George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

During the latter half of March, calls were made for the creation of a Kurdish enclave in
northern Iraq under the protection of the coalition. On April 2, the State Department
restated the Bush administration line of non-intervention and "hands off" Iraqi internal
affairs, and Bush himself repeated this line on April 3. But British pressure was about to
create an extraordinary reversal, which showed the world that even after the departure of
Thatcher, and while he was allegedly at the height of his glory, Bush was still taking
orders from London. On April 5, Bush yielded partially to the clamor to intervene in
favor of the Kurds, who had now been militarily defeated by the Iraqi army and were
seeking refuge in Iran and in the Turkish mountains of southeast Anatolia. On April 7,
US planes began air drops of supplies into these Turkish and Iraqi areas. Then, on April
8, Major repeated his demand for "safe zone" enclaves for the Kurds to be created and
guaranteed by the coalition in territory carved out of northern Iraq. It was a clear
interference in Iraqi internal affairs, and a clear violation of international law, but the
British were backed up by the choplogic theorizing of French Foreign Minister Roland
Dumas, who advanced the theory of the "humanitarian intervention" as a fig-leaf for the
sweeping power of wealthy imperialists to trample on the weak and the starving in the
future.
Bush was haunted by the spectre of getting bogged down in endless guerilla warfare in
the mountains of northern Iraq, just as the Soviets had in Afghanistan. On April 13, Bush
told an audience of 2,500 at Maxwell Air Force Base War College in Montgomery,
Alabama:
Internal conflicts have been raging in Iraq for many years, and we're helping out, and
we're going to continue to help these refugees. But I do not want one single soldier or
airman shoved into a civil war in Iraq that's been going on for ages. And I'm not going to
have that.
"Saddam's continued savagery has placed his regime outside the international order," said
Bush. But "we will not interfere in Iraq's civil war. The Iraqi people must decide their
own political future." [fn 91]
But the British pressure was unrelenting; this was a chance to rewrite international law
and to deal a crushing blow to previous concepts of sovereignty. Bush finally harkened to
his master's voice. On April 16, he announced the total reversal of his own policy:
...I have directed the US military to begin immediately to establish several encampments
in northern Iraq where relief supplies for these refugees will be made available in large
quantities and distributed in an orderly way.
Among those he said he had consulted, Bush mentioned Major. But what about Bush's
previous vehement pledges never to take such a step? One timid voice in the press
conference ventured to ask:
Q: Do you feel certain enough of their safety that you feel this is not inconsistent with
your earlier statements about not putting one US soldier's life on the line?