George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography

(Ann) #1

...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 Rhodesia because 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. Generally
speaking, in normal times, we have felt that food might be separated out from-- you
know, grain, wheat, might be separated out from other economic 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
times here," 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 from being dismembered by the Israelis under the cover of the
crisis, came to visit Bush, who welcomed him with thinly veiled hatred. At this time Bush
was already talking about 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 would not 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

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