On New Year’s day the president met with a half dozen of his closest advisors at the White House to map strategy for dealing with the impending war powers debate in Congress. To reassure the Democrats that he was doing everything he could, he sent Baker to meet with Aziz in Geneva on January 9th. But Bush had no faith in Aziz passing on what he had to say to the man who really counted. Aziz, after all, was as susceptible to chance helicopters accidents as anyone else, and could be expected to try and avoid them by not telling Saddam things he did not want to hear. To make sure his message got through, Bush wrote a personal letter to Saddam. Tariq Aziz refused to accept it, an insult that took the onus of intransigence from Bush.
In a fiery speech on January 6th, Saddam Hussein reiterated that he was not going to bow to threats and pressures. In an attempt to prepare his people for war and, probably more important to his way of thinking at that moment, to secure the support of millions of Arabs and Muslims, he declared that the impending war would be the “Battle for Palestine.” Its overall tone, wrote Lamis Adoni in Middle East International, was “of a man bidding farewell to the world before embarking on a suicide mission.”
The Iraqis were all packed and ready to leave with him. The government-controlled newspaper al-Thawra promised them that “Great Iraq” would maintain a decisive advantage in any war with the allies: “Superiority in the crucial battle has been decided in favor of Iraq.”
Saddam ordered that the words Allahu Akbar (“God is Great”) be placed on the Iraqi flag. CNN and the broadcast networks were carrying regular man-in-the-street reports from Baghdad. Men bared their chests, made faces and threatened to wipe out the Americans on the field of battle. Mothers vowed to send their sons to die in defense of the Homeland. Old men stated that if they were a few years younger, by crackie...
The men of 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, still at TAA Seminole, weren’t watching a lot of television, so they weren’t getting the benefit of all this. They were in the process of replacing their M3 cavalry fighting vehicles with newer M2A2 infantry models. The newer machines had additional armor and improved fire control systems, but otherwise were quite close to the M3s. The scouts began training with the new models and had little trouble adapting.
The Soviets had been the first to make the switch from armored personnel carriers—APCs—to AFVs. Both are relatively lightly armored, designed to carry infantry into battle without having them shredded by shrapnel before they meet the enemy, but they were still susceptible to fire from heavy machineguns. With the BMP-1 the Soviets had added a 73-mm smoothbore gun to give the vehicle’s crew offensive firepower as well. The U.S. and the NATO allies soon had their own projects. The Bradley AFV, in its M2 and M3 models, had been developed in tandem with the M1 tank. By the time of the Gulf War, the Vietnam-era M113 APC had been mostly relegated to support units and the M114 reconnaissance version had been honorably retired and mostly forgotten.
January 11th through the 13th, 2nd Cavalry held a regimental command post exercise that tested communications, command and control and synchronization, the basics of any military operation. The most important thing a company or troop level commander needs to know is “who do I follow?”
This very point was illustrated when the regiment moved to a new assembly area, dubbed Richardson, southwest of Hafar al-Batin, the following week. XVIII Airborne Corps was moving at the same time along the same road, which became dangerously jammed and threatened to turn an orderly troop movement into a gaggle.
Living conditions at Richardson were much the same as at Seminole, only worse. Showers went from being infrequent to non-existent. The insect population was so high Spike began developing the scorpion equivalent of a pot belly.
Baghdad Betty passed on the bad news to the troops that Tom Selleck, Kevin Costner and Bart Simpson were having their way with the men’s wives while they were away at the front. There was a great weeping and gnashing of teeth among the troops at the thought.
A writer in Amman’s Jordan Times decried the “piracy” of the U.S. Navy, which was strangling Jordanian industries “in a bid to tighten the [U.S.] grip on the Jordanian economy.” Al-Rai reported that the U.S. Navy officers who intercepted Aqaba-bound shipping carried a “blacklist” of Jordanians who had traded with Iraq “or just said, ‘Good morning, neighbors’ to the Iraqis.” The blacklist, the writer explained, was the result of espionage carried out within Jordan by administrative and commercial sections of the U.S. Agency for International Development (always a favorite target for mobs) at dinners and “drinking parties.”
The antiwar movement began to gear up for some serious protesting. As a student organizer breathlessly told a campus recruit: “I think that as soon as a shooting war starts this will be bigger than Vietnam!”
Barbara Ehrenreich, Time columnist and chairman of the Democratic Socialist Party, somehow managed to boil George Bush and Saddam Hussein in the same pot. She stated her opinion in the magazine Tikkun that “[a]s a responsible radical, I believe our first responsibility is toward the evil close to home, and stopping that... I’m more worried in the long run about the belligerence of George Bush than of Saddam Hussein.”
Ron Dellums, with devilish originality, stated his own opinion that Americans did not want to go to war “because of having to pay [a few more] cents for a gallon of gas.”
On January 10th there was a routine demonstration by about thirty members of the National Organization for Women and the New York feminist group No More Nice Girls at the United Nations building. The demonstrators chanted “Equality yes, war no!” The theme that was given was “Don’t die to defend gender apartheid!” CNN, National Public Radio and The New York Times dutifully covered it, expecting that there would be many more, similar deomonstrations in the near future.
A group of protesters in the Senate gallery was arrested for disrupting the debate on the war. A coalition of Protestant leaders called upon the nation to fast and pray for peace.
On January 12th the Senate voted on a resolution put forward by Democratic party leaders, including Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine and Sam Nunn, urging continued use of sanctions and diplomatic efforts against Iraq, rather than war.
“No senator wants war,” Mitchell explained. “That’s not the issue. The issue is whether, by our votes, we authorize war immediately—war, with its high risk, war which could be avoided, war which may be unnecessary.”
Minority Leader Bob Dole, of Kansas, voted against the resolution: “Sanctions would not work for a long, long time,” he said. “I’m afraid this is a holiday [for the Iraqis] in the Nunn-Mitchell resolution.”
The measure was defeated 53-46, with the margin of support coming from ten Democrats who had broken ranks with their leadership and opposed the resolution. The vote was a victory for the Bush administration.
The vote was followed by another, on a measure authorizing the use of force against Iraq. It was approved by almost the identical vote, 52-47.
In the course of that debate, New York’s Daniel Patrick Moynihan took issue with President Bush’s statement that “no price is too heavy to pay.” “We are prepared to pay some price,” he haggled, “but not any price.”
Paul Wellstone again pleaded for peace, saying that when he asked the administration experts how long war would last “the silence is deafening.” Since the administration couldn’t tell him what the future held, he predicted that there would be a nightmare in the Persian Gulf. He was “chilled.”
Senator Jesse Helms supported the authorization, summing up the tactics of the opposition as “speak for delay when they really mean never.”
Helms’ point was well taken. As Clausewitz described it, “war is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse with an admixture of other means”—the logical extension of diplomacy. It represents a last resort, after the peaceful options have been explored. Yet the exploration of peaceful options is dependent upon the threat of war; if the knowledge is not there that if no agreement is reached it will mean conflict, then there is no incentive to agree, regardless of how accomodating the negotiator might be. If the threat is there without the belief that the threat will be made good, then the threat is useless and again all chance of peaceful resolution is gone. As invoked by people who would prefer never to resist aggression by force, war as a “last resort” becomes an endlessly receding, ultimately empty threat. There is always something else to do: more shuttle diplomacy, another note, another meeting, more talk with nothing resolved, all the while with a good deal of movement to reassure the rubes that “we’re doing everything we can.” Meanwhile, the aggressor remains in possession of his booty and is strengthening his position. Those who have been dispossessed remain that way, those who were suffering continue to suffer. Unless some point in this progression is perceived as final, the progression itself is meaningless vapor.
The House of Representatives had three votes. The first was a variation of Nunn-Mitchell, favoring continued sanctions. It was sponsored by Richard Gephardt and Lee Hamilton.
“These are the most powerful and effective sanctions in the history of the world,” Gephardt stated. “History shows that even brutal dictators have been toppled and defeated by sanctions.” He failed to provide any examples.
Gary Ackerman, of New York, opposed the resolution. He had opposed Vietnam and Grenada, he was opposed to the death penalty and he was against killing animals without purpose, but if he voted against the use of force in this instance “my hands would be no less free from blood, because I really know that the world is not filled with only peacemakers.”
The measure was defeated 250-183, with 86 Democrats voting against it, including Ackerman.
On the resolution to authorize the use of force, sponsored by Minority Leader Robert Michel and Stephen J. Solarz of New York, just over half the Democrats in the House voted in favor; all but three of the Republicans did.
Wisconsin’s Les Aspin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, described the resolution as the last best hope for a peaceful solution of the crisis, proof to Saddam Hussein that an antiwar Congress was not going to handcuff the more determined Bush administration, that the country actually had the guts to use force.
The third House resolution was an affirmation of Congress’ power to declare war. It was a political football that had been kicked back and forth periodically since Vietnam. 260 of 265 Democrats voted in favor of it, only 41 of 167 Republicans.
No war was declared, however. The votes, taken together, were political stage setting. If the U.S. did fight, and things went badly as most Democrats seemed to expect they would, those opposing would have their opposition to point to. Since no war had been declared, it would not have been their fault.
About the same thing happened in Britain, at the same time. In the House of Commons the vote was 534-57 in favor of authorizing military action. Labour as a party felt obliged to support the government, despite the private misgivings of many of its members.
The approval had been given, for whatever reasons. The deadline was rapidly approaching. Saddam Hussein had his message and any prospect of the U.S. Congress allowing him to keep his 19th Province had been withdrawn. The only political weapons remaining to him were the antiwar movements, the Arab mob and the threat of terrorism.
As other American industries had done in the Second World War, the American antiwar movement was gearing up to do its part. Demonstators in Boston poured red paint in the snow, chanting “No Blood for Oil!” In Los Angeles, high school students (who know about such things) performed a skit in which American businessmen plucked dollars off the bodies of young people. A crowd of demonstrators marched from Harvard Square to Boston City Hall, pausing to hurl snowballs at a military recruiting station. San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors declared the city a sanctuary for anyone who chose not to participate in the war. Bishop Walter F. Sullivan of Virginia went them one better when he said that Catholics in the military should consider laying down their arms if war broke out. Jewish congregations around the country began a day-long fast.
The ad hominem attacks on Bush continued as well. Kathleen Kaneko Lopes, a legal assistant in Berkeley, California and the mother of four sons ages nine through 21, told Time: “Americans would rather pay more for their gasoline than give up their sons. If Neil Bush had to go, George would be a little more anxious. I don’t think Barbara would let Neil go.”
There was another demonstration on Tuesday at Columbia University, attended by 1,500 to 2,000 students. Actor Tim Robbins said that hostilities with Iraq would be a “racist war,” apparently under the illusion that the Iraqis are black or oriental or perhaps American Indians. Susan Sarandon, Kurt Vonnegut and Eric Bogosian were there, causing snickers about “rounding up the usual suspects.” The highlight of the gathering came when a ROTC cadet addressed the crowd: He was mad. He could be sent to Saudi Arabia to die for no good reason. He could die!
The demonstration at the UN that day was similar. There were chants of “Power to the People!” A woman wore a sign that said “Wombs of the World, Unite!” This was not the haven of original thinking, but presumably the intentions were good.
Sources in Tunis, headquarters of the PLO, were to report later that Saddam Hussein was told repeatedly by Yasser Arafat and other PLO leaders that he could not expect to prevail against the allies and that he risked the devastation of Iraq. The dictator remonstrated that he knew very well what a high-tech war was about and that he knew exactly what he was doing.
The heads of nine big unions, including the United Auto Workers and the Communications Workers of America, signed an antiwar advertisement. Conservative columnist and presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan announced his opposition to a war. He was joined by mainstream Republicans such as John Connally and H. Ross Perot. William Chafe, chairman of the history department at Duke University, saw the war as “stupid.”
Bernard Shaw, in a CNN telephone interview from Baghdad, still thought something would be worked out at the last minute. “Personally,” he said, “I do not think there will be a war.”
The clock ticked and the deadline for Iraqi withdrawal arrived. By nightfall Tuesday night protesters were ensconced in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House, with bongos, snare drums and tom-toms. “Wake up, Bush!” they called. “Don’t go to sleep tonight.”