BY MAURICE WILLIAMS

While its immediate threat of further bombing raids on Iraq has receded, Washington is continuing its military buildup in the Persian Gulf. The Clinton administration says it will not rule out more strikes against Iraq, after launching 44 missiles at the country's southern region in early September. That action and the debate it stirred highlight the problems the U.S. rulers have in getting their imperialist allies and rivals, as well as regimes in the Middle East, to bow to Washington's dictates.

The Clinton administration announced September 17 that 3,500 U.S. troops were being deployed to Kuwait, joining some 1,200 other GIs already stationed there. The president said the measures were taken "to keep Saddam Hussein in a box." Some 30,000 U.S. soldiers are deployed in the Gulf region.

U.S. defense secretary William Perry stated that the Pentagon sent eight F-117 Stealth fighters and a Patriot missile battery to Kuwait as part of the latest military effort. The government of Bahrain agreed to temporarily base 26 U.S. F-16 jet bombers on its territory. Washington also dispatched the aircraft carrier Enterprise to the region, placing 75 more warplanes in the Persian Gulf.

"Whether air strikes will be necessary or not will very much depend on Saddam Hussein's actions, not his words," said Gen. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a press conference.

"Saddam Hussein poses a threat to our airmen, not only by the six missile firings carried out in the past days but also by the aggressive deployment of mobile surface-to-air missile units.... in the southern sector," Perry told reporters September 16 during a meeting at a Royal Air Force base in London. "All these actions we find threatening, we find provoking, and we find necessary he change."

Perry had met with Michael Portillo and Charles Millon, the foreign ministers of Britain and France, on a mission to the Middle East and Europe to shore up the crumbling "coalition" that previously backed the U.S.-led slaughter against Baghdad in 1991. The defense secretary sought to drum up support for more military assaults on Iraq and the "no-fly" zones Washington imposed on Iraqi soil. London was the only other permanent member of the UN Security Council to fully back Clinton's latest war moves. Paris openly criticized the September 3-4 bombings.

During the Mideast leg of his journey, Perry reviewed with government officials in Bahrain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait a diplomatic demarche, or petition, issued September 6 by the White House to Baghdad outlining actions the regime needs to take to prevent more U.S. military assaults. The list of demands included removal of mobile missiles from the expanded no-fly zone, no repair of stationary missile sites damaged by U.S. cruise missiles, and no tracking of U.S. aircraft with radar.

Baghdad declared September 13 it would stop challenging the "no fly" zones imposed by Washington in northern and southern Iraq and cease firing at U.S. and other imperialist warplanes flying over its territory. "The position of my government was to suspend the military response in order to let the political means get underway to solve this particular problem according to international law and in a manner that will protect our sovereignty," said Iraqi deputy foreign minister Riyadh Qaysi.

The Clinton administration issued a new set of demands September 16 demanding Baghdad remove certain aircraft equipment, including missiles, from the zones.

Clinton faced some unexpected trouble in marshaling support among the governments in the Gulf region. The Kuwaiti regime balked at Washington's initial September 13 announcement that it would send 5,000 GIs there, before agreeing to the latest troop deployment. "I think the United States is doing what they think is right, but we have to see whether it is right or not and give them the permission," said Sheik Ahmed Hamoud al-Sabah on September 15.

According to the New York Times, Clinton administration officials acknowledged the delay was an embarrassment, which Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich pounced on as an example of a "typical muddle" by the White House.

"I think that what happened was that the decision on the movements that we had made actually became public before we had done our regular consultation and the Kuwaitis had done their regular review," said Clinton, trying to smooth over the incident.

Washington is having other problems building logistical support for its war moves. The Turkish regime in Ankara announced it would not permit the U.S. military to launch attacks from its bases. The government of Jordan also refused to give permission to U.S. warplanes to enter its airspace. And according to the Wall Street Journal, the Saudi regime "wouldn't let the planes strike Iraq" operating from an air base in Dhahran.

The Wall Street Journal reported that "with few supporters" for Washington's latest military episode with Iraq, "four bombers and a lumbering fleet of 14 aerial tankers went the long way, via Guam and unrestricted airspace over the Persian Gulf - a 19,000 mile journey that required the bombers to gas up six separate times in the air" in order to bomb Iraq.

"The credibility of the United States is at stake," said Republican Sen. John McCain criticizing the Clinton administration's blunder with Kuwait as an example of a policy in "terrible disarray." McCain said at a September 17 White House meeting with Congressional leaders, "Saddam Hussein is far better off than he was two weeks ago."

According to the New York Times, Sen. Sam Nunn stated his support for Clinton's military moves the past couple of weeks but questions the "containment" policy on Baghdad. "Every time Iraq moves tanks we can't for the long term send thousands of troops from here, there," he said.

The Defense Intelligence Agency released a declassified report to Congress stating "Saddam's departure from the Iraqi political scene does not appear imminent." The military sweep across northern Iraq by the Kurdish forces backed by Baghdad left the CIA operation "in the Kurdish region in tatters," the Washington Post reported.

Massoud Barzani, the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party who had drawn support from the CIA, planned to meet with Robert Pelletreau, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs. Backed by Baghdad, Barzani's troops took control of northern Iraq in August. The Financial Times reported Barzani issued amnesty to the defeated Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and said that the PUK would be permitted to function openly as a political party.

Meanwhile, the United Nations World Food Program issued an "urgent appeal" for international food donations for 600,000 people in the region - about one-six of the Kurdish population in northern Iraq.  
 
 
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