George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

In addition, I am asking Secretary Jim Baker to go to Baghdad to see Saddam Hussein,
and I will suggest to Iraq's president that he receive the secretary of state at a mutually
convenient time between December 15 and January 15 of next year. [fn 70]
It was all a fiendish lie, even down to the offer of times and venues for the talks. When
Iraq responded with proposals for the schedule of meetings, Bush welched and reneged.
Iraq released the US internees, but Bush still wanted war. "We've got to continue to keep
the pressure on," was his reaction. Then came a full month of useless haggling, which
was exactly what Bush wanted. As his text had pointed out, he was not interested in real
negotiation anyway; the UN resolutions had already resolved everything. The real
purpose of this gambit was to suppress the domestic opposition, since negotiations were
allegedly now ongoing.
The most important opposition to a January 15 war according to the deadline railroaded
through the UN by Bush came from the US Army, the service least enthralled by the idea
of a needless war. During a visit by Powell and Cheney to Saudi Arabia, Lieut. Gen.
Calvin A. H. Waller, the second in command of US forces in the Gulf, remarked that
there was a "distinct possibility that every unit will not be fully combat-ready until some
time after February 1," or perhaps as late as mid-February." "If the owner asks me if I'm
ready to go, I'd tell him "No, I'm not ready to do the job,'" Waller told the press. It was
understood that Waller was acting as spokesman for a broad stratum of senior officers.
The Bush White House was once again infuriated. "This is not the message we were
trying to send now," said one top Bushman. [fn 71] Waller and the other active duty
officers would henceforth remain silent.
Bush's buildup went on inexorably through the Christmas holidays. In the first week of
the New Year, Bush offered a meeting of Baker and Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi foreign
minister, in Geneva. His ground rules made the meeting pointless even before it
happened: "No negotiations, no compromises, no attempts at face-saving and no rewards
for aggression." [fn 72] Bush was showing more of his hand now; the buildup was
approaching what he, if not the generals, thought enough to start bombing Iraq.
The Tariq Aziz-Baker talks in Geneva went on for six hours on January 10, with no
result. Baker was an Al Capone in striped pants; Tariq Aziz expressed himself with great
dignity. Tariq Aziz had made clear that since Israel was in reality an integral part of
Bush's Gulf coalition, it could not be exempt from retaliation if Iraq were to come under
attack. For Bush, when millions of lives were at stake, the issue of greatest moment was a
letter full of threats which Tariq Aziz had read, but refused to accept, and had left lying
on the table in Geneva. (In this letter, which was later released, Bush was revealed as a
megalomaniac who warned Saddam "we stand today at the brink of war between Iraq and
the world," as if Bush were the chief executive of the entire planet.) Here was a new
focus for Bush's apoplectic rage: he had been insulted by this Arab! What about that
letter, the reporters asked. A surfeit of thyroxin coursed through Bush's veins:
Secretary Baker also reported to me that the Iraqi foreign minister rejected my letter to
Saddam Hussein, refused to carry this letter and give it to the president of Iraq. The Iraqi