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.No sooner had the mostformidable foe the US ever faced disappeared than the very terroriststhe US had sponsored turned their guns around to inflict as muchdamage as possible on their former benefactor.Just as the USSR was disassembling itself, the dictator of Iraqdecided he would move against his neighbor and annex its territory,and oil.In his endeavor to seize Kuwait Saddam Hussein had reasonto believe that the US would take no position and would refrainfrom interfering.The American ambassador to Baghdad had saidas much herself.Whether this was a trap set for Saddam to providea pretext for American troops to enter the Middle East in force isopen to debate, but there is no question that the subsequent assaulton Iraq and the stationing of numerous American troops on SaudiArabian soil, in proximity to the sacred sites of Islam, set off a waveof anti-American hatred and jihad that has only grown stronger,particularly since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.Had Saddam succeeded in annexing Kuwait, he would havechallenged Saudi Arabia as the world s largest oil producer andbeen in a position to defy the Organization of Petroleum ExportingCountries (OPEC) and alter the international pricing system, perhapsto topple the dollar as the premiere oil-trading currency in favor ofthe new Euro.6 He would probably have been able to sell outsidethe OPEC cartel and perhaps broker special deals with American WAR ON TERROR 219rivals like China, or even Germany and Japan, and free them ofthe control of petroleum that the US had imposed at the end ofWorld War II.Saddam also had fantasies of accomplishing whatothers before him, like Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt, had failed todo the unification of Greater Arabia against the West.This, saidGeorge H.W.Bush, shall not stand.To stop Saddam Bush launched Operation Desert Storm inJanuary 1991, sending half a million troops into the region andeasily defeated Iraq in what can only be described as a turkey shoot.The Iraqi army stood no chance against the high tech weapons andair power of the US.The Iraqi army, composed of ill-trained andpoorly armed conscripts, was routed and slaughtered mercilessly.At that point it seemed likely that the US would invade Iraq itselfand topple Saddam.But the consequences of such a move were toounpredictable.In the power vacuum left by Saddam s departure thepotential that Iraq s majority Shia population could seize controland ally with their religious brethren in Iran was too threatening.Saddam was the devil the US knew very well.While US officialspreferred Saddamism without Saddam, at least for the moment, hisregime would ensure that Iraq did not succumb to Shi ite funda-mentalism and spread the poison into Saudi Arabia.TERRORIZING IRAQI CIVILIANSMost ominously, American air forces attacked Iraq s civilian infra-structure in blatant violation of international law, reducing a countrythat had been one of the most developed in the Middle East to an apocalyptic condition.7 A Harvard University study team reportedthat the bombing effectively terminated everything vital to humansurvival in Iraq electricity, water, sewage systems, agriculture,industry, health care& 8 Evidence from the US Defense Department sown website proved that a principal aim of the bombing campaignwas precisely to cause rampant epidemic disease.One documentdated January 1991 admitted openly that Increased incidence ofdisease will be attributable to degradation of normal preventivemedicine, waste disposal, water purification/distribution, electricity,and decreased ability to control disease outbreaks. Another icilyamoral document from February 1991 declares: Conditions arefavorable for communicable disease outbreaks. 9 The only possibleexplanation for such a certifi able war crime is that Washingtonintended to terrorize the Iraqi population and to send a clear messagethroughout the region and the world.10 This is what happens when 220 WAR AND EMPIREweak nations defy the will and interests of the United States in thenew world order.According to the United Nations at least 1
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