anthrax and botulinum toxin -
"are easily mixed with fillers, pose a considerably greater threat
through inhalation, and are better able to withstand the shear forces
experienced when disseminated through nozzles with a relatively small
orifice."
This home-grown threat was considerable. Though it would not be pleasant
work for its operators, according to a bio-war expert at the Army
Chemical School at Fort McClellan, Alabama, pickup trucks or small boats
equipped with a sprayer and favorable winds could contaminate hundreds
of square miles of terrain. Added Colonel Gerry Schumacher: "CIA
computer models had indicated to us that if just one of the sprayers
were turned on, we could run a risk of contaminating over 100,000 US
troops."
Schumacher was in charge of the Pentagon's crash program to develop a
germ warfare detector. But as Schwarzkopf prepared to attack an
acknowledged master of bio-warfare, no workable bio-agent detectors were
available. The M8A1 automatic chemical agent alarm deployed by US forces
could not detect mycotoxins. Nor was it sufficiently sensitive to pick
up low concentrations of chemical nerve agents. The minimum amount of
sarin required to activate the M8A1 exceeded the official US Army
"hazardous" threshold by a factor of 1,000.
* * *
As dire warnings filtered through the US command, Saddam was offering a
way out. On August 12, the Iraqi leader proposed linking Iraq's
immediate withdrawal from Kuwait to Syria and Israel's withdrawal from
Lebanon - plus an Israeli pullback from the territories it conquered in
1967.
Bush ignored Saddam's sally. Instead, just three days later, the US
president declared that "the sanctions are working." With 95 percent of
Iraq's export earnings dependent on oil sales, Saddam's regime was
losing more than $1.75 billion a month in national revenues.
Why not negotiate? The New York Times' chief diplomatic correspondent
Thomas Friedman provided the State Department's rationale on August 22
when he wrote that the administration's rejection of "a diplomatic
track" was tied to its concern that fruitful negotiations might "defuse
the crisis" at the cost of "a few token gains in Kuwait" for the Iraqi
dictator; perhaps "a Kuwait island or minor border adjustments." The
crisis could not be resolved, Friedman declared, until Iraq's dictator
was forcibly disarmed.
One week later, a similar Iraqi peace offer was leaked to New York's
Newsday. Delivered to National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft by a
former high-ranking US official on August 23, the Iraqi initiative
called for its withdrawal from Kuwait in return for the lifting of
sanctions and full Iraqi control of the Rumayah oil field, extending
about two miles into disputed Kuwait territory. Baghdad also wanted
guaranteed access to the Gulf through the two uninhabited islands
assigned by Britain to Kuwait in an old imperial settlement that had
left Iraq virtually landlocked.
In return, Iraq offered to augment its pullout by negotiating an oil
agreement "satisfactory to both nations," as well as mutually
satisfactory national security options "on the stability of the gulf."
There was no mention of US troop withdrawal or other preconditions. An
Administration official specializing in Mideast affairs described the
proposal as "serious" and "negotiable."
The offer was discarded by the White House. On September 9, the Chicago
Tribune's financial editor, William Nelkirk, explained to Americans that
having "cornered the West's security market," the US must become "the
world's rent-a-cops... as a lever to gain funds and economic
concessions" from the twin economic powerhouses, Germany and Japan.
Whatever naysayers may say, Nelkirk argued, "we should be able to pound
our fists on a few desks" in Japan and Europe, and "extract a fair price
for our considerable services" in protecting their oil. The US could
abandon the role of enforcer, Nelkirk concluded. But to do so would
sacrifice "much of our control over the world economic system."
There was something wrong with this picture. Or at least the pictures
shown to King Fahd. Soviet satellite photos taken five weeks after the
Iraqi invasion of Kuwait still showed empty desert where the CIA's
photographs had shown tanks. Two American satellite imaging experts who
examined the Soviet photos ruled them authentic. But they could find no
evidence of a massive Iraqi presence in Kuwait. "The Pentagon keeps
saying the bad guys were there, but we don't see anything to indicate an
Iraqi force in Kuwait of even 20 percent the size the administration
claimed," Peter Zimmerman reported.
Follow-up shots snapped by a Soviet commercial "bird" on September 11
also failed to find the 250,000 Iraqis and 1,500 tanks Washington
claimed had massed in Kuwait. Zimmerman, a former US Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency expert for the Reagan administration, as well as
another former image specialist for the Defense Intelligence Agency (who
asked not to be named because of the classified nature of his work),
could see no Iraqi encampments or vehicle parks in Kuwait. But the much
smaller American military presence at the Dhahran airport in Saudi
Arabia stood out clearly in the photos.
"We could see five C-140s, one C-5A, and four smaller transport
aircraft, probably C-130s. There is also a long line of fighters on the
ground. We didn't find anything of that sort anywhere in Kuwait,"
Zimmerman explained. "We don't see any tent cities. We don't seen any
congregations of tanks. We don't see any troop concentrations, and the
main Kuwait airbase appears deserted." The Soviet satellite's camera
resolution was 18 feet.
Five days later, Washington's agenda became clearer when Air Force Chief
of Staff General Michael Dougan told the press of his service's plans to
"destroy the Iraqi civilian economy." General Dougan was removed from
his staff office that same day.
On September 18, two days after Dougan's abrupt departure, Schwarzkopf
ordered four Army planners to begin work on a ground offensive. This
might have seemed an innovative interpretation of Bush's "defensive"
pledge, but by then, Washington was claiming that Iraqi forces in Kuwait
had mushroomed to 360,000 troops and 2,800 tanks.
Such a massive movement of troops and vehicles would have left telltale
tracks all over the desert. But repeated sweeps by independent
commercial satellites could find no signs of such an overpowering
threat. Unlike the Saudi roads, which had been swept clean, all of the
roads on Kuwait's side of the border were drifted high with undisturbed
sand. "There's no sign that tanks have used those roads,"
satellite-photo experts confirmed.
Would a government that had once fed "doctored" satellite photos to
confuse Iranian leaders resort to the same tactic to assure Saudi
Arabia's acquiescence to a huge buildup of foreign troops within its
borders? Zimmerman made another point: "The Kuwait border with Saudi
Arabia isn't very long. It wouldn't take more than 10,000 Iraqi soldiers
to cover the border area to the point that people fleeing would run into
them all over the place."
The former defense analyst added that 2,000 "nasty military police would
have been enough to terrorize" Kuwait City, and that two US Marine
divisions could have driven them back to Iraq, "relatively quickly and
with relatively little bloodshed." At the time the photos were taken,
there were already more than 100,000 American troops in Saudi Arabia.
* * *
Among them was US Army specialist Jim Brown. His alert notification to
deploy to Saudi Arabia had come three days before Operation Desert
Shield officially began. Over the following two weeks, as Brown and the
other members of the 514th Maintenance Company, 10th Mountain Division
prepared to move out, more than two billion pounds of weapons, food,
medical supplies and ammunition would be trucked from around the United
States and transported more than 7,000 miles to Saudi air and sea ports
at Dhahran and al Jubayl.
On August 20, Brown's unit reported for their initial briefing and
vaccinations at Fort Drum, New York. Trained to fight Soviet aggressors
in the Arctic, the cold weather specialists learned they were going
somewhere hot.
Because of the large number of personnel present, Brown recalls that
this first round of shots saw 5 cc's of immune gamma globulin injected
into each trooper in less than a minute. "In every medical journal I
have read on the subject, there is a clear warning not to exceed 1 cc
per minute," Brown says. But no one questioned the urgency of a process
that gave the 514th their meningococcal vaccinations that same day.
The germ-laden shots shocked immune systems already mobilizing for
combat in an alien arena. Brown believes that rest and avoidance of
further such insults would have helped heal their bodies. But "there was
no way for this to happen." On September 12, shortly after receiving
anthrax and the botulinum toxoid shots, many of the soldiers in Brown's
battalion fell ill with flu-like symptoms. Two weeks later, they flew to
Frankfurt, Germany, staying overnight before alighting in Dhahran the
following day.
As a generator and computer maintenance technician, Brown was placed in
charge of an M88 recovery vehicle. With three other crewmen, he set out
recovering broken-down tanks. His team was also responsible for
repairing the huge tank transporters that were to cause many more
casualties on the Saudi's narrow border roads than combat with the
Iraqis. Their particular tasks involved repairing the 63 ton Abrams
tanks' complicated hydraulic and depleted uranium fire-control systems.
Over the following months of nonstop stress, missile alerts, caffeine
jolts and deadlines, Brown's travels would take him from the Saudi ports
of Dammam and al Jubayl to Kuwait City, Khafji, and Hafir al Batin.
* * *
Even before Brown boarded his airlift to Dhahran, Sergeant Tom Hare was
camped at the Saudi border town of Sufla, about 65 miles west of Khafji.
A stinging sandstorm made Hare rethink the rigors of his deployment. But
it wasn't the sand, he says. It was the corpses his platoon found buried
beneath their position. "There were hundreds of dead camels and goats on
and around the hill we occupied," Hare relates. "They're desert animals.
They have to deal with sandstorms all the time." Even spookier, all of
the flies and insects that had been feeding on the desert-mummified
flesh had died.
Another American soldier had never seen animals lay down at night in
groups of five, 10, 20 or more and die. But the six "sleeping" camels he
saw a few days after arriving in the country, "were dead as doornails."
Venturing closer, the startled trooper saw that "even the insects on and
around them were dead." Maybe, he decided, "they all thought that it was
the end of the world, and died of fright." Or maybe someone didn't like
infidels on sacred Saudi soil.
Sergeant Hare and his company had ample time to consider their
predicament as they remained in the area, eating and sleeping on the
hill of camel carcasses. Cuts would no longer heal, Hare recalls. and
the lymph nodes on his neck swelled until he "looked like a bullfrog."
Fine sand infiltrated everything. In November, as their long deployment
dragged on, Hare and his companions learned of two dead goats floating
in their water source. How the animals got there was never determined.
* * *
Hare couldn't know it, but his country's former Cold War enemy was
working overtime to bring him and his buddies safely home. On October 5,
1990, President Mikhail Gorbachev's personal adviser met with Saddam at
his Presidential Palace. Yevgeny Primakov delivered a "strong" note from
the Soviet president telling him to get out of Kuwait.
"The atmosphere was tense," Primakov recalls, which was undoubtedly
understated after handing Saddam such an ultimatum. After agreeing that
1,000 Soviet specialists could leave Iraq within a month, Saddam Hussein
emphasized that Kuwait "historically belonged" to Iraq. With the price
of oil down sharply from $21 to $12 a barrel, Saddam noted that Kuwait's
machinations "spelled economic ruin" for Iraq. "If I have to fall to my
knees and surrender or fight, I will choose the latter," Iraq's
president told Gorbachev's top aide.
The following day, Primakov briefed his boss in Moscow on his meeting
with the proud Iraqi leader. Gorbachev ordered Primakov and his staff to
draw up a peace proposal. Within two days, Primakov was back with an
offer that hinged, he said, on finding the line between "rewarding
aggression" and "saving face" for Saddam.
Primakov then flew to Washington on October 18 to discuss the Soviet
initiative with US officials. Gorbachev's representative found "genuine
interest" among the Americans, who wanted to know more about his
meetings with an opponent they had not directly contacted since the
crisis began. Primakov explained to Dennis Ross, head of the president's
policy planning staff and the State Department's top Middle East expert,
that the main thrust of the Soviet plan was to make Saddam understand
that once his troops left Kuwait, "we would be ready to discuss the
Arab-Israeli issue in order to resolve the Palestinian problem."
"Israel won't go for that," Ross replied. Bush's Mideast policy adviser
was also skeptical about drawing any distinctions between "rewarding"
Saddam and "saving his face."
Primakov's party was received at the White House the next day. According
to the Soviet aide, the US president expressed "extreme interest" in
Saddam's psychological makeup. Did the dictator's assurance that he was
"realist" mean that he was ready to withdraw from Kuwait?
Bush seemed to be hesitating, Primakov thought, over whether or not to
attack Iraq. The president said he favored a second meeting between the
Soviets and Saddam "to inform Saddam about the uncompromising position
of the US." Bush added: "If a positive signal should come from Saddam,
it will be heard by us."
On his way home, the jet-lagged Primakov stopped to meet with Margaret
Thatcher in her country residence at Chequers. For a good hour, the
British Prime Minister lectured the Soviet envoy without interruption,
outlining a position that she insisted was gaining favor with other
allied governments.
Thatcher told Primakov that the object was "not to limit things" to the
withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait, but to deliver a devastating
blow to Iraq that would "break the back" of Saddam and destroy the
entire military, and perhaps industrial, potential of that country. "No
one should try to interfere with the objective. No one should even try
to ward off the blow against the Saddam regime," Thatcher ranted. Bush
would later present "the Iron Lady" with the Medal of Freedom.
* * *
On October 24, Primakov again left Moscow, this time bound for Cairo,
Damascus, Riyadh and Baghdad. For his second meeting with Saddam and his
staff, everyone present was wearing military uniforms. Later, in a
one-on-one, Primakov told Saddam: "You have known me for a long time,
and apparently you have become convinced that I try to tell you the
truth. At stake, moreover, a powerful strike against Iraq is unavoidable
if you do not announce your withdrawal from Kuwait and carry out this
withdrawal in practice."
Saddam wanted to know when US troops would be leaving Saudi Arabia.
"Will the UN sanctions against Iraq be lifted, or will they remain in
place? How will my country's interest concerning an outlet to the sea be
ensured? Will there be some kind of linkage between the Iraq troop
pullout from Kuwait and a solution to the Palestinian problem?"
Would America stay the course? A poll taken on November 1, 1991, showed
that only 49 percent of Americans thought Kuwait was worth fighting for.
The next day, Amnesty International reported that Saudi security forces
were torturing and abusing hundreds of Yemeni "guest workers" and
expelling 750,000 of them, "for no apparent reason other than their
nationality or their suspected opposition to the Saudi Arabian
government's position in the Gulf crisis."
On the 15th, Primakov arrived back in Washington as the UN Security
Council opened debate on a resolution establishing a deadline for Iraq's
pullout from Kuwait. The Soviet advisor feared that if the resolution
passed, Saddam would feel trapped, "narrowing the field for political
remedies."
With the US elections behind him, a reelected George Bush now made
public his earlier order sending an additional 200,000 American troops
to "defend Saudi Arabia." Congress was not advised of the reserves'
mobilization. But the bogus "incubator" story plucked a resounding
public chord. A new poll done on November 27 found that 59 percent of
Americans now favored intervention on the emirate's behalf.
Bush had also scored photo-op points while visiting American troops
grousing about a sandy Thanksgiving. During a private session with
Schwarzkopf, the president asked his top general to assess "the
best-case and worst-case scenario" for the upcoming ground war.
Schwarzkopf replied bluntly: "The best case would be about three days,
which assumes that the Iraqis quickly fold and surrender en masse. The
worst case would be a situation in which we fight to a stalemate. That
could go on for months."
This prognosis did not please the president. "Isn't there some scenario
in between?" Bush demanded.
"I can imagine a campaign lasting three to four weeks where we encounter
tough resistance, but we're able to seize all our objectives and destroy
the Republican Guard," General Schwarzkopf replied.
* * *
On November 29, UN Resolution 678 called on the US and its allies to
"use all necessary means" to liberate Kuwait if Iraq did not withdraw by
January 15, 1991.
There would be no "white Christmas" for US forces. As American troops
began the most difficult month away from home, Iraq offered to "scrap
chemical and mass destruction weapons if Israel was prepared to do so."
In reply, the first cargo ship carrying VII Corps's armor docked at al
Jubayl.
On December 5, CIA director William Webster appeared before the US Armed
Services committee. America's top spook forecast that lack of spare
parts and lubricating oil would shut down Iraqi aircraft and armor, as
well as its military industries, by summer. Admiral William Crowe and
General David Jones, both former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
concurred with Webster's assessment. The brass urged Bush to give
sanctions at least a year to work.
By December 13, 1990, American "Intel" was reporting that the Republican
Guard had moved multiple rocket launchers to two large field ammunition
depots in the Rumayah area along the Kuwait border. During the last week
of December, US intelligence also detected greatly increased activity at
Iraq's main chemical plant at Samarra.
The British Ministry of Defense believed that Iraq "may have as many as
100,000 artillery shells filled with chemicals and several tons [of bulk
chemical agent] stored near the front line." The London Times reported
that Saddam Hussein had given front-line commanders permission to use
these weapons at their discretion, and that "it was no longer a question
of if, but when."
Except for the elite Republican Guard being held back in reserve, most
of Iraq's armed forces were now in Kuwait. As the Iraqi Army scrambled
to disperse its SCUD missiles and CBW stockpiles, deserters told their
British captors that substantial supplies of chemical weapons were being
cached along the entire front. Another Iraqi defector reported that
"each brigade of the 20th Infantry Division has eight mustard and binary
chemical rounds."
A captured Iraqi Army document gave orders from Saddam Hussein to Iraqi
II Corps elements in Kuwait ordering them to "prepare the chemical
ammunition." Intercepted radio messages also confirmed that Saddam had
ordered his commanders to launch their "unconventional" weapons as soon
as the allies' forces crossed the border into Iraq.
* * *
Schwarzkopf's soldiers were unprepared to counter this threat. The
reassurances given to Congress and the American people by the head of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, and Secretary of
Defense Dick Cheney that their troops were properly equipped for
possible NBC warfare were deemed necessary falsehoods. CENTCOM knew that
the marines tasked with breaching the Iraqi's main defensive lines in
Kuwait faced their chemically armed adversary with leaky gas masks and
few replacement filters.
Nearly five months' deployment in the desert, constant NBC drills and
the need to carry their masks at all times had greatly reduced the
serviceability of American gas masks. According to Captain Manly's "NBC
Material and Logistics" report, some marine reservists "were lacking in
NBC equipment, many of their protective masks were obsolete, and they
were deficient in NBC survival skills training." Manly also pointed to
"the M17A2 Protective Mask and OG-84 Protective Suit, both of which were
in critically short supply throughout the war."
As early as November 1, 1990, the US Marine Corps Logistics Base in
Albany, Georgia was reporting up the chain-of-command that many Marines
hastily deployed in Saudi Arabia were being forced to fix worn-out gas
masks with duct tape. Faced with an at-home 26 to 40 percent failure
rate, the Albany technicians feared that few masks and hoods could
survive intact after being clogged and chafed by sand sifting into
Marine mask carriers.
The previous month, Defense Intelligence Agency analysts warned General
Powell that "tests indicate that dusty agents can penetrate US chemical
and biological warfare overgarments...First battlefield use will most
likely be detected by the onset of symptoms among exposed personnel."
The "dusty agent" referred to was liquid mustard gas absorbed onto a
talc-like carrier medium. As CIA analyst Patrick Eddington explained in
his heavily annotated Gassed In The Gulf: "We were in no position to
deal with a real chemical threat on the battlefield. We had no way to
defend effectively against [dusty agent] and DoD knew it."
While Schwarzkopf opened his Christmas package of sugar cookies, peanut
butter fudge and shortbread sent by his wife Brenda, the Iraqis
celebrated the Christian season of rejoicing with successful flight
tests of al Hussein missiles filled with sarin nerve powder. On December
20, the first test firings of the new, improved SCUD saw two and
possibly four al Husseins impact near Wadi Amij in western Iraq. Quoting
unidentified intelligence sources, the New York Times claimed the new
missiles were testing simulated chemical warheads. Another successful
test was launched the day after Christmas.
Schwarzkopf's only consolation came from listening to "relaxation tapes"
of wildlife sounds and ocean waves. Despite the latest developments, the
general was sure that one desert Christmas was all that his soldiers
could take.
* * *
Eager for adventure, David Prestwich had showed up at the recruiter's
office when he was just 16. Told to come back, he reappeared on his next
birthday saying, "take me." Two days later he was in boot camp and his
life belonged to the Department of National Defense. Trained as a medic,
the young Canadian traveled the world from exotic Moose Jaw,
Saskatchewan, to Germany, where he served for five years. Prestwich met
and married Leanne during an eight-year posting to Esquimalt, British
Columbia on Canada's "wet" coast.
Right up until the first day of 1991, the Prestwichs' matching military
careers seemed ideal. Then, with an abruptness that characterizes
military life, David's unit was ordered to stow their hangovers and
start packing. Everyone guessed it was the Gulf. But no one figured that
1 Canadian Field Hospital would become the closest Canadians to a
tempest called Desert Storm.
On January 2, as the Prestwichs prepared to assist Canada's contribution
to what the UN Secretary General was already calling "a US war,"
Washington disclosed another Iraqi offer. This time, Saddam Hussein
agreed "to withdraw from Kuwait if the United States pledges not to
attack as soldiers are pulled out, if foreign troops leave the region,
and if there is agreement on the Palestinian problem and on the banning
of all weapons of mass destruction in the region."
Washington officials described the offer as "interesting" because it
dropped all claims to the two disputed Gulf islands, as well as the
Rumayah oil field. The new initiative "signals Iraqi interest in a
negotiated settlement," the State Department believed. One of its
Mideast experts described the proposal as a "serious pre-negotiation
position." Bush immediately dismissed Iraq's offer.
While it failed to report the latest Iraqi proposal, the New York Times
did note that after meeting with Saddam, neither Yasser Arafat nor the
Iraqi president "insisted that the Palestinian problem be solved before
Iraqi troops get out of Kuwait." According to Arafat, "Mr. Hussein's
statement August 12, linking an Iraqi withdrawal to an Israeli
withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, was no longer operative as
a negotiating demand." All that is necessary to achieve Iraq's
withdrawal from Kuwait, the Palestinian leader went on, is a commitment
by the UN Security Council to solve major regional problems.
But Bush was not interested in averting a war that would leave Iraq
armed with unconventional weapons, including a program bent on producing
nuclear bombs. Instead of poring over peace proposals, the US president
was engrossed in Martin Gilbert's biography of Churchill at war.
* * *
Iraq's military command was already preparing for the inevitable. On
January 7, American intelligence informed General Schwarzkopf that
chemical weapons were being removed from the Samarra Chemical and
Biological Warfare Research, Production, and Storage facility. Orbiting
"Keyhole" satellites photographed similar activity at Iraq's top
chemical weapons research and development center, the nearby Muthanna
State Establishment. Located near Samarra, about 65 miles northwest of
Baghdad, this sprawling desert complex was estimated by American
intelligence to be producing more than 2,000 tons of mustard and sarin
agents a year. UN on-site inspectors would later confirm this
assessment.
On January 9, Bush was still insisting he had the constitutional
authority to attack Iraq without congressional approval. But the world
was holding its collective CNN breath as James Baker met Iraq's Tariq
Aziz in a last-ditch, face-to-face effort to avert war. Meeting outside
the conference room at Geneva's Intercontinental Hotel, Aziz assured
reporters, "I have come, in good faith. I am open-minded, and I am ready
to conduct positive, constructive talks with Secretary Baker, if he
shows the same intention."
Inside the room, both sides took their places, pulling back seven or
eight seats on each side of a long table. The American delegation had
finally worked out what to do if the Iraqi representative offered to
shake hands. When Aziz extended his hand, Baker shook it in a
businesslike manner. As both men sat down, Baker handed Aziz a copy of a
letter from the American president. The original message, addressed to
Saddam Hussein, remained sealed in a brown manila envelope in the middle
of the table.
Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly remembers that Tariq Aziz took
10 or 15 minutes to read the letter. As he stopped occasionally to
underline passages, a thin bead of sweat ran down the temple of Saddam's
closest adviser.
"We stand today at the brink of war between Iraq and the world," Bush
had written. Urging Iraq to comply with the UN resolution and depart
Kuwait, the president continued: "Iraq will regain the opportunity to
rejoin the international community. More immediately, the Iraqi military
and establishment will escape destruction." Alluding to the use of
chemical biological weapons: "You and your country will pay a terrible
price if you order unconscionable acts of that sort."
Aziz finished the note and looked at Baker. "Look, Mr. Secretary, this
is not the kind of correspondence between two heads of state. This is a
letter of threat, and I cannot receive from you a letter of threat to my
president." Aziz returned the letter.
The language is strong, Baker responded, but it is not impolite. "It
conveys an important message to your president, and I urge you to take
this letter back to Baghdad and to give it to your president."
Again Aziz refused. "No, I won't do that, I can't do that. It's not
appropriate language."
Baker said, "Well, minister, it seems to me you've taken a rather large
burden on your shoulders since you're the only person on your side of
the table, who has read the letter." Several Americans thought the Iraqi
diplomat's hands trembled slightly at this sally.
Downstairs in the hotel lobby, rumors were already circulating among
hundreds of reporters starved for hard news. Progress toward a
settlement was being made!
"Mr. Secretary," Aziz continued. "Iraq is a very ancient nation. We
lived for six thousand years, I have no doubt that you are a very
powerful nation. I have no doubt that you have a very strong military
machine and you will inflict on us, heavy losses. But Iraq will survive.
And this leadership will decide the future of Iraq."
Baker corrected Aziz, saying that another leadership was going to decide
Iraq's fate.
"You are wrong," Aziz shot back. "In this region, in our region, when a
leadership fights against Americans, it politically survives. And
remember what happened to Nasser when he was defeated in 1967, he
resigned and then the people, the masses returned him to power."
The US Secretary of State tried to explain that the coalition's
overwhelming military and technological superiority meant that, if it
came to a war, Iraq would lose.
"We are very well aware of the situation. We have been very well aware
of the situation from the very beginning. And I don't ..."
"I am trying not to threaten. I just want you to understand the
consequences," Baker broke in. But Aziz insisted that American soldiers
had never fought in the desert. They did not know desert conditions, and
would not be able to fight. Although the war would be long and difficult
for Iraq, he assured Baker that in the end Iraq would prevail.
At one point, when Aziz claimed that Iraq had to invade Kuwait because
that country was threatening them. Baker brusquely replied: "That's
ridiculous."
After more than six hours of discussion, it was clear that Saddam
Hussein preferred the defeat of his armies - and possibly the ruin of
his country - to losing face by backing down.
"Minister, I don't want to cut his off prematurely," Baker concluded.
"But I have said everything that, er, that I have to say and everything
that er, I think is important to say. And if you have anything further
to offer, then we'll, I'll stay here as long as you want to."
Aziz replied, "We don't have anything. I don't have anything further to
say." The meeting was adjourned. Aziz had told the American delegation
that the people of his region believed in fatality. "They believe that
when there is fate, you have to face it." As the meeting broke up, James
Baker felt that his Iraqi counterpart was resigned to what was about to
happen.
The sealed envelope containing Bush's letter had remained on the table
between Tariq Aziz and James Baker all day. Now the American Secretary
of State half-turned toward Aziz. "Are you certain you wouldn't like to
take the letter with you?" he asked. "No, I, I won't take it," said a
man who knew very well his boss's reaction to such a note. James Baker
picked up the envelope and brought it back to his room.
"We shook hands at the end," Baker recalls. "Each delegation shook hands
and, and I was certain at the time, that we would be going to war. And
going to war very, very, soon."
Down in the hotel lobby, excited conversations hushed as expectant
reporters turned to hear James Baker: "The message that I conveyed from
President Bush and our coalition partners was that Iraq must either
comply with the will of the international community and withdraw
peacefully from Kuwait, or be expelled by force. Regrettably ladies and
gentlemen, I heard nothing today that, in over six hours, I heard
nothing that suggested to me, any Iraqi flexibility whatsoever."
Baker's use of the word "regrettably,"with its implication of imminent
conflict, sent world money and stock markets reeling. In a Saudi hotel,
a sign shot up: "Iraq has won the toss and elected to receive."
In Riyadh, General Norman Schwarzkopf was checking the final details of
his plans to send six hundred thousand troops into battle as he watched
Tariq Aziz step to the hotel microphone.
"Well it was very late at night in, in, in Riyadh,' the general later
recounted to the BBC. "And then Tariq Aziz came out and talked for, it
seemed like for ever, and never mentioned one word about Kuwait. At that
point, I realized we were going to war. So, so you have this, this, you
know, you're torn by two ends. Number one you are going through detailed
preparations to make sure you do, do it right and you do prevail. And at
the same time, another part of you is saying, you know, gosh, it would
really be nice if somehow this could all be brought about to a necessary
conclusion without the need to go to war. It, it meant plain and simply,
that we were going to war. That people were going to die."
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-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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