silence his Congressional critics.
But in the meantime, Bush's path to war was beset with troubles on the domestic front. The ghoulish
Scowcroft and other Bush spokesmen had been attempting to whip up war sentiment with wildly
exaggerated reports about Iraq's nuclear preparations; these accounts, like the later alleged findings
of "UN inspector" David Kay, failed to distinguish between peaceful and military uses of nuclear
energy; the name of this game was technological apartheid. This campaign had evoked muchskepticism: "Bush's Atomic Red Herring" was the title of one op-ed in the New York Times.
Anti-war sentiment now crystallized around the hearings being held by Sam Nunn's Senate Armed
Services Committee. Two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William J. Crowe
and General David C. Jones, urged a policy of continued reliance on the sanctions. They were soonjoined by former Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger, Gen. William Odom, and other figures (^)
of past regimes. Bush's principal support came from the croaking voice of Henry Kissinger, who
was for war as soon as practicable. These were the days when King Fahd flirted briefly with the
idea of a negotiated settlement, before he was reminded by the State Department that he ruled an
occupied country. "Once Again: What's the Rush?" asked the New York Times of November 29.Bush wanted the Congress to pass a resolution giving him a blank check to wage war, but he
hesitated to set off a debate that might go on all the way to January 15 and beyond, and in which he
risked being beaten. After all, Bush was still refusing to negotiate.
Now, on Friday, November 30, Buscraven domestic opposition and clear the way to war: he made a fake offer of negotiations withh executed the cynical tactic that would ultimately paralyze his
Iraq:
However, to go the extra mile for peace, I will issue an invitation to Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz to
come to Washington at a mutually convenient time during the latter part of the week of December10th to meet with me. And I'll invite ambassadors of several of our coalition partners in the gulf to (^)
join me in that meeting.
In addition, I am asking Secretary Jim Baker to go to Baghdad to see Saddam Hussein, and I will
suggest to Iraq's president that he receive the secretary of state at a mutually convenient timebetween December 15 and January 15 of next year. [fn 70]
It was all a fiendish lie, even down to the offer of times and venues for the talks. When Iraq
responded with proposals for the schedule of meetings, Bush welched and reneged. Iraq released the
US internees, but Bush still wanted war. "We've got to continue to keep the pressure on," was hisreaction. Then came a full month of useless haggling, which was exactly what Bush wanted. As his (^)
text had pointed out, he was not interested in real negotiation anyway; the UN resolutions had
already resolved everything. The real purpose of this gambit was to suppress the domestic
opposition, since negotiations were allegedly now ongoing.
The most important opposition to a January 15 war according to the deadline railroaded through the
UN by Bush came from the US Army, the service least enthralled by the idea of a needless war.
During a visit by Powell and Cheney to Saudi Arabia, Lieut. Gen. Calvin A. H. Waller, the second
in command of US forces in the Gulf, remarked that there was a "distinct possibility that every unit
will not be fully combat-ready until some time after February 1," or peFebruary." "If the owner asks me if I'm ready to go, I'd tell him "No, I'm not ready to do the job,'"rhaps as late as mid-
Waller told the press. It was understood that Waller was acting as spokesman for a broad stratum of
senior officers. The Bush White House was once again infuriated. "This is not the message we were
trying to send now," said one top Bushman. [fn 71] Waller and the other active duty officers would
henceforth remain silent.