Mesopotamia Burning, Part III

It has been awhile since I did my last post in this series. That mainly had to do with work and school getting in the way. For an introduction to the series see Part I and for a history of U.S. involvement in the Middle East and the Iran-Iraq War see Part II. Part III covers the history of the start of the first Gulf War right up to the election of George W. Bush.

After the Iran-Iraq war, both countries were exhausted. Specifically, Iraq owed Gulf states, such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, massive amounts of money given to the country as loans, in order to fight against the Shia Muslim state of Iran.(1) On top of loans Iraq also suffered economically from the many years of war with Iran. In 1975 Iraq had 3% of its labor force in the armed forces. But, during the late 1970s and early 1980s Iraq shifted, under Hussein, from a mostly civilian economy to a mostly military economy. By 1988, when the major fighting had ended, 21% of the Iraqi labor force was in the armed forces. Also, military spending in Iraq had risen from $1 billion in 1970 (19% of GDP) to $12.1 billion in 1980 (nearly 23% of GDP) and during the period of 1981-1988 Iraq had spent 40% of its GDP, $111 billion, in military endeavors. Military spending was also outpacing Iraq’s production of oil, during the period of 1981-1988 while Iraq was spending $111 billion on the military, it only raised $72 billion in oil revenues. By the time the war had ended Iraq had an economy that was a mere shadow of its former self during the pre-war years. In 1980 the government generated $26 billion, by the near end of the war in 1988 Iraq was only generating $11 billion. To make matters worse Iraq suffered a 9% decline in its GDP in as little as two years, from 1988-1989.(2) According to Abbas Alnasrawi the decline in the Iraqi economy “constituted a severe blow to the government and forced it to adopt an austerity program of spending. But to reduce government spending in a period of sever economic crisis had the effect of worsening the crisis.”(3) Iraq was caught in between a rock and a hard place and had almost no place to go, especially since there was no hope that any of the governments in the Gulf region would ease up on their demands for repayment of loans.

Hussein began looking towards Kuwait, a country that Iraq owed millions of dollars in loan repayments to, as the solution to Iraq’s economic woes. Iraq was extremely vulnerable, a situation that benefited the U.S., and needed to boost its economy. Yet the economy had been fully militarized years before by Hussein and only continued military action could boost the economy. Kuwait also had strategic oil wells that Iraq could further use to bolster its economy. Hussein decided to invade Kuwait in July of 1990 and started amassing troops by the Kuwaiti boarder, but before he took action Hussein meet with U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie.

In the meeting Glaspie reportedly told Hussein. “We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.” Hussein saw this as American backing, or at least American indifference, to his intended invasion of Kuwait.(4) The army presence, and Hussein’s threats against the Gulf states (he said the Gulf states were tools of the Western powers and that there was an intentional campaign to “impoverish Iraq’s people” by lowering oil prices), seemed to work since OPEC raised the price of oil from $18 per barrel to $21 per barrel. Yet, despite that, in August of 1990 Hussein ordered his army to invade Kuwait.(5) Justifying the invasion to the Iraqi people the deputy prime minister for the economy stated that “Iraq will be able to pay its debt in less than five years” and that “the new Iraq would have a much higher oil production quota” and “that its income from oil would rise to $38 billion; and that it would be able to vastly increase spending on development projects and imports.”(6)

In the same month that Iraq invaded, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 661, which demanded an immediate withdrawal from Kuwait. With that President George H. W. Bush started rallying nations from around the region and Europe as he began sending U.S. troops to the Gulf to prepare for an invasion. In September Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Hussein would have a “stranglehold” over the U.S., and the world, if he was able to take control of Kuwait’s and Saudi Arabia’s oil wells.(7) In November of 1990 the UN Security Council passed Resolution 678, authorizing force to ouster Iraqi troops from Kuwait. Before the U.S. lead invasion of Kuwait a “last-minute proposal was made by the French” that Iraq would pull its troops out if the U.S. agreed to propose an international conference on peace on the Middle Eastern region. The U.S. and Britain rejected this proposal with “U.S. officials saying that a peaceful Iraqi withdrawal was ‘nightmare scenario.’”(8)

The coalition forces made quick work in their fight against the Iraqi military once the air campaign began in January of 1991. “During forty-three days of war, the United States flew 109,876 sorties and dropped 84,200 tons of bombs. Average monthly tonnage of ordnance used nearly equaled that of the Second World War” and 93% “of munitions used by the allies consisted of unguided ‘dumb’ bombs, dropped primarily by Vietnam-era B-52 bombers.”(9) By February 26 Hussein ordered his troops to abandon their positions in Kuwait and return to Iraq. Instead of pursuing the Iraqi army all the way to Baghdad and overthrowing Hussein, President Bush held back.

Then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell, reluctant from the beginning to commit U.S. forces to the Gulf, said. “I took the president through the situation on the ground. I pointed out that within the next 24 hours, I would be bringing a recommendation with respect of the cessation of hostilities. The president then said, ‘Well, if that’s the case, we’re within the window. Why not end it now?’”

This was considered by many of the neoconservatives, or neo-Reaganites (as they called themselves), a huge miscalculation and that overthrowing Hussein should be the primary objective of the United States in order for the U.S. to exert its power and influence over the Gulf Region.(10)

While the victory over Iraq was an important victory for the U.S., especially during the post-Vietnam era, the fall of the Soviet Union was even more important, and changed the political landscape forever. On December 25, 1991, Secretary-General Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov resigned and handed over all power to the president of Russia, Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin. Wit the fall of the Soviet Union many where saying that the world had entered a new era and the threat of nuclear annihilation was no longer a factor. Also, with the end of the Cold War, said many political analysts, was the end of neoconservative policy. Yet, instead of disappearing, the neoconservative doctrine further intensified by “contending that the moment had come to create an American-dominated world order.”(11) In order for the neoconservative movement’s ideology to gain traction they needed a document that spelled out their beliefs and what they would need to do in order for America to gain complete hegemonic power. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz, was just the man to create such a document.

During the early part of 1992 Wolfowitz created a 46 page document that had been circulating in the defense department called the “Defense Planning Guidance” which was to define America’s role in a post-Cold War world.(12) The plan called for the United States to position itself in the world by using economic, diplomatic, and military means in order to remain the worlds only superpower and “to discourage [other countries] from challenging [U.S.] leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order.”(13) The document also said that the U.S. should “talk loudly and carry a big stick” as well as using unilateral action when necessary.(14) While there were some within the Pentagon that agreed with the documents views many found the document abhorrent, as a result the document was leaked to the New York Times in March of 1992. In the Times article it was stated that the document’s “concept of benevolent domination by one power, the Pentagon document articulates the clearest rejection to date of collective internationalism, the strategy that emerged from World War II.”(15) The publishing of the article caused a public outcry and an undue strain on President Bush during a time when he was running for reelection. Because of this Bush ordered Cheney to personally rewrite the draft to make it more suitable to the public, as well as to many within the Pentagon who did not agree with its radical departure from traditional foreign policy goals. Because of this, the document was left on the backburner and kept in Pentagon vaults to collect dust, that is, until another president arose who agreed with the document’s policy goals.

It was obvious, however, from the start, that the newly elected President William Jefferson Clinton, was not the president to resurrect the Defense Planning Guidance. With the defeat of Bush many of the neoconservatives that had been working in Washington since Ronald Reagan (and some since President Gerald Ford, Jr.) took up jobs in public life. Then Senior Director of Soviet and Eastern European Affairs, Condoleezza Rice (who had left in 1991) returned to Stanford University to teach and to also work at the Hoover Institution. After making contacts she quickly became a board member of the oil company Chevron, and even had an oil tanker named after her, the Condoleezza Rice. Paul Wolfowitz also went back to the academic life and was appointed dean to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Cheney, after making a speech that seemed like he would never return to politics, became the president and CEO of the Haliburton Company, a top military contractor and oil services company that had many ties with the Pentagon.(16)

Clinton brought a more realist, or realpolitik, and pragmatical foreign policy to the table (as did former President George H. W. Bush), much to the dismay of the neoconservatives. Instead of focusing on regions around the world and targeting countries that would increase American hegemony and cement America as the world’s only superpower, such as Iraq and North Korea, Clinton instead focused on Somalia, Hattie, and the Balkans. In reaction to this (and for planning for the future), according to Gary Dorrien, “They tightened their hold over leading conservative think tanks,” such as the American Enterprise Institute, “and magazines, strengthened their alliances with Cheney and Rumsfled,” who had been the Secretary of Defense under Ford and had been involved in private business and other ventures since (he also introduced Cheney to Washington life), “founded The Weekly Standard magazine, and got a huge boost from the rise of the Fox network.”(17) In 1997 William Kristol, a prominent neoconservative outside of government, founded the Project for the New American Century, which called for the United States to step up its role and to make moves to further cement itself as the world’s dominant superpower and to spread American values across the globe, as well as to act militarily against other countries that challenged America’s supremacy. The following year the Project for the New American Century wrote an open letter to Clinton urging him to overthrow Hussein.

In the letter the group stated, “The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action…In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein.”(18) Obviously the neoconservatives were still interested in Iraq and still saw Iraq as a key player in furthering U.S. political power in the Middle East. While weapons of mass destruction may have been a legitimate worry for some within the group, the most important thing was the removal of Hussein because Iraq could be used as a tool to further U.S. dominance in the region, WMDs were a secondary issue (in fact, they seemed to be more of an excuse to invade than a legitimate concern for most). Those who signed the letter to Clinton were Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, William Kristol, Richard Armitage, and John Bolton, among others.

Yet Clinton was still unreceptive to their calls. While he did sign a bill calling for the overthrow of Hussein latter on in his presidency and while he did initiate Operation Desert Fox, he did not take the type of action that the neoconservatives wanted. For that, they would need to look forward to another president.




Notes
1. Research Unit for Political Economy. “Behind the War On Iraq.” Monthly Review 55, no. 1 (May 2003): 33.
2. Alnasrawi, Abbas. “Oil, Sanctions, Debt and the Future.” Arab Studies Quarterly 23, no. 4 (Fall 2001): 5-6.
3. Alnasrawi, 6.
4. Research Unit for Political Economy, 36; Mearsheimer, John J. and Stephen M. Walt. “An Unnecessary War.” Foreign Policy no. 134 (Jan/Feb 2003): 54.
5. Alnasrawi, 6.
6. Ibid., 6-7.
7. Klare, Michael. “The New Geopolitics.” Monthly Review 55, no. 3 (July 2003): 55.
8. Research Unit for Political Economy, 37.
9. Ibid.
10. Frontline. The War Behind Closed Doors. Prod. and dir. Michael Kirk, 60 minutes. Originally aired on PBS Feb. 20, 2003.
11. Dorrien, Gary. “Consolidating the Empire: Neoconservatism and the Politics of American Dominion.” Political Theology 6, no. 4 (Oct. 2005): 413-414.
12. Tyler, Patrick E. “U.S. Strategy Plan Calls For Insuring No Rivals Develop.” New York Times, 8 March 1992, 1.
13. Tyler, 1.
14. “Excerpts From 1992 Draft ‘Defense Planning Guidance.’ Frontline. The War Behind Closed Doors. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/etc/wolf.html (accessed Jan. 29 2007); “Chronology: The Evolution Of The Bush Doctrine.” Frontline. The War Behind Closed Doors. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/etc/cron.html (accessed Jan. 29, 2007).
15. Tyler, 1.
16. Mann, James. Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), 225, 227, 229.
17. Dorrien, 415.
18. “Chronology: The Evolution Of The Bush Doctrine.” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/etc/cron.html (accessed Jan. 29, 2007).

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