Bush wanted to argue for the inviolability of these sanctions, but he did so in such a way as to
underline the monstrous and hypocritical double standard that was being applied to Iraq:
...And that's what has been so very important about this concerted United Nations effort,
unprecedented, you might say, or certainly not enacted since-- what was it, 23 years ago? 23 years
ago. So I don't think we can see clearly down that road.
What Bush has in mind here, but does not mention by name, were the United Nations sanctions
against the racist Ian Smith regime in Rhodesia. Perhaps Bush was reluctant to mention the
Rhodesian sanctions because the United States officially violated those sanctions by an act of
Congress, and UN Ambassador George Bush as we have seen, was one of the principal
international apologists for the US policy of importing strategic raw materials from Rhodesiabecause of an allegedly pre-eminent US national interest. Bush's final response shows that he was (^)
fully aware that the economic sanctions designed by the State Department and the Foreign Office
would mean genocide against Iraqi children, since they contained an unprecedented prohibition of
food imports:
Well, I don't know what they owe us for food, but I know that this embargo, to be successful, has
got to encompass everything. And if there are-- you know, if there's a humanitarian concern,
pockets of starving children, or something of this nature, why, I would take a look. But other than
that this embargo is going to be all-encompassing, and it will include food, and I don't know what
Iraq owes us now for food. Gseparated out from-- you knowenerally speaking, in normal times, we have felt that food m, grain, wheat, might be separated out from other economicight be
sanctions. But this one is all-encompassing and the language is pretty clear in the United Nations
resolutions. [fn 46]
As a final gesture, Bush acknowledged to the journalists that he had "slipped up a couple timeshere," and thanked them for having corrected him, so that his slips and gaffes would not stand as a (^)
part of the permanent record. Bush had now done his work; he had set into motion the military
machine that would first strangle, and then bomb Iraq. Within two days, Bush was on his way to
Walker's Point in Kennebunkport, where his handlers hoped that the dervish would pull himself
together.
During August, Bush pursued a hyperactive round of sports activities in Kennebunkport, while
cartoonists compared the Middle East to the sandtraps that Bush so often landed in during his
frenetic daily round of golf. On August 16, King Hussein of Jordan, who was fighting to save his
nation fromwho welcomed him with thinly veiled hatred. At this time Bush was already talking about being dismembered by the Israelis under the cover of the crisis, came to visit Bush,
mobilizing the reserves. Saddam Hussein's situation during these weeks can be compared with
Noriega's on the eve of the US invasion of Panama. The US was as yet very weak on the ground,
and a preventive offensive thrust by the Iraqis into Saudi Arabia towards Dahran would have caused
an indescribable chaos in the US logistics. But Saddam, like Noriega, still believed that he wouldnot be invaded; the Iraqi government gave more credit to its secret assurances than to the military (^)
force that was slowly being assembled on its southern border. Saddam therefore took no pre-
emptive military actions to interfere with the methodical marshalling of the force that was later to
devastate his country. The key to the US buildup was the logistical infrastructure of NATO in
Europe; without this the buildup would have lasted until the summer of 1991 and beyond.
It was during these August days that Scowcroft coined the slogan of Bush's Gulf war. On August
23, Scowcroft told reporters, "We believe we are creating the beginning of a new world order out of
the collapse of US-Soviet antagonisms." [fn 47]