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Iraq Flashback
NPR's Tom Gjelten Reflects on Face-off's Similarities to 1991 War
NPR's Tom Gjelten
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March 12, 2003 -- NPR National Security Correspondent Tom Gjelten, who covered the 1991 Gulf War, says that while the circumstances leading up to the threatened war with Iraq are different, there are several similarities with the previous conflict. Gjelten has this exclusive analysis for npr.org. Listen to Gjelten's reports from 1990-91.
A few weeks back, I made the foolish mistake of referring on air to the 1991 conflict with Iraq as "the first Gulf War." An alert listener corrected me. "As far as I know," he wrote, "there has only been one Gulf War." He said my reference reminded him of the line, "You know you are in trouble with your wife when she starts referring to you as her first husband."
Let me try to explain. I covered the one-and-only (so far) Gulf War for NPR, and these days I sometimes get a Been-There, Reported-That feeling. Of course, I understand the situation today is different. In 1991, Iraq had invaded Kuwait and was occupying the country in clear defiance of Kuwait's sovereignty. There was no debate about the facts of what Saddam Hussein had done. This year, Saddam's actions are open to varying interpretations. Still, as I report the latest pre-war developments and speculate about post-war scenarios, I am reminded of stories I covered in 1990 and 1991.
Hapless Diplomacy
Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. It was another five months before the United States and its allied "coalition of the willing" initiated military action. In September I was in Jordan, covering U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar's meeting with Tariq Aziz, then the Iraqi foreign minister. Perez de Cuellar tried desperately to get the Iraqis to agree to a timed withdrawal from Kuwait in order to avoid war, but Aziz told Perez de Cuellar he should pay attention to the victims of Israeli policies instead. "There are people who are suffering in the West Bank and Gaza... and those people should be taken into consideration," Aziz said.
Perez de Cuellar got nowhere. "One sin doesn't justify another sin," was all he could say. Twelve years have since gone by. Aziz is now Iraq's deputy prime minister and there is a new U.N. Secretary General, but the back-and-forth is as stale as ever.
Kein Blüt fur Öl!
My base in 1990-1991 was Berlin. In those days, the German government was allied with the U.S. administration (unlike today), but many Germans were not. Even before the first bombs fell in Baghdad, young Germans were marching in downtown Berlin to protest the U.S. war buildup. Everywhere I went I saw the same graffiti -- Kein Blut fur Ol! -- No Blood for Oil. Once the air war started, the demonstrations accelerated. Some protesters threw blood on the gates of the U.S. Embassy, to underscore their opposition to U.S. policy. Even the Iraqi Scud missile attack on Israel failed to arouse sentiment that Saddam deserved what he was getting. "The bombing of Israel is no worse than the bombing of Iraq," one demonstrator told me. "These are equal crimes." The anti-war sentiment in Germany today is not exactly a new phenomenon.
Moscow in the Middle
In 1991, even with bombs falling in Baghdad, the Soviet government was trying to work out a solution that would make a ground war unnecessary. I'd been sent to Moscow in the aftermath of the Lithuania crackdown, and I covered the last-minute "negotiations." Mikhail Gorbachev had come up with a peace plan, sent his envoy Yevgeny Primakov to Baghdad to sell it, and was set to receive Tariq Aziz in Moscow. Iraq would agree to withdraw from Kuwait in return for no further outside interference in Iraq's internal affairs. "The Soviet plan," Primakov told us, "is really taking shape." Some analysts I interviewed said Moscow was mainly interested in increasing its own influence on the world scene.
We now hear that Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to position himself as an intermediary between the United States and all those countries still unwilling to support another war against Saddam Hussein. He even dispatched a special envoy to Baghdad in search of good news. His name is Yevgeny Primakov.
A Messy Aftermath
I can only carry this comparison so far, since there's still no Gulf War 2 to speak of. But we are already reporting on U.S. military plans to provide humanitarian assistance to war victims in the aftermath of fighting in Iraq, and that was a story I covered 12 years ago. With the beginning of the ground war in February 1991, I was sent to Saudi Arabia and then on to Kuwait and into occupied Iraq. I followed a U.S. Army team assigned to the town of Safwan in southern Iraq. Reservists from a Civil Affairs unit brought a pickup truck full of food to the town only to find they were provoking a mob scene. "Our mission is just to have a presence up here," Lt. Daryl Hudson told me. "We're kind of limited as far as what we can do for the civilian population." Officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross were criticizing American commanders for underestimating the humanitarian needs of the war-afflicted population. Walter Stocker, the ICRC delegation head, told me his "priority" was to remind the U.S.-led military coalition that as the "occupying" force in Iraq it was obliged under the Geneva Conventions to take care of the civilian population. The commanding general of the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division, Maj. Gen. Thomas Rhame, was not so sure. "I am under no instructions as to being an occupying army yet," he told me. "One could argue that case. I'm not under those instructions."
Here's a difference this time around: the Pentagon already acknowledges U.S. forces would be the "occupying" authority in Iraq after a war there. One point of dispute: how much food and water should be brought along.
How Did This Happen?
As I go back over interviews I did in April 1991 with U.S. officers in occupied Iraq, I am struck by how much sentiment there was at that time that the U.S. attack was stopped short. I spent several hours with a group of soldiers from the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment who were manning a checkpoint near the line where U.S. troops had halted their advance in southern Iraq. An uprising by Shiite Iraqis had been brutally suppressed by Saddam Hussein's remaining Republican Guard forces. Refugees were streaming through the checkpoint with stories of atrocities. "At times, it makes you want to go join the fight," the checkpoint commander, Lt. Douglas Moore, told me. "We certainly have the ability to go wax all these guys who are doing these atrocities up here," he said. "But the war's over -- for now, I guess."
The rightness or wrongness of the Gulf War was hotly debated in 1991, before and after the action. Was it proper in the first place? Was it right for George H.W. Bush to stop the war when he did? Much has happened since, but in some ways we seem to be picking up this story about where we left it 12 years ago.
In Depth
 Aug. 31, 1990: NPR's Tom Gjelten reports on U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar's attempt to convince Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz to agree to withdraw forces from Kuwait.
Jan. 22, 1991: Gjelten reports on German demonstrations against war with Iraq.
Feb. 14, 1991: Gjelten reports on Moscow's efforts to negotiate a cease-fire in the Gulf War.
March 18, 1991: Gjelten reports on U.S. troops effectively serving as an occupying force in southern Iraq after the Gulf War ended.
April 7, 1991: Gjelten reports on U.S. troops' preparations to withdraw from southern Iraq.
 Gulf War Flashback: NPR's Neal Conan reflects on being held captive by Iraqi soldiers in 1991.
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