Making War to Keep Peace (3 page)

As Reagan's vice president for eight years, Bush was very familiar with these principles, as was Weinberger's chief of staff, General Colin Powell. Marginally altered, the principles came to be called the Powell Doctrine, and they guided Bush as he led the country into war. Bush made two
significant additions: He sought a mandate from the UN Security Council specifically authorizing military action, and he assembled a multinational force (for symbolic as well as military reasons). Bush deferred action until all alternatives to war had been exhausted, but it was clear from the beginning that he was determined to secure the withdrawal of Iraqi forces.

There were differences in the Bush administration over whether Iraq's aggression against Kuwait was an adequate cause for the United States to become involved in war. Powell saw containing Saddam in Kuwait and protecting Saudi Arabia as the objectives, and favored delaying or avoiding military action. Baker generally agreed with Powell.
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Bush, however, thought Iraq's forces
must
withdraw from Kuwait.

Authorization to Use Force

The most pressing question was whether the United States and its allies should undertake military action under Article 51 immediately or wait until they had explicit Security Council authorization for the use of force. Even though Article 51 recognizes the right of a state to self-defense and collective defense against aggression, some lawyers argued that forceful action requires explicit permission from the Security Council. Bush was committed to collective action through the UN, as was Baker.
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Baker wrote, “There was no doubt in my mind the President would authorize force if necessary—and we were very careful all along to preserve our options under Article 51 of the UN Charter.”
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Baker wanted the United States to act as part of a coalition that would share the burden. “There was simply no percentage” in going it alone, 21 he wrote, although his opposition to unilateral action was a matter of practical considerations rather than principle. Without a broad multilateral coalition, Baker argued, “we would never have achieved the sort of solidarity from the Arab nations that was crucial to isolating Saddam.”
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He worried that Arab anger would be turned against the United States, and he pointed out to Saudi Arabia's ambassador, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, that once the war was under way, Americans would be killing Arabs in Kuwait. “No problem,” Bandar replied.
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“From the very beginning,” Baker wrote, “the President emphasized
the importance of having the express approval of the international community if at all possible.”
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Bush saw the advantages in securing the acquiescence of the Security Council, building a large coalition of allies and regional powers, and ensuring the approval of the Soviet Union and the U.S. Congress before any military action. Baker wanted a specific Security Council mandate.
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Britain's then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, thought otherwise. Thatcher believed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was a clear violation of international law and that Article 51, the Security Council resolution, and the call for Iraq's withdrawal were sufficient authorization for collective military action. She did not think it was necessary to go back to the UN for approval of new action, and she worried that Bush might “go wobbly” rather than acting with decision.
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As Baker recalled, Thatcher “wasn't the least bit shy in expressing her serious misgivings about our preference for pursing a multilateral course.”
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Bush's national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, supported Thatcher's view. Where Baker and Powell favored maximum consultation, maximum UN authorization, and maximum delay, Thatcher thought Bush and Baker went too far in involving the United Nations in each step. In her memoir,
The Downing Street Years
, she recalled the “almost interminable argument between the Americans—particularly Jim Baker—and me about whether and in what form United Nations authority was needed for measures against Saddam Hussein. I felt that the Security Council resolution which had already been passed, combined with our ability to invoke Article 51 of the UN Charter on self-defense, was sufficient.”
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Thatcher was reluctant to involve the UN in details of the operation because “there was no certainty that the final wording of a resolution, which was always open to amendment, would be found satisfactory. If not, it might tie our hands unacceptably.”
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She added:

Later developments proved the prescience of Thatcher's observations.

The problem with seeking detailed authorization from the United Nations, Thatcher said, was that the UN was always engaged in a search for consensus, which she described as “the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner, ‘I stand for consensus'?”
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Thatcher points up the basic problems in multinational decision-making and action. Governments have distinct interests and perspectives that make consensus difficult to achieve, and the need for consensus makes multilateral processes slow, cumbersome, indecisive, and inconclusive. Thatcher had already encountered this problem in negotiations on the European Union (EU), where she invoked the moral authority of the nation against the Brussels bureaucrats—and was frequently outvoted.

Instead of acting under Article 51 to assemble forces immediately and act in defense of Kuwait, as Thatcher urged, Bush chose to seek specific authorization from the Security Council for each new step and to painstakingly build support through Baker's extensive personal conversations around the world.

In the end, discussions in the Security Council and in various national capitals produced the consensus Bush and Baker desired, a broad alliance, and the Security Council resolutions, including an ultimatum. Yet four months elapsed between the first resolution condemning the invasion on August 2 and the ultimatum on November 29, proclaiming that Iraq must withdraw its troops from Kuwait by January 15, 1991, or be driven out by force.

During those critical months between the invasion and the beginning of the military operation, Kuwait was devastated. Its people were murdered, raped, tortured, and dispersed, its resources plundered and
destroyed, the nation sacked. Much of this devastation could have been avoided by more rapid action. Though some time was required to assemble the necessary forces, earlier air attacks would have slowed the progress of Saddam's forces. Resolution 660 on August 2 had already demanded that Iraq withdraw from Kuwait. Resolution 678 added a deadline and authorized all necessary means to enforce the ultimatum.

As the United States and the coalition went again and again to the Security Council for specific authorization, Margaret Thatcher went along, but she remained unconvinced to the end. She would write later that the slow beginning and unsatisfactory outcome of the Gulf War (by which she meant the U.S. decision to end the war and to leave Saddam's military base intact) were direct consequences of the earlier decision to seek detailed authorization from the Security Council and to rely on the consensus of a diverse group of allies.
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Had the consensus road not been taken, she thought, the war might have been carried to a more definitive end. But Bush and his administration had their own views about legitimate force in the post–cold war world.

Bush assumed the task of mobilizing U.S. forces, rallying a broad coalition in the Security Council, rallying support in Congress for military action if that proved necessary, and leading the military forces to victory.
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Building Consensus in the UN and the United States

The process of negotiating resolutions, constructing a coalition, and building majority support in the Security Council for the use of force was a landmark in the evolution of post–cold war conduct. The decision to defer action to build a consensus was unprecedented, as was giving priority to multilateral processes and collective action over a rapid response. Military action, when it came, had wide and explicit approval from the international community and the American government.

Secretary Baker visited the heads of state in the major countries in Europe and the Middle East to explain the situation, argue the case for collective action, and secure their support and financial contributions. He later wrote that he and Bush saw this first international crisis of the post–cold war era as a critical opportunity to establish precedents.

Bush and Baker hoped to persuade Saddam to abandon his occupation of Kuwait before the United States began a war, but he refused. Though strong and shrewd, Saddam repeatedly underestimated his opponents. He probably believed that the Gulf monarchies were too decadent to resist his attack on Kuwait, and that the rest of the Arab world was too divided to unite against him. Perhaps he believed he was already the leader of the united “Arab nation” he imagined. His speeches made clear that he believed other Arab governments would rally around him. His writing made clear that he saw himself as ferocious and unconquerable. He wrote:

Saddam gave many of the governments and people within his reach the feeling that they too were on the brink of the end of time.

In an effort to make Saddam understand the opposition he faced, Bush advertised the strength and sophistication of the U.S. military power being assembled, and reiterated his personal commitment to the enforcement of the UN resolution. As Iraqi forces began to round up Westerners at gunpoint, Bush prepared for action. He provided leadership in the UN, where the United States was represented by Thomas Pickering, a skillful, politically savvy career ambassador.

Bush and Baker worked hard to coax a diverse group of nations to participate without regard for the political quality of the allies assembled. When French president François Mitterrand made the point that Kuwait “is not the kind of government I would like to send French soldiers to be killed for,”
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Bush and Baker made the case for realpolitik. They believed that world politics sometimes drives governments to make alliances based on necessity as well as shared moral principles.
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Both understood that international politics may sometimes require alliances with unpalat
able leaders or regimes. If opposing aggression, constructing new collective security arrangements, helping maintain independence and order in the world, and protecting world access to Middle East oil required collaborating with some governments whose principles and practices did not meet American standards, so be it.

Bush was experienced in dealing with the governments of the Gulf and the world, and he responded eagerly to the challenge. “I enjoy trying to put the coalition together and keep it together,” he told reporters at a press conference in October. Dealing with the Gulf was more fun than dealing with Congress on taxes.
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But there were many pitfalls on the way to collective action.

Peace offensives aimed at delaying U.S. action were launched, resisted, and defused. Bush believed a negotiated settlement was possible, but only on the condition that it did not leave Iraq the hegemonic power in the Gulf. Although he wanted to avoid war, he opposed appeasement. He had learned well the lessons of Munich and Vietnam. Still, he sent Baker to Baghdad after November 30 for a conversation with Iraq's foreign minister Tariq Aziz, in one last effort to secure Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait.

Confronted with unsatisfactory options, as well as Arab ambiguities, American impatience, and Saddam's ambition, Bush chose his course. He believed that if Saddam should succeed in this act of brute force, his image and power in the Arab world would be dangerously enhanced; the governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Emirates, and Oman would be in continuing danger; America's reputation in the world would suffer; American influence would shrink; and the opportunity to establish a new world order would be greatly reduced.

For Americans, the challenge was to show Saddam that he could not succeed in the effort to annex Kuwait, and that there would be devastating consequences for trying. The United States had to communicate to Saddam that it would use the large military forces assembled in the Middle East. Any wavering in purpose, any seeming uncertainty, would undermine the effort. The United States was convinced that if Saddam Hussein could be made to believe he had only two options—withdraw from Kuwait or face total war—he would withdraw.