Sifting through some decomposing newspapers, I recently came upon a December 1991 edition of The Sunday Review, a news magazine published with the Independent on Sunday. The cover story was an investigation of the first Gulf War by the celebrated foreign correspondent John Bulloch. The main cover headline was "Unfinished Business", followed by a question: "Who let Saddam off the hook?"
"It wasn't supposed to turn out this way," the blurb declared. "The plan was that, after the shooting was over, George Bush would be going to the people as the hero who toppled the dictator and won the world's acclaim. But 10 months on, Saddam Hussein is alive and kicking in Baghdad, his rule more secure than ever. Now the awkward questions about Bush's war are surfacing on Capitol Hill. Why did he suddenly throw it away just 48 hours from Baghdad? Insiders explain how the grand design fell apart."
The article recalled that the decision to turn Saddam out of Kuwait was nearly as controversial at the time as the invasion of Iraq would become three years ago this week. But bellicosity prevailed and George Bush the first sent US forces to dislodge Saddam. Afterwards, the invasion having been in effect aborted, the public mood of the West shifted to annoyance at the Americans' failure to finish what they'd started. John Bulloch summarised the post-war situation: "Saddam Hussein is not only still in Baghdad, he is in command of his country, and consolidating his power. His mere presence is an affront to the Bush administration." Why? Because Bush had backed off his primary objectives: "The removal of Saddam himself, the total destruction of Iraq's military capability, the elimination of Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical warfare capacity, and finally the installation of an amenable regime in Baghdad, preferably military."
Bulloch reported that the US had decided against assassinating Saddam, primarily for ethical reasons. He also outlined how the US had overestimated its successes, believing that bombing had destroyed Iraq's nuclear capability and chemical weapons, "something that the American-led United Nations inspectors were to disprove months later".
The failure to support the Shia uprising in southern Iraq, he outlined, occurred for a mixture of reasons, including fear of the effects on American public opinion of an inevitable massacre of Iraqi forces, especially given that the stated policy objective - the liberation of Kuwait - had been achieved with relatively little loss of life. Another factor was that Iran supported the uprising and had already sent troops to assist the rebels, horrifying American allies such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Gen Tom Kelly, by then retired as US director of military operations, was quoted as pointing out that, if they'd gone on, significantly more troops would have been killed; the Americans would have "bought all Iraq's problems" and become bogged down in an inconvenient containment operation, risking relations with other Arab countries. Summing up, Bulloch quoted an Omani minister: "In the moment of triumph when the Americans could have imposed a little bit of their new world order here in Arabia, they didn't. What happened? They got cold feet." It is interesting how misted-over this picture has become in the memory of the West. Even more striking is the straight and objective nature of its reporting - compared with what we get nowadays.
The newspaper that carried this article has been the most vociferous British media voice against the present war in Iraq; it is hard to imagine it giving similar prominence to such an analysis today. In the decade and a half since its publication, as the very dangers represented by the original failure to deal with Saddam mushroomed and multiplied, Western culture has become enveloped in a denial that grows in direct proportion to those dangers.
As observed in Saddam's War, published earlier in 1991 by John Bulloch and another veteran of Middle East reporting, Harvey Morris: "Saddam Hussein wanted not just to be the dominant regional power, the protector of the Gulf; he sought to become the leader of the Arabs, and from that position to build a wider Islamic alliance which would become a new force in international politics. . . If Saddam were not stopped after his rape of Kuwait, he would certainly have to be stopped later on."
But the resolve by our present leaders to do precisely this has been met by hostility and cynicism on the part of almost everyone who does not bear responsibility for whatever emerges. It is as if Western culture, being reassured that its leaders are determined to do what is necessary, has, under cover of this resoluteness, been acting out a spurious morality born of complacency and irresponsibility. Back in 1991, with Saddam still leering from his throne, Western opinion was disposed to be critical of its leaders for precisely the opposite reasons it offers for criticising them now. The obvious conclusion is that public opinion is determined to be perverse.