Take up the White Man's burden-- Ye dare not stoop to less Nor call too loud on Freedom To cloke
your weariness,
had written Rudyard Kipling in 1899 as part of a British campaign to convince the United States to
set up a colonial administration in the Phillipines. (As the Omaha World Herald had noted in that
far-off time, "In other words, Mr. Kipling would have Uncle Sam take up John Bull's business."
The racist jingo doggerel of imperialism caught Bush's mood precisely.
After the war, it would be shown that the US bombers had concentrated their fire on the civilian
infrastructure of Iraq, choosing targets of no immediate military relevance. The bombing was
concentrated on systems providing potable water to cities, electrical generating facilities, bridges,
highways, and other transportation infrastructure. This was cynically called the "bomb now, dielater" strategy, since the goal of the bombing was to destroy civilian infrastructure in order to lower (^)
the relative potential population density of the country below the level of the Iraqi population, thus
producing an astronomical rise in infant mortality, plagues, and pestilence. It was, in short, a
population war. It was a cowardly, despicable way to fight.
Bush had ordered all this, but he lied compulsively about it. After 3 weeks of bombing, he told a
press conference that his bombers were going to "unprecedented lengths to avoid damage to
civlians and holy places. We do not seek Iraq's destruction, nor do we seek to punish the Iraqi
people for the decisions and policies of their leaders. In addition, we are doing everything possible
and with great success to minimize collateral damage...." [fn 85] Tthe economic infrastructure of Iraq; an additional objective was to kill at least 100,000 mhe air war was designed to gutembers of (^)
the Iraqi armed forces. This could only be accomplished by storming the Iraqi positions of the
ground, and this is what Bush was determined to do. Published accounts suggested that the original
executive order that started the war also contained instructions for a land battle to follow extensive
bombing. This meant that all peace feelers must be vigorously rebuffed, on the model of whatAcheson and Stimson had done to Japan during July of 1945.
In those days, anti-war protesters had camped out in Lafayette Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue
from the White House. They had been there since December 13. Bush had referred once to "those
damned drums" and how they were keeping him awake at night. At his press conference ofFebruary 6, Bush told reporters that the drummers had been removed, not because he had ordered it, (^)
but because they were disturbing the guests at the posh Hay-Adams Hotel on the other side of the
park. There was a law on decibels, he explained:
And lo, people went forth with decibel count auditors. And they found tdrummer, incessant drummers, got over 60, and they were moved out of there, and I hopehe man got up to - this they stay (^)
out of there because I don't want the people in the hotel to not have a good night's sleep. The drums
have ceased, oddly enough.
But just as Bush was speaking, reporters could hear the thumping resume in the park outside. Thedrummers, much to Bush's chagrin, were at it again. Soon Lafayette Park was fenced in by the
Bushmen.
On February 15, Radio Baghdad offered negotiations leading to the withdrawl of Iraqi forces from
Kuwait. Bush, in tandem with the new British prime Minister, John Major, rejected this overturewith parellel rhetoric. For Bush, Saddam's peace bid was "a cruel hoax;" for Major, it was "a bogus (^)
sham." The Kremlin, seeking to save face, found the proposal "encouraging." Iraq was now pulling
key military units out of Kuwait, and Bush judged that the moment was ripe to call for an
insurrection and military coup against Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party government. "There's
another way for the bloodshed to stop, and that is for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take