of July, the White House received information that a national newsmagazine, probably Newsweek,
was planning a cover story on Neil Bush. [fn 23]
Such were the events in the political and personal life of George Bush that provided the backdrop
for Bush's precipitous and choleric decision to go to war with Iraq. This is not to say that the
decision to go to war was caused by these unpleasant developments; the causes of the Gulf war are
much more complicated than that. But it is equally clear that Bush's bellicose enthusiasm for thefirst war that came along was notably facilitated by the complex of problems which he would thus (^)
sweep off the front page.
There is much evidence that the Bush regime was committed to a new, large-scale war in the
Middle East from the very day of its inauguration. The following analysis was filed on PalmSunday, March 19, 1989 by one of the authors of the present study, and was published in Executive (^)
Intelligence Review under the title "Is Bush courting a Middle East war and a new oil crisis?":
Is the Bush administration preparing a military attack on Iran, Libya, Syria, or other Middle East
nations in a flight forward intended to cut off or deand drastically raise the dollar price of crude on the world markets? A worldwide pattern of eventsstroy a significant part of the world's oil supply (^)
monitored on Palm Sunday by Executive Intelligence Review suggests that such a move may be in
the works. If the script does indeed call for a Middle East conflict and a new oil shock, it can be
safely assumed that Henry Kissinger, the schemer behind the 1973 Yom Kippur war, is in the thick
of things, through Ntwo man Lawrence Eagleburger. [...] ational Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and the State Department's number-
Why should the Bush administration now be a candidate to launch an attack on Libya and Iran, with
large-scale hostilities likely in the Gulf? The basic answer is, as part of a manic flight-forward fit of
"American Century" megalomania designed to distract attention fromPresident's first 60 days in office. [fn 24] the fiasco of the new
Despite the numerous shortcomings in this account, including the failure to identify Iraq as the
target, it did capture the essential truth that Bush was planning a Gulf war. By August, 1988 at the
latest, when Iraq had emerged as the decisive victor in the 8-year long Iran-Iraq war, Britishgeopolitical thinkers had identified Iraq as the leading Arab state, and the leading threat to the (^)
Israeli-dominated balance of power in the Middle East. This estimate was seconded by those Zionist
observers for whom the definition of minimal security is the capability of Israel to defeat the
combined coalition of all Arab states. By August of 1988, leading circles in both Britain and Israel
were contemplating ways of preventing Iraq from rebuilding its postwar economy, and wereexploring options for a new war to liquidate the undeniable economic achievements of the Baath (^)
Party. Bush would have been a part of these deliberations starting at a very early phase.
A more precise outline of the coming war was issued in early March, 1990, by Bush's political
prisoner, Lyndon LaRouche. From his prison cell, LaRouche warned on March 10, 1990:
It is apparent that during the next 60 days, more or less, the world is being plunged into the greatest
pre-war crisis of the twentieth century. [...]
Israel is preparing for wone standpoint, might be described as Israel's attempted "final solution" to the Arab problem. Thisar. The state of Israel is now marshalled in preparation for war, which, from
means a war, presumably against Iraq and other states, and the destruction of Jordan. [fn 25]
During June and July, this warning was seconded by King Hussein of Jordan, Yassir Arafat of the
PLO, Prince Hassan of Jordan, and Saddam Hussein himself.