Transcript: Chapter 15

Narrator: On August 1, 1990, Bush's national security advisor informed him that Iraq's Saddam Hussein had invaded neighboring Kuwait in a dispute over oil. Iraq had the fourth largest army in the world.

Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor: Well it's interesting, I told him about it at night, and we scheduled an NSC meeting for early in the morning before he left for Aspen. It wasn't a decision meeting. But the-the sort of mood in the meeting was: Well, it's a fait accompli. It's taken place. We can't do much about it. It's halfway around the world. And sort of: How do we adjust to it?

Reporter (archival): Mr. President, do you contemplate intervention as one of your options?

George H. W. Bush (archival): Yes, Helen. We are not discussing intervention. I would not discuss any military options. Even if we'd agreed upon them. But one of the things I want to do at this meeting is hear from our Secretary of Defense, our chairman and others. But I'm not contemplating such actions.

Brent Scowcroft: And so when we got on the plane I said, "Mr. President, I was very disturbed at that meeting." And he said, "What do you mean?" And I said, "The next meeting we have when we get back, would you let me speak out first and say what the importance of this was?" And he said, "Why don't I do it?" And I said, "No, because if you do it at the outset, you'll stifle debate. And you want to- you want to have the debate." But right at the beginning, he made it quite clear, while he didn't say so that early, that this was an unacceptable action.

Narrator: At a conference in Colorado, Bush met an old ally.

Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister: George Bush just said to me, "Margaret, what is your view?" And so indeed, I told him that aggressors must be stopped, not only stopped but they must be thrown out. An aggressor cannot gain from his aggression. He must be thrown out. But really by that time, I thought in my mind that we must throw him out so decisively that he could never do that again.

George H. W. Bush (archival): We find his behavior intolerable in this instance, and so do the rest of the United Nations countries that met last night. And reaction from around the world is unanimous in being condemnatory.

Narrator: Secretary of State James Baker was in Moscow with a new ally. For the first time since 1945, the U.S. and the Soviet Union lined up on the same side of an international crisis.

James A. Baker, III, Secretary of State: We met at the airport in Moscow and that to me is when the Cold War really ended, when you had the American Secretary of State and the Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union standing shoulder to shoulder in condemning the action of a Soviet client state, and even agreeing, I think at that time, to put an arms embargo on Iraq.

Narrator: Bush had asked the United Nations to impose economic sanctions on Iraq. At a weekend meeting at Camp David, he decided to offer to send U.S. forces to Saudi Arabia to protect its oil fields. When he returned to Washington, he had made another decision.

Doro Bush Koch, daughter: I watched Dad get out of the helicopter, and there was this smoldering intensity to him. He knew that he needed to kick Saddam out of Kuwait, and I don't think he knew at that point exactly how he was going to do it. But there was this sort of focused, intense demeanor that was very different.

George H. W. Bush (archival): This will not stand. This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait. I've got to go. I have to go to work.

Timothy Naftali, biographer: Bush led with his gut, with his instincts...He was an emotive, an emotional, an intuitive, instinctive leader, much more emotional than people thought.

Brent Scowcroft: I was surprised that he spoke out that quickly. His mind had been made up that one way or another, the Iraqis had to leave Kuwait.

Colin Powell, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff: Now, that statement, "This will not stand," doesn't translate into how we're going to make it not stand. Is it going to be sanctions? Is it going to be UN coalition action? Is it going to be unilateral U.S. action? And what exactly is it we're going to do?

Narrator: Bush dispatched Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney to Saudi Arabia to convince the Saudis to accept American forces. Despite warnings the U.S. forces would sully the Muslim holy land, the king accepted the U.S. offer. Osama bin Ladin, the 33-year old Islamic fundamentalist who issued the warning, was placed under confinement. The force to protect Saudi Arabia was called Desert Shield.

George H. W. Bush (archival): At my direction elements of the 82nd Airborne division as well as key units of the United States Air force are arriving today to take up defensive positions in Saudi Arabia. To assume Iraq will not attack again would be unwise and unrealistic. If history teaches us anything it is that we must resist aggression or it will destroy our freedoms. Appeasement does not work. As was the case in the 1930s, we see in Saddam Hussein an aggressive dictator threatening his neighbors.

Narrator: Bush's international contacts from his days at the United Nations, the CIA and eight years as vice president were vast. He put his Rolodex to work and talked to 29 heads of state in the first week.

Brent Scowcroft: He has enormous people skills. He likes to reach out and to talk to people and understand where they're coming from, what they think, what their problems are. And he used to pick up the phone and call foreign leaders, sometimes on specific issues, but frequently not with anything in mind. Just "How are you? How are you getting along?" and so on.

Condoleezza Rice, Soviet expert, National Security Council: I had studied political science. This wasn't what Presidents of the United States did. What a waste of time, Presidents of the United States! I realized that what he was doing was building relationships. He was very attentive to building relationships before you had to ask someone to do something hard.