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/** mideast.gulf: 30.0 **/
** Topic: Saddam Husein and the New World Ord **
** Written  1:21 am  Jan  6, 1993 by [e-mail] in cdp:mideast.gulf **
Copyright GEHEIM / TOP SECRET MAGAZINE
Mr. Michael Opperskalski
P.O. Box 270324
5000 Koeln (Cologne) 1
Germany
Mail: [e-mail]

Saddam Hussein and the New World Order

by Michael Opperskalski

The Gulf War is over; Iraq and Kuwait lie in ruins. Countless
people have been killed or mutilated. The suffering of the Kurdish
people flickers daily across our TV screens. Much is being said,
written and discussed concerning the nature of the Iraqi regime,
the slow rebuilding of Kuwait and the refusal of that country's
absolute rulers to initiate democratic reforms, the future of the
Kurdish people, and solutions to the conflicts that divide the
entire Mideast region. But the Gulf War was more than this. During
it and through it, the contours of a "new world order" became
increasingly visible - a "world order" whose significance will
extend far beyond the Mideast.

This war, which threatened to push the entire region and even the
entire world into the abyss, in fact began even before the first
shot was fired: only four (!) days after the end of the Iraq/Iran
War in August 1988. Militarily, Iran did not succeed in its effort
to bring the Islamic Revolution to Baghdad with its bombs, but
after the war ended Iraq was economically devastated. At the
beginning of the war, in 1980, Iraq still had currency reserves
amounting to 30 billion dollars; in 1988, it was at least 100
billion dollars in debt. Iraqi propaganda did not cease claiming
that the country was a "shield protecting its Arab brothers from
the Persian threat".[quoted from: Der Spiegel, 28 January 199l]
Now it expected "the richest of them, Saudi Arabia, the United
Arabian Emirates and Kuwait, to pay back our (i.e. Iraqi - Ed.)
debts". [quoted from: ibid.] At the very least, Iraq's "Arab
brothers" were expected to waive repayment of Iraqi debts to them.

But things turned out quite differently. One day after the truce
between Iraq and Iran began, neighboring Kuwait began to exceed
the oil-production quotas set by OPEC, and in particular to
drastically increase its production in the Rumeila oilfield, to
which the Iraqis had laid claim. The consequences of this action
were obvious. The already problematic overproduction of oil was
further increased, and oil prices fell into the cellar. Saddam
Hussein was bound to regard this as a provocation on the part of
Kuwait, since Iraq's oil income sank by 7 billion dollars annually
- a sum exactly equal to the annual rise in debt services. This
laid the foundation of the escalation that finally ended in Iraqi
occupation of Kuwait and Operation Desert Storm.[On the
development of the entire scenario in detail, cf. Pierre Salinger,
Eric Laurent, Guerre du Golf, Le Dossier Secret. Oliver Urban,
Paris, 1991, or the shortened version in Der Spiegel, 28 January
1991]

The Role of the USA

Even during the Iran/Iraq war, US strategy was aimed at weakening
both of these potential powers in the region through precisely
targeted intervention activities. It is a well-known fact that
weakness is the first condition for effective control and
influencing from the outside...

Accordingly, Washington provided each side with strategically
important military information concerning its opponent, in order
to keep the war at a level on which neither side would be able to
win a strategic victory. "Iranians and Iraqis were cynically and
unscrupulously played against each other. The outcome that the USA
dreamed of was a stand-off between these two enemy states in the
Gulf War. While Israel's government threw all its support to Iran,
Washington first cozied up to Iraq, then with both warring
nations, finally with Iraq again. 'Iran's defeat of Iraq would be
a catastrophe for Western interests,' concluded a US Senate study
carried out in 1987, after the Gulf War had been raging for seven
years and the number of victims was nearing a million. (...) Even
today, the Iranian leadership is convinced that Washington helped
Saddam Hussein at that time (1980 - Ed.) in his campaign of
conquest (against Iran - Ed.). The Saudis, claims Teheran,
channeled into Baghdad American satellite intelligence reports
which intentionally played down Iran's military capabilities.
(...)

"Like Reagan's Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, Casey (CIA
Director - ed.) was convinced that a lengthy Gulf War was in
America's interest. When Saddam Hussein's invading army, after its
initial successes, was beaten back, Casey suggested giving covert
aid to Iraq." [Der Spiegel, 18 February 1991]

This strategy made sense. After all, Washington's aim was to
internally destabilize the Islamic Revolution in Iran during the
critical years 1979 and 1980 and to prevent its expansion to other
countries, especially the wealthy oil states on the Gulf.[On
the destabilization of the Iranian Revolution, especially the
CIA's role in the neutralization of the left-wing opposition
forces, cf. in detail GEHEIM, Nr. 3/87] Furthermore, Washington
has clear economic interests in the region surrounding the
Persian/Arabian Gulf. And these interests can be summed up in a
single word: oil. US oil reserves amount to 25.9 billion barrels.
Kuwait alone has reserves in excess of 94.5 billion barrels, Iraq
more than 100 billion barrels, and Saudi Arabia more than 225
billion barrels. Whereas the production of a barrel of relatively
high-quality oil costs 57 cents in the Arab countries, US oil
companies must pay 3 dollars per barrel for American oil of
comparable quality.

As early as 30 October 1990 - i.e. before the Gulf War broke out -
Confidential Reports, a well-informed bacground information
service for decision-makers in business and politics, summarized
the situation as follows: "(...) the continuation of the Iraqi
threat (would) provide the justification for a long-term USA
military presence in the area (...). We remind our readers of what
we wrote on 4 September: 'The stationing of US troops in Saudi
Arabia means the fulfillment of a long-cherished wish of the USA.

A continuation of this situation has great advantages for the USA:
Saudi Arabia is practically reduced to the status of a US
satellite; it is willing to deliver as much oil as Washington
wants; OPEC's blackmailing capability is reduced; the wealthy
Saudi rulers cannot help remaining under the dollar's influence
and helping to finance American deficits."

Washington Aggravates the Iraq/Kuwait Crisis

As Iraq's economic problems deepened during 1989 on account of the
continuing overproduction of oil by the Gulf states, Americans and
Kuwaitis met to discuss the fine details of their joint strategy
against Iraq. In November 1989, the Director of the Kuwaiti secret
service met with CIA chief Webster to discuss the situation. A
dossier of the Kuwaiti secret service provides information about
the results of this talk: "We (the Kuwaiti secret service - Ed.)
agreed with the American side that it is important to exploit the
worsening economic situation in Iraq in order to put pressure on
the government of that country to re-draw our shared border. The
CIA outlined for us its ideas on appropriate means of exerting
pressure. Extensive cooperation between us should start as soon as
possible, on the condition that such activities are coordinated at
a high level." [Sueddeutsche Zeitung, 2 November 1990]

Almost simultaneously, an international media campaign began which
disclosed more and more details about Iraqi arms deals with
Western companies. The sources of the information which served as
the basis of the articles and film features turned out in most
cases to be Israeli or US secret-service circles. The purpose of
this media campaign was to isolate the Baghdad regime
internationally and to lay the political groundwork for economic
sanctions. The escalation approached its first high point when
Saddam Hussein openly admitted, in a talk he gave on 2 April 1990,
that his country possessed chemical weapons and was capable of
using these in case of an Israeli attack, thus posing a direct
threat to Israel. [cf. Der Spiegel, 28 January 1991] This
admission confirmed the suspicions that had been raised by
previous press statements. A relatively autonomous
military-industrial complex had been built up in Iraq; moreover,
Baghdad had succeeded in breaking Israel's "nuclear-chemical
hegemony" in the Mideast. Iraq had become a strong regional power,
and thus the balance of power that Washington had been trying to
create and influence in its own interest in the Mideast, with the
help of a massively armed Israel and conservative Arab states such
as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, seemed to have slipped out of control.
US dominance in the Mideast was being threatened.

Deliberate Disinformation

During this phase of the scenario, if not earlier, the strategists
in Washington were deliberately pursuing a double strategy which
aimed at further intensifying the confrontation between Iraq and
Kuwait. Every observer who thinks logically must come to the
conclusion that even at a very early stage of the crisis,
Washington had not only accepted the fact that war could possibly
break out as a result of these developments, but had even
deliberately included this possibility in its calculations.

The feudal lords of Kuwait received repeated messages to the
effect that the USA was standing behind them 100%. Both sides even
considered the possibility of stationing US Marines in Kuwait.[cf.
Top Secret, Summer/Autumn 1990] Meanwhile, the Iraquis were
assured of an improvement in their relations with the USA -
despite the media flurry over Iraqi weapons purchases from the
West. The USA deliberately gave the Iraqis the impression that
Washington wanted to stay out of the escalating confrontation
between Kuwait and Iraq. Der Spiegel described the situation as
follows: "In order to document the fact that relations were once
more harmonious, George Bush sent a personal friendly greeting to
Saddam Hussein on April 25 at the end of Ramadan, the Islamic
month of fasting. This could only have strengthened the impression
in the Iraqi's mind that the American leadership wished to avoid a
confrontation. Thus encouraged, Saddam continued working on his
plans for conquest."[Der Spiegel, 28 January 1991] Finally, on
25 July 1990, US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie had a lengthy
discussion with Saddam that was meant to further strengthen this
impression. Specifically, Glaspie said, "I have received direct
orders from the President to try to establish better relations
with Iraq. President Bush is a clever man. He will not declare an
economic war against Iraq. We have no opinion on inter-Arabic
conflicts such as your border dispute with Kuwait (...) Secretary
of State James Baker has urged our official spokesman to
specifically emphasize this."[quoted from : Der Spiegel, No.
39/1990] But the conversation continued. The US Ambassador asked -
knowing that Iraqi troops had already been massed along the border
with Kuwait - what Iraq's intentions were in this conflict. The
Iraqi President answered that Kuwait's actions had already taken
on the proportions of "economic warfare" against his country and
reached the level of "military actions directed against us". He
elaborated by saying that he hoped for a peaceful solution, but if
such a solution did not materialize, then it was "obvious that
Iraq will not accept death". These were very clear words indeed!

Nonetheless, Washington continued to consistently pursue its
double strategy. As late as two days before the Iraqi invasion of
Kuwait, on 31 July 1991, US strategists released the semi-official
statement that the US would not intervene militarily under any
circumstances, no matter how the Gulf conflict escalated in the
future. Accordingly, Under-Secretary of State John Kelly, when
asked the following question before the Mideast committee of the
House of Representatives: "If Iraq crosses the Kuwait border, what
position will we take then?" answered, "I refuse to join in this
game of hypotheses. Suffice it to say that we would be extremely
affected by it." And when Kelly was asked the further question:
"Under such circumstances would it be right to say that we have no
treaty, no obligation, nothing that would force us to send
American troops (to defend Kuwait - Ed.)?", he answered "That is
correct!"[Der Spiegel, 28 January 1991]

This double strategy escalated the confrontation between Iraq and
Kuwait into a war. Saddam Hussein's tanks rolled into neighboring
Kuwait on 2 August, in the certainty that the United States would
indeed be "affected" and would react, but would under no
circumstances intervene militarily. Kuwait, for its part,
literally refused until the very last second to make any
compromise with Baghdad on the issues in dispute. In taking this
tough position it counted on the promised US support and on the
strategy it had developed together with the US to put economic
pressure on the Iraqi regime and possibliy even topple it
subsequently.

It must be noted at this point that Washington also released
deliberately targeted disinformation in order to weld together the
international anti-Iraq coalition which was intended to
subsequently become the basis of a direct US military engagement.
The precondition for this coalition was that Saudi Arabia had to
agree to the stationing of US battle forces on its territory. For
this reason, US Secretary of Defense Cheney flew to Riadh
immediately after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and presented to
members of the Saudi ruling family satellite photos that were
supposed to prove that the Iraqis were massing troops on their
borders with Saudi Arabia. Thus the Saudis were given the
impression that Iraqi tanks would soon roll into their country as
well. This was the decisive factor in their decision to agree to a
US military presence in Saudi Arabia. Only months later did
independent analysts receive photos that had been taken from the
air by civilian satellites in September over Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait. The Saudis scrutinized these photos in vain for traces of
the 250,000 soldiers and 1,500 tanks that Baghdad was supposed to
have put in place for an attack on Saudi Arabia.

The Gulf War as Part of a US Concept

Let us begin with the conclusion that the USA wanted this war.
(Further proof of this is the fact that after Iraq marched into
Kuwait the US did not allow the internationally agreed-upon
economic sanctions to function long enough - nor did they exploit
all of the political and diplomatic options; we cannot go into all
of the details at this point). The USA goaded both Kuwait and Iraq
during their confrontation, and on 2 August 1990 Iraq, by invading
Kuwait, stumbled right into the trap that the strategists in
Washington had built up step by step. What followed afterward was
inevitable.

The Gulf War that began in January 1991 and its causes became a
model for the Pentagon's plans for the 'Nineties. In their
"description of the enemy" in previous military conflicts in the
so-called Third World, US strategists had assumed military
operations against guerillas or relatively lightly armed forces
(as in Panama). This type of military conflict, called
low-intensity conflict (LIC) by the specialists, is "limited" to
the level of so-called control of rebellions (Philippines), arming
and organizing contra troops (Nicaragua, Angola), and the limited
use of US military personnel (Grenada, Panama). But the new model,
tested in the Gulf War, involves heavy battles against well-armed
regional powers (in this case Iraq). In order to distinguish this
type of war from so-called high-intensity conflicts (HIC) - i.e. a
world war, formerly meaning war against the Warsaw Pact countries,
today meaning war against the USSR - as well as LICs, Pentagon
strategists have invented the technical term mid-intensity
conflict (MIC).

The role these MICs will play in the USA's future military
planning was formulated by a high-level group of experts called
together in May 1990 by the Center for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS), which has close connections with the US
secret-service community. This group concluded that: "In future
conventional conflicts, the enemy will probably be just as well
armed as the US armed forces."[The Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS), Conventional Combat Priorities: An
Approach for the New Strategic Era, The Final Report of the CSIS
Conventional Combat 2002 Project, Washington, May 1990, p. 23/35,
quoted from: blaetter fuer deutsche und internationale politik,
Nr. 3/91] "In many countries, the United States would be opposing
large and well-trained armed forces having highly developed
weapons systems in considerable numbers. These could include
combat tanks and armed personnel carriers, heavy and mobile
artillery, Soviet combat planes, integrated air defense systems,
submarines, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, modern
ground-to-air missiles, and even chemical and tactical nuclear
weapons."[ibid.]

One of the consequences of this type of planning is obvious. In
spite of the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact, the military
potential of the United States will remain at the Cold War level.
The so-called "peace dividend" has already been quietly shelved.
(Only Gorbachev still refuses to believe it.) However, in order
for the USA to be able to wage MICs effectively it will have to
station large and/or specially armed or trained military
contingents in various regions of the so-called Third World. To
this end, US Secretary of Defense Cheney already pleaded in March
1990 for a "solid US military presence in the Gulf area".
[Sueddeutsche Zeitung, 4 March 1991] Exactly what this military
presence will look like and how it will be distributed, and what
role will be played by the various US client states in the Mideast
(Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states) will sort itself
out during the coming weeks.

MIC and Regional Powers

Since the 'Seventies, regional powers have arisen in various
regions of the so-called Third World which fulfill two criteria:

- each of them has a military-industrial complex;

- each has a population large enough to enable it to build up a
strong army;

- each has reserves of raw materials and/or a level of industrial
production that permit the buildup of a military-industrial
complex and cooperation with other countries in the region and/or
the so-called Third World.

This category of state includes: Iraq (before the Gulf War),
India, Brazil and South Africa.

The situation will become critical if the ruling elites of these
states - whatever their political orientation may be - try to
withdraw, for whatever reasons, from the US sphere of influence or
pursue  policies contrary to US interests. All of these criteria
applied to Iraq before the Gulf War, for example.

President Bush broached this problem as early as May 1989 in one
of his first major addresses on the topic of "national security":
"The right way to deal with a changing Soviet Union is a challenge
of the first order for us (...) But the challenges to our security
policy that face us today do not come only from the East. The rise
of regional powers is rapidly changing the strategic
landscape!" [Presidential Address, US Coast Guard Academy, New
London, Conn., 24 May 1989] And in February 1991, Secretary of
Defense Cheney approved a secret Guideline Document for the years
1992-1997 which "directs" the US armed forces to give the Soviet
threat a much smaller weight than the preparation for clashes with
regional powers of the so-called Third World. Army Chief of Staff
General Vuono put it even more precisely in an article: "The
United States can not ignore the expanding military might of these
countries, and the Army must maintain its potential to neutralize
possible threats wherever they may arise. This could mean opposing
a well-armed army in the Third World."[Carl E. Vuono,
Versatile, Deployable, Lethal, in Sea Power, April 1990, pp.
61-69, quoted from: blaetter fuer deutsche und internationale
politik, Nr. 3/91]

Thus the outlook presented by a "New World Order" Oe la Bush is
fairly clear: the imposition of USA hegemony in the Third World,
through violence of need be. Wars are once again fightable. The
"Vietnam syndrome" has disappeared...

** End of text from cdp:mideast.gulf **