George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

There was no one single thing that I can think of. But when King Fahd requested such
support we were prompt to respond. But I can't think of an individual specific thing. If
there was one it would perhaps be the Saudis moving south when they said they were
withdrawing....
The press corps stirred uneasily and one or two voices could be heard prompting Bush
"The Iraqis...the Iraqis" There was acute embarrassment on the faces of Sununu and
Fitzwater; this was the classic gaffe of cold war presidents who confused North Korea
and South Korea, or East Germany and West Germany. Bush's forte was supposedly
international affairs; he had travelled to both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as a government
official and before that as a businessman. So this gaffe pointed to a disorder of the
synapses. Bush realized what he had done and tried to recover:
I mean the Iraqis, thank you very much. It's been a long night. The Iraqis moving down to
the Kuwait-Saudi border, when indeed they have given their word that they were
withdrawing. That heightened our concern.
Why had it been a long night for Bush? He had made all of his important decisions on the
troop movements during the day on Tuesday. What had robbed him of his sleep between
Tuesday and Wednesday? Those who have read this far will know that it was not
conscience. A little later there was another sensitive question, touching on the mission of
the troops and the possible future occupation of Saudi Arabia, postwar bases, and the
like: "Could you share with us the precise military objective of this mission? Will the
American troops remain there only until Saddam Hussein removes his troops from the
Saudi border?" Bush, obviously in deep water, answered:
I can't answer that because we have to-- we have a major objective with those troops,
which is the defense of the Soviet Union, so I think it beyond a defense of Saudi Arabia.
So I think it's beyond the-- I think it's beyond just the question of tanks along the border...
The defense of the Soviet Union! But Bush pressed on: "I'm not preparing for a long
ground war in the Persian Gulf." "My military objective is to see Saudi Arabia defended."
Did he feel that he had been let down by his intelligence?
No, I don't feel let down by the intelligence at all. When you plan a blitzkrieg-like attack
that's launched at two o'clock in the morning, that's pretty hard to stop, particularly when
you have just been given the word of the people involved that there won't be any such
attack. And I think the intelligence community deserves certain credit for picking up what
was a substantial boycott-- a substantial buildup-- and then reporting it to us. So when
this information was relayed, properly, to interested parties, that the move was so swift
that it was pretty hard for them to stop it. I really can't blame our intelligence in any way,
fault them, on this particular go-round.
Once again, the gaffe on boycott/buildup occurs at a moment of maximum prevarication.
Bush's gibberish is dictated by his desire say on the one hand that he knew about the Iraqi