Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 19, 1991 TAG: 9104190692
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAXTON DAVIS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Saddam Hussein still rules Iraq.
He has turned his brutality from the citizens of Kuwait to the rebelling minorities of his own country.
The neighboring nations of the Middle East who joined the American-led "coalition" to resist him - Saudi Arabia, Turkey, to a degree Iran - are divided once again as to what they believe to be a stable settlement for their region.
Refugees from Saddam's persecution flood border areas of north and south Iraq, desperate for food, shelter, medical help and weapons against their persecutor.
The ruling family of Kuwait, restored to power by George Bush and his policies, has reassumed the dictatorial ruling style that makes the establishment of democratic government in that country unlikely in the foreseeable future.
Instead of establishing the "stability" it says it wants to see in the Middle East, the military intervention of the Bush administration has radically destabilized the entire region, probably for a long time to come.
All of these possibilities were foreseen by Middle East specialists during the months between Iraq's August invasion of Kuwait and the January onset of the war to reverse it. No one who reads newspapers or magazines, or watches television news and comment, or listens to public radio can have missed it.
Two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff argued publicly against military action. A preponderance of scholarly specialists and formerly active political figures - including every recent secretary of defense except Caspar Weinberger - advised against it. Most journalists who have covered the region argued that military force would be an irreversible mistake. A substantial minority in Congress argued against it, and voted their convictions.
But George Bush persisted and had the power to have his way. The ensuing "victory" over an Iraqi military machine, whose might and morale his administration had grossly exaggerated, was hailed with nearly hysterical joy by Americans hungry since Vietnam for visible evidence that the United States is still numero uno.
The "victory" was a fraud, composed in equal parts of massive strategic bombing of the Iraqi population and ground war against a weak and demoralized foe. Claims that it was virtually "bloodless" were lies: Iraqi civilian deaths may have numbered as many as 100,000. "Coalition" soldiers were killed too - in small numbers, to be sure, but to what geopolitical or moral purpose?
Then, as quixotically as he intervened, Bush began pulling out. Troop returns to the United States were staged for dramatic political effect. They mounted weekly, making for continuous television coverage.
When Shiite Muslims in the south of Iraq, and Kurds in the north, rose up to oppose further rule by Saddam Hussein - explicitly urged to do so by George Bush - he turned his back.
Bush's excuse: The United States would not intervene in the "internal" affairs of Iraq. This from an American president who had committed the ultimate "internal" intervention: the perpetual bombing of guiltless civilians.
Now the plight of the Shiite and Kurdish refugees, thousands of whom Saddam has already slaughtered with the collusion of the Bush administration - which had not defeated the Iraqi army after all, which had not disarmed its "defeated" enemy and which had not deprived that enemy of helicopter gunships or other means of slaughter - has wrung the conscience of the world.
Bush's answer: "humanitarian" aid, too little and unpardonably too late.
What, one has to wonder, was the war really all about? Why was George Bush so determined to wage it? What did it accomplish for whom? - except, of course, George Bush's 1992 re-election campaign.
\ AUTHOR Paxton Davis is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB