George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

After hob-nobbing with Thatcher, Queen Elizabeth II, and other members of the royal
family, Bush flew to Houston to assume the role of host of the Group of 7 yearly
economic summit. At this summit, the Anglo-Saxon master race as represented by Bush
and Thatcher found itself in a highly embarrassing position. Everyone knew that the
worst economic plague outside of the communist bloc was the English-speaking
economic depression, which held not just the United States, the United Kingdom, and
Canada but also Australia, New Zealand, and other former imperial outposts in its grip.
The continental Europeans were interested in organizing emergency aid and investment
packages for the emerging countries of eastern Europe, and the Soviet republics, but this
the Anglo-Saxons adamantly opposed. Rather, Bush and Thatcher were on a full tradewar
line against the European Community and Japan when it came to the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and other matters of international economics. Bush's
Tex-Mex menus and country and western entertainment programs were unable to hide an
atmosphere of growing animosity.
In the following week, the Anglo-Saxon supermen were once again plunged into gloom
when Gorbachov and Kohl, meeting on July 16 in the south Russian town of Mineralny
Vody near Stavropol, announced the Soviet acquiescence to the membership of united
Germany in NATO. This was an issue that Bush and Thatcher had hoped would cause a
much longer delay and much greater acrimony, but now there were no more barriers to
the successful completion of the "two plus four" talks on the future of Germany, which
meant that German reunification before the end of the year was unavoidable.
On the same day that Kohl and Gorbachov were meeting, satellite photographs monitored
in the Pentagon showed that Iraq's crack Hammurabi division, the corps d'elite of the
Republican Guard, was moving south towards the border of Kuwait. By July 17,
Pentagon analysts would be contemplating new satellite photos showing the entire
division, with 300 tanks and over 10,000 men, in place along the Iraq-Kuwait border. A
second division, the Medina Luminous, was beginning to arrive along the border, and a
third division was marching south. [fn 29]
The disputes between Iraq and Kuwait were well-known, and the Anglo-Americans had
done everything possible to exacerbate them. Iraq had defended Kuwait, Saudi Arabia,
and the other Gulf Cooperation Council countries against the fanatic legions of Khomeini
during the Iran-Iraq war. Iraq had emerged from the conflict victorious, but burdened by
$65 billion in foreign debt. Iraq demanded debt relief from the rich Gulf Arabs, who had
not lifted a finger for their own defense. As for Kuwait, it had been a British puppet state
since 1899. Both Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates were each acknowledged to be
exceeding their OPEC production quotas by some 500,000 barrels per day. This was part
of a strategy to keep the price of oil artificially low; the low price was a boon to the dollar
and the US banking system, and it also prevented Iraq from acquiring the necessary funds
for its postwar demobilization and reconstruction. Kuwait was also known to be stealing
oil by overpumping the Rumailia oil field, which lay along the Iraq-Kuwait border. The
border through the Rumaila oil field was thus a bone of contention between Iraq and
Kuwait, as was the ownership of Bubiyan and Warba islands, which controlled the access
to Umm Qasr, Iraq's chief port and naval base as long as the Shatt-el-Arab was disputed