Out of the Ashes
Cockburn, Patrick & Cockburn, Andrew
The authors recount the popular uprising in fascinating detail. They point out that the allied forces could have rolled on to Baghdad with little risk of casualties. They note that Iraqi conscripts,...
...Name: (Please Print) Address: City: State: Zip: Date of change: VCAFRM L J 75...
...UNSCOM (the United Nations weapons inspection program) did prevent Saddam from rebuilding his nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs, but its cessation gives him time to start them up again...
...learned from a source they consider reli- refusal to support the rebels rested on the Yet with a few words of support from the able that senior Iraqi officers were indeed by-then ironclad assumption of U.S...
...Reports finding their way from Iraq now suggest that Saddam's grip on power may be weakening...
...The uprising showed every sign of success...
...r MOVING...
...heavily by Shi'ite muslims...
...3. Return this form to us at the address listed below...
...The authors According to the authors, America's to topple Saddam Hussein in March 1991...
...As the sanctions began to take hold, the CIA engaged in various activities intended to undermine the regime...
...He knows that the rage and hatred of the masses who, for a few delirious days, defaced his portraits and lynched his henchmen in March 1991 have not gone away...
...cleverness of Saddam Hussein and ed...
...cessful effort by Shi'ites in southern Iraq coup for which it hoped...
...In background briefings they insisted it was the Saudis who were "adamantly opposed to aiding the Shia, since they were in mortal terror of Iran...
...Almost daily bombing of anti-aircraft and radar sites in the "no-fly" zones since then are having an effect...
...officials should ponder...
...Not surprisingly, eight years later, Sad-dam is still in power...
...Then you do neither what you said nor what you intended...
...polUnited States, the revolt would have suc- planning a coup...
...Just be sure to allow six weeks for your change to take effect...
...The local militia, infiltrated by According to the authors, brothers who Kurdish separatists, rose up, seized the Out of the Ashes: are both old Middle East hands, the Bush town, and the revolt soon spread across The Resurrection of administration's belief was that, in the wake the mountainous area...
...official who was questioned by the head of Saudi Intelligence "about ways to help the opposition...
...being—to Saddam...
...things by invading Kuwait on August 1, 1990...
...They note that Iraqi conscripts, mainly Shi'ites and Kurds, began deserting en masse soon after the shooting war began...
...Morris, IL 61054-8084 1-800-524-3469 IMPORTANT: Allow six weeks for address change...
...The sanctions, intended to get Iraqis to blame Saddam and bring about his downfall, haven't worked, though they've helped bring death to untold numbers of Iraqis from malnutrition or disease...
...Until then, he had been something of a regional ally, especially during the Iran-Iraq war...
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...American officials had a ready alibi for opposing a popular rebellion...
...Subscriber Service PO...
...probably thwarted the abandoned by the Iraqi military...
...Members of Saddam's security police were rooted out and shot...
...Box 655, Mt...
...He assumed correctly, for example, that threats by the Clinton administration were idle ones...
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...On March 26, 1991, President Bush convened his senior advisers to make a final decision on helping the rebels...
...Saddam had upset the order of The American Spectator May 1999 44 At one point in the uprising, Saddam lost control of 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces...
...The administration finally stopped its dithering when it launched a major air strike last December...
...With America in a state of euphoria over Desert Storm, they decided to leave the Iraqis to their own devices...
...The authors tell us that a numHarperCo/lins /322 pages / $26 would encourage this outcome, in a speech ber of ranking military officers thought planned for February 15...
...The authors give us an insight into Sad-dam's character that U.S...
...Charles Freeman, the U.S...
...nervousness...
...showed throngs of Iraqis in the streets, For both this group and the rebels, a signal his is a story of missed opportuni- whooping it up for peace...
...successful Shi'ite revolt might sunder the The underlying fear was that WashingPETER HANNAFORD'S latest book is The country, they rallied—at least for the time ton's bogeyman, Iran's Ayatollah KhomeQuotable Ronald Reagan (Regnery...
...1. Please write your new address in the space provided...
...Success in the war was intended to put things back in place, thus insuring the safety of the region's oil supply and thwarting any Iranian move to expand its influence...
...This was simply not true, the authors say...
...forces Its memory span being what it is, the Ironically, by fomenting a popular even prevented rebels from seizing arms public scarcely remembers the nearly suc- uprising the U.S...
...of Bush and the Other Iraq's 18 provinces...
...Shortly after seizing power Sad-dam said in 1979: "What is politics...
...In some instances, U.S...
...It was an article of faith that internal pressures—increased by economic sanctions—would soon prompt a successful coup against Saddam...
...Saddam Hussein of Iraq's humiliating defeat in the Gulf When the allied forces ceased fire on Andrew Cockburn and War, some of Saddam's senior officers February 28, the uprisings entered a critical Patrick Cockburn would stage a coup to remove him...
...For several years Saddam profited by the mistakes of his internal and external enemies...
...In the Kurdish north, meanwhile, Comeback Kid another revolt began when police tried to round up army deserters in the town of Jash...
...It never came...
...74 May 19 9 9 • The American Spectator And so the uprising fomented by us was thwarted by us...
...I don't know where all this panic over the breakup of Iraq came from...
...Sooner or later there will be a day of reckoning...
...command made it clear to his barbaric family, and the terrible con- to "take matters into their own hands," he rebel representatives that there would be no sequences for ordinary Iraqis of eight years invited both "the Iraqi military and the support for them...
...After all, Mesopotamia has been around for quite a while —about six thousand years...
...At Iraq's point, Saddam lost control of 14...
...ini, would send his forces into the void...
...Townspeople joined them, riots ensued, and the revolt quickly spread to Basra and the Shi'ite holy cities of Kebala, Kufa, and Najaf...
...A merica's policy toward Saddam has been confused from the start...
...All of this, and more, was intended to change the government in Baghdad, the very same government the Bush administration ultimately decided not to overthrow...
...The Cockburns' con-elusion may yet prove prophetic: "Sad-dam's downfall will come at the hands of his own people, independent of outside intervention—a fact of which he himself is well aware...
...Instead of calling on the Iraqi military Instead, the U.S...
...They were Sunnis, how- icy-makers that extensive civil disorder ceeded...
...The United States fought the Gulf War to prevent change," the authors write...
...Politics is when you say you are going to do one thing wh'' intending to do another...
...Early that day, about throwing in with the rebels, but wantREVIEWED BY however, Saddam hinted that he might be ed to make sure they would be on the winP e t e r Hannaford ready to withdraw from Kuwait...
...The clever Saddam capitalized on American fears by having his agents put up posters of the Ayatollah throughout southern Iraq, which only increased U.S...
...This information soon of economic sanctions (which are no clos- Iraqi people" to do so...
...Bush new phase...
...That's all there is to it...
...Another U.S...
...He used that modus operandi numerous times to create crises over UNSCOM, in order to buy time to hide weapon-making equipment...
...As the conscripted soldiers fled back across the Kuwait-Iraq border into home territory, they shot at posters of Saddam...
...official is quoted as saying bluntly, "The idea that the Saudi tail was wagging our d'og is just bulls--t...
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...Television ping side, for the alternative would be death...
...ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, is quoted as saying, "Washington was obsessed with that idea [Iranian influence over a splintered Iraq] and attributed it to the Saudis...
...At the same time, Saddam was removing his vaunted Republican Guard to safety far to the north...
...In short, America's obsession with Iran caused it to abandon the rebels...
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...They cite an unnamed U.S...
...Thus, at the last of support from the allies—especially the T ties, miscalculations, the devious minute, the president's speech was amend- Americans—was essential...
...draw back...
...This explains why so few bodies were found in the ruins of Iraqi installations by the advancing allies...
...It bankrolled a European tour of an "atrocity exhibit" of photos to emphasize Saddam's ruthlessness, and paid to send most of the delegates to the founding meeting of the dissident "Iraq National Congress...
...ever, and when it seemed possible that a would lead to the disintegration of Iraq...
...The people did just made its way to Saddam and had the effect er to achieving their goal than they were that, beginning in the south, populated of causing potential rebels in high places to the first year...
Vol. 32 • May 1999 • No. 5
