House of Bush, House of Saud Part 7
In the lead up to the Gulf War, both James Baker and Bush Sr compared Saddam to Hitler. Interestingly, that’s their go-to for anyone they don’t care for any longer. Why did both of them financially support Saddam for so long if he was Hitler? Was Hitler funded by the US too?
Baker would later try to explain it away as stopping Iran’s Islamic fundamentalism but was that worse than the man gassing his own citizens? It lays bare how the decision-makers in Washington thinks; having the wrong religion is worse than genocide. It appears little has changed.
At this point in time, Bandar the Saudi ambassador was so entrenched in DC that between 1984 and 87 he had met with the Secretary of Defense (Weinberger) at least 64 times. Gen Colin Powell had mentioned he acted as if he were a cabinet member. A cabinet member is governed by Congress, an ambassador is not. Immediately following a misstep by Saddam (threatening Israel) it was Bandar that interceded with President Bush on his behalf. The financial incentives continued unabated. As late as May 1990, the Bush Sr Admin was still continuing to share military intelligence with Saddam. Bush resisted Congress’ efforts to sanction Saddam.
In July, 1990 Baker received an internal state department memo (he initialed) stating Saddam was developing chemical and biological weapons. Not sure why Baker needed a memo, the results were all over Iraq….dead Kurds from the use of chemical and biological weapons. Th memo did have a bombshell in it: 73 export licenses for items sent to Iraq that were proliferation related, including 17 for bacteria that could be used in bio weapons, as well as computers for chemical and weapons program. Finally, Baker got the message. On July 25th he suggested to the Commerce Secretary that new export controls needed to be implemented immediately.
Meanwhile, Saddam was in a tiff with Kuwait over oil and borders. Bandar assured the Bush Sr admin that Saddam wasn’t going to do anything foolish. However, by the end of July Saddam had 100,000 troops on the Kuwaiti border. Saddam invaded on August 2nd. (The day is vividly seared into my brain. I arrived in Rome, Italy for a new assignment with the Air Force. It was my first time living abroad and I wasn’t expecting the 1,000 soldiers in the international airport with machine guns. All of Europe was on alert.)
Emboldened with all the military capability courtesy of the US, Saddam didn’t just invade Kuwait; they began amassing on Saudi’s border. Imagine believing you just spent billions ‘defending oil fields’ only to have the very oil fields in jeopardy by the guy you’ve been supplying with guns and germs. Saddam had his eyes set on Kuwaiti’s oil fields and was daring Saudi’s to interfere. Unfortunately for Saudi, they only had the weapons they could buy, Saddam had all the weapon our tax dollars could give him.
Immediately James Baker hit the road to drum up a coalition of the willing, including the Soviets. We will get in bed with anyone when it comes to feeding the military industrial complex. The Kuwaiti and Saudi’s pledged $15B. The Kuwaiti royal family that had come to Bush Sr’s aid with Zapata Oil Off Shore; they were Bush’s benefactor of sorts. He was indebted to them and not the Americans who had elected him. The Saddam/Kuwait conflict caused problems internal to Saudi. Saudi’s do not get along with Kuwait, but couldn’t allow Saddam’s aggression to stand. However, Saudi would have internal issues if they allowed the US infidels to launch a war from the holy lands of Saudi.
Dick Cheney and Colin Powell had a meeting with Bandar, convinced him the Saddam was poised to invade Saudi. Cheney flew to Saudi a couple of weeks later and asked to use Saudi to launch and operational response from Saudi territory. Bandar lobbied on behalf of the Bush admin throughout the US to go to war against Saddam. Most Americans had no idea how evil Saddam was because the government, having been in bed with Saddam, had never told Americans of his atrocities. Our government had gone from funding Saddam one week to a lobbying for war with him the next.
Within 2 weeks, Kuwait had hired the largest US marketing firm to lobby America on their behalf. The firms chairman was an aide on President Reagan’s campaign (both). The DC office of this firm was ran by Bush Sr’s former chief of staff. They created ‘news’ spots, print ads, college campus Kuwait days, press conferences with Saddam torture scenes. They lobbied American to send our kids to war for them while our politicians and media got rich. They even used a fake news babies are dying story on CNN…some things never change. The false story came from the Kuwait royal family and was used in Congress.
Even the story of the massive Iraqi troop build up had its detractors. A Japanese newspaper approached a US Arms Control and Disarmament official with photos of Kuwait taken by the Soviets in August that showed no troop build up on the Saudi border. Keep in mind the Cheney/Powell meeting with Bandar showing him the build up? There were Soviet photos indicating those were false. ABC News bought 5 Soviet satellite photos of Kuwait and Iraq taken Sept 13th. This would have been at the height of the build up, they showed nothing. No troops, tanks, nothing. They didn’t even show any troops in Kuwait. None. Newsweek reported the photos clearly show the build up that had begun in Saudi but nothing in Kuwait or along the Iraq border. As the story began to be shared, the Pentagon insisted they were correct and behind the scene began pressuring newsrooms to drop it. Newsday maintained the storyline and even went so far as to say our military met a phantom Iraqi force.
Saddam’s invasion placed Saudi between a rock and a hard place. Bin Laden had defeated a super power and approached the Royal family about he and his Al Qaeda troops to the liberators of fellow Muslim countries. Saudis deferred to the US’ request to base troops in Saudi. This infuriated the radical Muslims throughout the Middle East. The radicals began a terror campaign internal to Saudi and a jihad against the US. The Saudi’s funding of bin Laden had bought them peace at home, but no longer. Bin Laden took it as a personal insult the the keepers of the holy land entrusted infidels to defend it and not Muslim freedom fighters. So grave was this insult to some Muslims, a Saudi F-15 pilot defected to Sudan with his aircraft in protest of US forces being in Saudi. For millions of Saudis, US forces were seen as Christian invaders and compared to the Crusaders of old.
Out of a Brooklyn mosque used by the CIA to recruit from for the Afghan fight a decade early came a devout Muslim bent on jihad. He had heard the call to arms of the US presence in Saudi and shot dead a very vocal Jewish Rabbi. The Muslim man had listened to Abdullah Azzam, a friend of bin Laden who came to the US to raise money for the Afghan mujahideen. When police arrived at his apartment, there were bomb material maps of all NY landmarks including the Trade Towers. There were ties to the Blind Sheikh and other radical Muslim members. It was clear he was in the middle of a terror cell in the US. Because of the FBI and CIA ties to the war in Afghanistan supporting the rebels they didn’t do a real investigation into this guy because it would have exposed their role in the Afghan rebel’s war against the Soviets and the Afghan government. Any attempt made by the NYPD to follow up with other’s in the Muslim’s circle was shut down. The FBI insisted he worked alone and the book was closed. Two years later, the FBI would get around to translating documents they found at the Muslim’s home and found the very first mention of Al Qaeda. They would also find many others clues but that was after the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Towers….by Muslims.