were prompt to respond. But I can't think of an individual specific thing. If there was one it would
perhaps be the Saudis moving south when they said they were withdrawing....
The press corps stirred uneasily and one or two voices could be heard prompting Bush "The
Iraqis...the Iraqis" There was acute embarrassment on the faces of Sununu and Fitzwater; this was
the classic gaffe of cold war presidents who confused North Korea and South Korea, or East
Germany and West Germany. Bush's forte was supposedly international affairs; he had travelled toboth Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as a government official and before that as a businessman. So this
gaffe pointed to a disorder of the synapses. Bush realized what he had done and tried to recover:
I mean the Iraqis, thank you very much. It's been a long night. The Iraqis moving down to the
Kuwait-Saudi border, when indeed they have given their word that they were withdrawing. Thatheightened our concern.
Why had it been a long night for Bush? He had made all of his important decisions on the troop
movements during the day on Tuesday. What had robbed him of his sleep between Tuesday and
Wednesday? Those who have read this far will know that it was not conscience. A little later therewas another sensitive question, touching on the mission of the troops and the possible future
occupation of Saudi Arabia, postwar bases, and the like: "Could you share with us the precise
military objective of this mission? Will the American troops remain there only until Saddam
Hussein removes his troops from the Saudi border?" Bush, obviously in deep water, answered:
I can't answer that because we have to-- we have a major objective with those troops, which is the
defense of the Soviet Union, so I think it beyond a defense of Saudi Arabia. So I think it's beyond
the-- I think it's beyond just the question of tanks along the border...
The defense of the Soviet Union! But Bush pressed on: "I'm not preparing for athe Persian Gulf." "My military objective is to see Saudi Arabia defended." Did he feel that he had long ground war in
been let down by his intelligence?
No, I don't feel let down by the intelligence at all. When you plan a blitzkrieg-like attack that's
launched at two o'clock in the morning, that's pretty hard to stop, particularly when you habeen given the word of the people involved that there won't be any such attack. And I think theve just
intelligence community deserves certain credit for picking up what was a substantial boycott-- a
substantial buildup-- and then reporting it to us. So when this information was relayed, properly, to
interested parties, that the move was so swift that it was pretty hard for them to stop it. I really can't
blame our intelligence in any way, fault them, on this particular go-round.
Once again, the gaffe on boycott/buildup occurs at a moment of maximum prevarication. Bush's
gibberish is dictated by his desire say on the one hand that he knew about the Iraqi troop buildup
almost two weeks before the invasion, but on the other that the invasion came as a bolt from the
blue. There was no follow-up on this theme.
The final portion of the press conference was devoted to the very important theme of the UN
sanctions railroaded through the Security Council by the Anglo-Americans with the help of their
willing French, Soviet and Chinese partners. The sanctions were in themselves an act of genocide
against Iraq and the other populations impacted in the region. The sanctions, maintained after thewar had ceased with the pretext that Saddam Hussein was still in power, have proven more lasting (^)
than the war itself, and they may yet prove more lethal. The Congressional debate in January was
fought almost exclusively between the stranglers of the Democratic Party, who wanted to "give the
sanctions more time to work," and the bombers of the Bush Administration and the Republican
Party who wanted to initiate an air war. Both positions constituted high crimes against humanity.