US President George HW Bush threatens Iraq at his address to the United Nations, September 23, 1991
On September 24, 1991, the United States dispatched a Patriot missile team from Germany to Saudi Arabia in a new threat to Iraq. The force was comprised of some 24 launchers, 100 missiles and 1,300 soldiers to operate the systems.
On September 24, 1991, the United States dispatched a Patriot missile team from Germany to Saudi Arabia in a new threat to Iraq. The force was comprised of some 24 launchers, 100 missiles and 1,300 soldiers to operate the systems.
Little more than six months after the United States ended its bombing of civilians and massacre of retreating Iraqi soldiers, the Bush administration stage-managed a provocation for the purpose of justifying a new war. A team of United Nations inspectors, armed with intelligence supplied by the United States and headed by a former State Department official, seized documents with the names and addresses of Iraqi government employees and nuclear scientists and refused to supply copies to the Iraqis, or even a list of what they had taken.
When the Iraqi authorities refused to allow them to leave without showing them what they had grabbed, the US provided the inspectors with a supply of food and satellite telephones so that they could broadcast to the media their accusations of hostage-taking and their claims that Saddam Hussein was building nuclear weapons.
This incident followed two months of provocations. At the end of August, Kuwait fabricated an alleged Iraqi incursion onto Bubiyan Island. The previous week, Bush and the UN Security Council threatened military action to enforce their demand for unrestricted helicopter flights over Iraqi territory. Finally, the Bush administration decided to stage the latest stunt and exploit the bogus issue of nuclear weapons to more effectively manipulate public opinion.
The New York Times on Thursday, September 26, virtually acknowledged the orchestrated character of the crisis. “Was the United States deliberately trying to increase tensions with Mr. Hussein as a way of provoking a military confrontation and giving it an excuse to resume the war, this time with more ambitious objectives?” the Times asked. It went on to cite an unnamed government official as saying, “Mr. Bush is driven by complex political pressures, including his desire to hold together the anti-Iraq coalition, to maintain the United States’ role as the enforcer of the peace in the Mideast as he seeks to drag the region’s fractious people into a peace conference, and to maintain a strong American military presence as the agreement to keep a rapid-deployment force in southern Turkey nears its Sept. 30 expiration date.
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