BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
The U.S. government stepped up military pressure on Iraq August 22, sending 1,000 army troops to Kuwait for military exercises. Originally scheduled for October, the troop deployment was moved up and will reach 1,400. In addition the Pentagon has sent 13 ships with materiel, including tanks, trucks, and ammunition, to equip up to 22,000 soldiers. About 20,000 soldiers, 19 warships, and 200 aircraft are already in the Persian Gulf region.
The U.S. troops will join with Kuwaiti forces for three weeks of live-fire training in the desert. Conducted twice annually, the exercises are being staged now as a warning to Baghdad. Meanwhile, 2,000 U.S. Marines participated in a two- week training exercise that began August 14 with Jordanian military forces in the Red Sea near Aqaba.
Effort to topple regime fizzles
For a brief moment the U.S. imperialists thought they
had a "unique opportunity" to try to bring down Iraqi
president Saddam Hussein, when top military aides fled to
Jordan August 8. The defectors included Lieut. Gen. Hussein
Kamel, his brother Col. Saddam Kamel, and their wives, who
are both daughters of Saddam Hussein. Jordanian officials
say a number of other senior Iraqi army officers also came
with the group.
"We're trying to speed the downfall of Saddam Hussein," said Phebe Marr, an official at the National Defense University, acknowledging Washington's objective.
Washington's hopes for toppling the Hussein government in the immediate future receded rapidly. Having to back off from the earlier pretext of "some unusual deployments of Iraqi military forces," U.S. defense secretary William Perry admitted to the Washington Post, there was "nothing that leads us to believe that any invasion is under way or planned."
The Clinton administration sought to portray Hussein Kamel as an alternative to Saddam Hussein and gave public assurances of support to Jordan's King Hussein for granting political asylum to the defectors. "It should be clear that the United States considers Jordan our ally and entitled to our protection if their security is threatened as a result of this incident," Clinton declared at a White House news conference August 10.
Kamel announced at an August 12 press conference in Amman, "We will work inside Iraq and in the whole Arab world to topple the regime of Saddam." Kamel, however, is considered as much a butcher as Saddam Hussein by many Iraqis. He was one of the main architects of the operations to crush the Kurdish people's fight for self-determination in northern Iraq. Kamel also led brutal campaigns against Shiites in southern Iraq in 1991, after the U.S. slaughter of Iraqis in the Gulf War.
U.S. embargo increases misery in Iraq
Washington's campaign to isolate the regime in Baghdad
is seen "as throwing its weight around the Middle East to
the detriment of Arab interests," according to the New York
Times. The United Nations Children's Fund reported last year
that, as a result of the embargo, 3.3 million Iraqis were at
risk of malnutrition and disease, including 625,000 infants
and children under five.
U.S. diplomats have pressured the regime in Jordan to stop buying Iraqi oil, which provides Baghdad with hard currency. Some 75,000 barrels of oil a day are shipped to Jordan at reduced prices in repayment for debts, an arrangement authorized by UN officials. Jordanian merchants are owed almost $1 billion in unpaid bills from Baghdad.
Reacting to these pressures, King Hussein asserted that he would not consider closing the country's borders with Iraq, saying it would cut off essential supplies of food and medicine to the Iraqi people. "As far as closing the borders with Iraq, this is unthinkable," he declared in a nationally televised speech on August 23.
The rulers in Saudi Arabia have also expressed their hesitation about moves to topple the Saddam Hussein regime. At the same time they are not anxious for the anti-Iraq embargo to be lifted. Saudi oil barons are raking in handsome profits from Iraq's share of the world oil market, raising their output to eight million barrels a day. The Iraqi regime exported three million barrels of crude oil a day before 1991. "Nobody is interested right now in any serious change in Iraq," a senior Saudi official told the Times. "It means we will have to sell less oil or sell it at lower prices."