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 there was 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 a long
ground war in the Persian Gulf." "My military objective is to see Saudi Arabia defended."
Did he feel that he had 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 have just been given the word of the people involved that there won't be any such
attack. And I think the 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 the war 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. 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: