Interview with Rick Atkinson, author of Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War

Here was a man who came to believe that the United States first of all would turn a blind eye to control the forty percent of the world's oil supply. He was a man who believed that he could hunker down and ride out an attack by what was clearly the most formidable coalition of military powers since World War II. He was a man who believed that the West lacked a political will to carry through on its threats. He was a man who miscalculated in taking hostages and then compounded his miscalculations and made Schwarzkopf's military efforts much easier by letting them go in December. Every time he had to make a major strategic decision, Sadam guessed wrong until the end of the war when he guessed right.

Sadam made many strategic miscalculations. He failed to recognize that the world was awash with oil. That Iraqi oil was not critical to the functioning of the Western democracies. There was plenty of oil. He failed to recognize that Arab unity would hold even in the face of attacks on Israel and the potential for Israel to come into the war. He failed to reassure King Fahd of his benign intentions toward Saudi Arabia thereby driving the Saudis into the arms of Washington. Perhaps most importantly, he failed to calculate that the United States was serious about this. That there had been a decision made in Washington that they would go to war. I think he believed that the United States would fold as it had after the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983 and simply leave. He made one strategic miscalculation after another.

Q: What was the Bush Administration's understanding and policy toward Iraq before the war?

Atkinson: I think the Bush Administration had basically inherited a policy toward Iraq from the Reagan/Bush Administration that saw Iraq as a kind of fire wall against Iranian fundamentalism. And as it developed over the 1980's it became a real political run-a-muck... even though the Iraqis were known to be harboring Palestinian terrorists. Even though they were known to be attempting to buy equipment that could only be used for subversive purposes like building nuclear weapons. Even though it was clear that they were trying to become the foremost power in the Middle East, it was a feeling that even if Saddam Hussein was a thug he was perhaps our thug and controllable through a policy of sticks and carrots. Saddam had come to power in the late 1960's and no one in Washington had any illusions that this was a Jeffersonian democrat. He was recognized as being incredibly ruthless. There was an appreciation for the fact that he was a man who had used chemical weapons against his own people... who had murdered thousands of people, who kept a gulag that was worthy of the worst despots. Nevertheless there was a feeling that Saddam could be contained somehow and that he was the lesser of evils if compared to the Ayatollah for instance. So there was a policy that evolved during the Reagan Administration that was endorsed in essence by the Bush Administration in which we wagged our finger at Saddam repeatedly.. told him that there were certain things that he could not do but that if he behaved within certain parameters it would be worth his while.

Q: What kinds of things did we do to help Saddam?

Atkinson: Well, in October of 1989 George Bush signed something called National Security Decision Directive 25 which was a secret order that in effect said, the United States believes that we can do business with Saddam and that we will pursue this policy of carrots and sticks that we will assist Saddam in certain ways if his behavior conforms to our aspirations for the Middle East and Iraq in particular. So there were credits extended for instance, agricultural credits worth a billion bucks to help Saddam stabilize his regime and to provide necessities for Iraqis. There were eight hundred export licenses granted to Iraq which allowed them to import certain sophisticated technical items which in fact in some cases could be used for military purposes. This was not unbridled trade in any sense. It was a recognition that Saddam was using some of this stuff for nefarious purposes . Nevertheless, he was given the benefit of the doubt, I think it's clear to say in retrospect that he was a guy who had to be given certain carrots if you wanted him to do what you wanted him to do in the Middle East.

Q: They obviously got Saddam wrong. Why?

Atkinson: Well, I think it's easy to say that we got Saddam wrong in retrospect and it's true we misjudged him in certain fundamental ways. We didn't realize the extent to which he was deluded. Here was a man who calculated and miscalculated on a vast scale. Here was somebody who had a country with a gross national product that was surpassed by the United States by eighty-fold. A man who had a relatively small country the size of California who nevertheless believed that he could go to war with the United States and thirty-seven other countries. It was difficult to conceive I think in Washington that this kind of irrationality could in fact carry one on into a war. I think there was a belief that Saddam was fundamentally rational and fundamentally recognized his position in the Middle East in ways which he clearly didn't. He had a megalomania about him which was difficult to appreciate in the late 1980's and on into 1990 in Washington. Part of the reason I think it's important to recognize that this development of Saddam's megalomania into a bellicosity which would lead him to invade Kuwait came at a time when the United States was completely preoccupied with the fall of the Berlin Wall which had happened in November of 1989, with the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, with the collapse of the Soviet Union. It's not as if Bush and Baker and the rest of the Bush Administration were not occupied with serious and important things. Saddam was a sideshow and I think that's a forgivable sin in retrospect . There was an effort in some corners of Washington to keep an eye on him yet it wasn't the main act. The main act was elsewhere so Saddam's agenda is something that happened without anybody in Washington watching very carefully.

Q: What was April Glaspie telling Saddam?

Atkinson: Well, April Glaspie our Ambassador to Iraq was telling Saddam fundamentally that we were concerned about his bellicose attitude and the various statements that he had issued regarding his intentions toward Kuwait, regarding his disgruntlement with the way he was being treated by the Arab world in general. But it was hardly tantamount to a warning shot across the bow. She had a meeting with Saddam on July 25, 1990 in which she basically said, the United States has no direct vested interest in Arab disputes including the border dispute that Saddam had with the Kuwaitis. In retrospect this was a clear mistake. I think if taken within the context of the time you have to first of all appreciate that she was more or less executing orders that came to her from the State Department. Secondly, again, this was a continuation of a long policy of tough love with Saddam. Warning him that we were watching him and yet telling him that we would continue to be his friend as long as he remained within certain parameters. It was a continuation of basically a tough love policy that the United States had adopted towards Saddam in which we periodically wagged our finger under his nose, but at the same time said, we will continue to be your friend. We'll make it worth your while if you will simply conform to certain standards of behavior. Saddam took this I think in retrospect as if not a green light -- a yellow light and one that he could safely run without consequence.

Q: Why wasn't she or Bush or the Administration firing a stronger warning shot?

Atkinson: Part of it was they were preoccupied with other events. The collapse of the Soviet Union, the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the emergence of Germany. This occurred two months before -- German unification which was certainly higher on the agenda of world events in terms of American interests then what seemed to be a relatively minor border dispute which had cropped up periodically over the years between Iraq and Kuwait. I think that it can fundamentally be explained just in terms of inattention and a belief that Saddam had for the previous ten years in which we've been courting him adhered to this policy of carrot and stick that we had used toward him where we swaggered a bit, threatened, and then did nothing that we really found offensive. So in retrospect, clearly they misjudged. They misjudged his intentions. It was a bad read on Saddam's character and intentions at the time.

Q: To put this coalition together what did Baker and Bush have to do ?

Atkinson: Well, there was a hundred and sixty-six day campaign of coercive diplomacy that was launched beginning August 2, 1990 in which Bush and Baker and company recognized that first of all the United States needed international support to roll back this invasion of Kuwait. They needed the support of the international community through the United Nations and also bilaterally. Among other things they needed money and there were subsequently two trips -- called `tin cup one `and `tin cup two' by members of the Administration going around collecting cash to underwrite American cost for this . And they raised more than fifty billion dollars. There were various concessions made to different countries whose support was critical for the American led coalition. Egypt for instance had seven billion dollars in various debts forgiven--wiped out. Syria was fundamentally forgiven tacitly of many of the same sins of which Saddam was accused, including state-sponsored terrorism. We were willing to look the other way because we really needed Syria's support. There were concessions made to different countries on different levels depending on their importance to the Allied effort . And this is a process that went on for five months -- right up until the first bomb fell in January.

Q: President Bush--his character, the view he had of his presidency. .....

Atkinson: Well, he was a man who was remarkably well versed in virtually every public issue of this day. He was from a patrician background. His father had been a senator. He'd gone to prep school in New England and to Yale . He had been shot down as a Lieutenant in World War II in the Pacific. He was a warrior himself and this very much shaped George Bush's view of the world. His approach to foreign affairs was shaped by thirty years in government. He'd been the Ambassador to China. He'd been Director of the CIA. He'd been Vice President for eight years. He was a man who knew that the world was round. He knew where Kuwait was. He did not have to be told that the strangulation of up to forty percent of the world's oil was a direct and immediate threat to American interests and those of all the western democracies.

Q: What was his view about foreign policy up to that point in his Administration?

Atkinson: He was more active in foreign policy certainly than he was in domestic policy. In domestic policy he had vetoed twenty-one bills from Congress and that was his major approach to legislation. He was not an initiator. He was somebody who didn't know necessarily what he was for. He knew very much what he was against. In foreign policy he was more activist. He realized that the American presidency needed to lead the American foreign policy establishment. Nevertheless, with a couple of critical exceptions, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the reunification of Germany being two of them, Bush was someone who preferred to tinker at the margins. He was not someone who would get in and muck around in foreign policy for the sake of mucking around.

Q: So what's George Bush got to do to make this happen?

Atkinson: Well, the first thing George Bush had to do was decide in his own mind whether it was worth blood to roll back the invasion of Kuwait and it's clear that early on he made this decision that American vital interests were at stake and that it was worth spilling American blood. Secondly, he had to persuade the American people that this was in fact a vested interest. He had to find a rationale which allow Americans to support the notion of sending what were ultimately more than half a million troops and spilling American blood without making it appear as though this was a blood for oil swap and through the fall and right up until the first bomb fell in the middle of January, Bush careened around looking for a rationale...trying to find his voice on this issue. He hopped from rationale to rationale. You heard him talk about American jobs being at stake because of the strangulation of the oil supply. You heard him talk about Iraq's nuclear aspirations and how this was something we needed to stop. You heard him talk about the importance of standing up for the little guy in Kuwait. He had five or six different motifs that he tried. Most of them sounding rather tinny in fact. It was only when George Bush cast this as a crusade, as a moral obligation of the United States to intervene that you really felt it was coming from the heart . And at this point Bush seemed to find his voice. He seemed to rouse himself and the country in a way which would allow him to launch this crusade.

Q: So who does he have to pull in?

Atkinson: Well, Bush had a lot of balls in the air. He had to satisfy first and foremost that this was a cause worth supporting. That this was a cause worth going to war for. He had to satisfy his own military which would have to execute his war orders and which would have to believe in what he, the commander in chief believed in himself and thirdly, he needed to keep this very diverse, very peculiar coalition together over the course of the prelude to the war and right through the war and on beyond the war. These were three very different constituencies with three very different view of what was at stake and the five months up to the war and the six weeks of the war itself were largely from Bush's perspective a matter of trying to keep these three balls going without dropping any one of them which would have been disastrous.

Q: What's Bush's memory. His view of the fight versus the country's?

Atkinson: Well, it's interesting to remember I think that Bush was really of a different generation from his generals. They had all been seared by Vietnam. Every general--and there were many, many generals by the time this this war ended--had been in Vietnam. They had all been shaped by Vietnam. By the catastrophe of Vietnam. Bush was from a different generation in a different war. Bush was very much a man for whom World War II had been a defining experience of his youth. A young Navy Lieutenant shot down in the Pacific. He was a genuine war hero. He'd been the youngest pilot in the Navy and he viewed life in general as a battle of good against evil. He viewed Sadam and the circumstances involving the invasion of Kuwait in the same framework which he had used to view Japan and Germany in World War II. He was a man for whom shades of gray and nuances were annoying. He was fundamentally a man who viewed life in black and white terms. That's why it was much more comfortable for Bush to talk about this as a moral crusade.

Q: And his generals.....

Atkinson: His generals on the other hand, tended to recognize that there were shades of gray. That it was often possible to fight a war without being wholly righteous. These were men who had direct experience of ten years of catastrophe in Vietnam in which a cause which initially had appeared to be righteous had gradually disintegrated over the course of that decade to the point where it was very difficult to make the case that America was on the side of right and the North Vietnamese was evil. That's why it was hard for many of the senior commanders involved in the Persian Gulf War to completely buy into Bush's analogies when Bush referred to Saddam as Hitler for example. They recognized that Saddam was not Hitler. They had certain characteristics in common perhaps but there was only one Hitler and this lack of nuance bothered many of the men in Pentagon and in the field.