Talking peace and preparing for war to Baghdad for a "face-to-face" with
GEORGE BUSH'S idea of sending US Secretary of State James Baker Saddam Hussein seemed quite surprising given that it came at the end of a month full of political and military preparations for war. While Irag announced on December 6 the release of all hostages, the US gon's repertoire. Furthermore, "the ground support units for the airforce have started to build up stocks of spare parts and munitions sufficient to ensure several hundred combat sorties per day."
In addition to the logistical problems, the total cost of these military expenses continues to grow, a serious issue for a state which is already $6,000bn in debt. The Bush
GULF CRISIS administration kept upping the ante. SALAH JABER
T HREE weeks before Bush's offer,
Washington had announced a sig nificant reinforcement of the already massive American deployment in the Gulf. By January the number of soldiers in place should rise from 230,000 now to 430,000. To this must be added another 100,000 or so "allied" troops, from Arab countries, Europe and elsewhere. The original reason given for sending the extra 200,000 troops, some of them from the National Guard, was to relieve those already there. The idea was to rotate the troops on the ground, which would be indispensable in the case of a long stay. This seemed in line with a "peaceful" strategy of strangulation by blockade.
The Bush administration, however, has turned these new troops into pure and simple reinforcements, at the cost of sowing disarray among some of the military top brass, who were caught on the hop. The Pentagon big shots are in fact rather worried about the morale of their troops in Saudi Arabia, who are feeling ever less in sympathy with their obscurantist and furthermore, experiencing huge logistical difficulties in sustaining the quarter of a million troops already on the spot, who were deployed in record time - in particular in comparison with the build up of forces in Vietnam between 1961 and 1969. The Pentagon is already using more than a hundred cargo ships to ferry supplies to the Gulf, a region which normally imports almost all its food.
At the end of November, the American press learned that the increase in the number of troops was going to be accompanied by an important boost in the air forces deployed in the Gulf. The number of aircraft is to increase from 1,600 to 1,900. The 300 extra will include a second squadron of the radar-invisible F-117 Stealth bombers - the most expensive and sophisticated airplane in the Pentaadministration has already forecast a record budget deficit of $254bn for 1991. In October alone, before the despatch of the latest reinforcemilitary spending had passed $24bn, an increase of 17% on the previous month ($20.5bn). This is hardly the $50bn reduction in the federal budget deficit promised as part of the "peace dividend" before Saddam Hussein invaded
Economically rational prodigality
This prodigality has, of course, an economic rationality. It is intended to spare the military and para-military sector, which is of decisive weight in the United States, from the pangs of recession. But it depends to a very great extent on external financing, and this can only make the American debt worse. Bush hoped to avoid this by getting his rich allies and
— the Gulf oil monarchies, Germany and Japan — to make direct financial contributions to the intervention against Iraq.
Thus, the monthly budget report for October notes, on the credit side of the balance, the "Defence Cooperation Account," that is to say the contributions of Washington's allies. This sum however covers only a third of the growth in costs between October 1989 and October 1990, which is some $5bn, or 25% more. The result is the record deficit forecast for the coming year, and an aggravation of a problem which is weighing heavily on the global economic outlook, and besides which the Third World debt is small beer.
For all these reasons, the "long haul" strategy, otherwise known as "sanctions", is in fact ruled out as an option for Washington. When administration officials say they are convinced that the embargo will not be enough to make Saddam Hussein back down, what they are really saying is that the US is not able to maintain its present effort for a long time. Henry Kis. singer spelt this out with particular frankness in his deposition to the Armed Services Committee of the US Senate: "The presence of a large force puts pressure on Saddam Hussein, but it also makes it more difficult to sustain it for an indefinite period of time. And this is why we will come to a point of decision...sometime in the next few months. "3
This is the background to the sending of the new troops. The size was decided between General Powell, head of the US joint chiefs-of-staff, and General Schwarzkopf, commander of the forces present in the Gulf. This decision answers the needs of an "offensive punch" to borrow the phrase of Bob Woodward, the well-known Washington Post reporter. As he explained it: "the political objective set by President Bush is to 'evict the Iraqi army from Kuwait'. The military task is as a consequence to realize this objective rapidly and with minimum losses, which implies massive firepower."*.
Pentagon's new military doctrine
According to Woodward, General Powell and the Defence Secretary, Dick Cheney, are the proponents of the Pentagon's new military doctrine, which was put to work during the invasion of Panama in December 1989. This strategy, according to the Washington Post journalist, entails: "secrecy, the figurative 'decapitation' of the enemy leadership and the crushing shock of combat power intended to be so 1. International Herald Tribune, December 1/2, 1990. 2. The Wall Street Journal, November 26, 1990. 3. Quoted in Newsweek, December 10, 1990. 4. IHT, December 3, 1990. 5.90e International Viewpoint, no. 177, January 29, 3
International Viewpoint #197 • December 24, 1990
GULF CRISIS formidable as to prove invincible...
"The doctrine represents a reaction to, and a rejection of, the gradualism of Vietnam."5
More precisely, in this specific case of confrontation with the Iraqi army, which is a wholly different proposition to Noriega's, the Pentagon aims to achieve its objectives with the minimum of ground combat. They are counting first and above all on the airforce, envisaging: "days — and perhaps weeks - of intense, roundthe-clock aerial bombardment designed to pulverize ground fortifications and terrorize and demoralize Iraqi troops."6
In its December 10 edition, Newsweek magazine gives more detail on the American generals' plan: "the offensive would begin with a massive aerial bombardment. At H-hour, warplanes would take out Iragi air defenses and chemical-tipped missiles aimed at Israel, as well as Saddam's command links to his forces.
What the USAF believes
"The US Air Force believes it can destroy half of Saddam's forces within a week. In Baghdad, Saddam's headquarters would be flattened. But in general, civilian targets would be spared. At the Pentagon, military planners believe Bush would order a halt to the bombing after several days to give Saddam a chance to surrender."