January 8, 1991
The Honorable Thomas S. Foley
Speaker of the House
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Mr. Speaker:
The current situation in the Persian Gulf, brought about by Iraq’s unprovoked invasion and subsequent brutal occupation of Kuwait, threatens vital U.S. interests. The situation also threatens the peace. It would, however, greatly enhance the chance for peace if Congress were now to go on record supporting the position adopted by the UN Security Council on twelve separate occasions. Such an action would underline that the United States stands with the international community and on the side of law and decency; it also would help dispel any belief that may exist in the minds of Iraq’s leaders that the United States lacks the necessary unity to act decisively in response to Iraq’s continued aggression against Kuwait.
Secretary of State Baker is meeting with Iraq’s Foreign Minister on January 9. It would have been most constructive if he could have presented the Iraqi government a Resolution passed by both houses of Congress supporting the UN position and in particular the Security Council Resolution 678. As you know, I have frequently stated my desire for such a Resolution. Nevertheless, there is still opportunity for Congress to act to strengthen the prospects for peace and safeguard this country’s vital interests.
I therefore request that the House of Representatives and the Senate adopt a Resolution stating that Congress supports the use of all necessary means to implement UN Security Council Resolution 678. Such action would send the clearest possible message to Saddam Hussein that he must withdraw without condition or delay from Kuwait. Anything less would only encourage Iraqi intransigence; anything else would risk detracting from the international coalition arrayed against Iraq’s aggression.
Mr. Speaker, I am determined to do whatever is necessary to protect America’s security. I ask Congress to join with me in this task. I can think of no better way than for Congress to express its support for the President at this critical time. This truly is the last best chance for peace.
Sincerely,
George Bush
January 12th
Jim Baker points out that Fahd tells him we ought not to go on the 15th; wait for a couple of days, because Iraq would be at the highest state of alert on the 15th. I worry about the networks. Both CNN and NBC in the papers today say they’re going to keep people in there after the 15th. I worry about the loss of innocent Iraqi life. I worry about the protection of the Soviets who are finishing their contracts. I worry most of all about our own kids that are going into battle.
Some of the debate has frightened the American people. Some of the editorial and commentaries are frightening the American people into believing this will be a long, drawn-out war. I’m still convinced it won’t be, that we have made the proper preparations to guarantee that it will be short. I can at least say to myself when the trigger is pulled that I will have done everything possible to guarantee the life of every American kid over there. . . .
I go down from Camp David to make a press statement following the successful vote in the House and Senate.1 . . . The debate was soul-searching. There was a lot of anguish out there. It went better than we thought. We had 53 votes in the Senate, and 250 odd in the House.
. . . The big burden, lifted from my shoulders, is this constitutional burden and the threat of impeachment. All of that cleared now by this very sound vote of the Congress.
January 13th
. . . The debate has become simplified. You are for war, or you are against it. Who is for War? I am against it.
We meet Sunday night in the Residence. Once again, Colin Powell, Cheney, Sununu, Scowcroft, Gates, and Quayle. You could feel the difference. We are getting close. . . . The media are full of it—demonstrations, etc. The Church services, and the big news specials—are we ready for war? The battle plans all laid out . . . the flurry, and the crisis mentality. And I sit here with this decision ahead.
. . . We talk about power grids, electricity. We talk about bridges. We talk about refineries. We talk about letting our allies know certain things about overflight. We talk about getting rid of nuclear and biological weapons. How we notify our friends. How we put innocents on notice and how we safeguard American Embassies. About 1 hour and 10 minutes. Somber mood in the meeting room. . . .
It is my decision—my decision to send these kids into battle, my decision that may affect the lives of innocence. It is my decision to step back and let sanctions work. Or to move forward. And in my view, help establish the New World Order. It is my decision to stand, and take the heat, or fall back and wait and hope. It is my decision that affects husband, the girlfriend, or the wife that is waiting, or the mother that writes, “Take care of my son.” And yet I know what I have to do this Sunday night. This man is evil, and let him win and we rise again to fight tomorrow. . . .
January 15th
. . . There is no way to describe the pressure. It’s 9:45 the night of the 15th. Deadline runs out in two hours, 15 minutes. The United Nations deadline. [The deadline] is already out in Baghdad. The reports from Baghdad are defiant. People marching in the streets. Their faces smile and they chant. And I think, “Oh God, save their lives.” There’s a kid that comes on television and I pray to God that [the bombs] will be accurate and we will not hit that child.
The Pope wires in and we read his cable . . . It is a beautiful, beautiful piece. Cardinal Law calls me, Bishop Browning calls me. . . . And of course, Billy Graham. Lafayette Square, in front of the White House, is full of candles and praying. I hope to God that they know we are praying.
January 16th
I have never felt a day like this in my life. I am very tired. I didn’t sleep well and this troubles me because I must go to the nation at 9 o’clock. My lower gut hurts, nothing like when I had the bleeding ulcer. But I am aware of it, and I take a couple of Mylantas.
People keep coming up, and saying, “God Bless you.”
4:15—I come over to the house about twenty of four to lie down. Before I make my calls at 5, the old shoulders tighten up. My mind is a thousand miles away. I simply can’t sleep. I think of what other Presidents went through. The agony of war. I think of our able pilots, their training, their gung-ho spirit. And also what it is they are being asked to do.
We began bombing Baghdad at exactly 7 P.M. Operation Desert Storm was finally under way. Like most people in America, I watched it on CNN, with Barbara and Billy Graham.
. . . Well it is now 10:45 at night. I am about to go to bed. I did my speech to the nation at 9 o’clock. I didn’t feel nervous about it at all. I wrote it myself. I knew what I wanted to say, and I said it. And I hope it resonates. Just before going to bed, Cheney calls. 56 Navy planes went out, 56 came back. Some two hundred Air Force planes out, and so far, no sign of any of them missing. They just haven’t all checked back in yet.
January 19th
Peter Arnett2 has an interview with Saddam Hussein. Arnett of course has to echo line from Baghdad. . . . I think he’s being used—he was particularly used when the Iraqis claimed we blew up that food plant. Now someone told me he showed damage and there was grass growing in the bomb crater, meaning it was done a long time ago. But he did not point that out. Indeed if he had, he wouldn’t have gotten his interviews.
[Arnett’s reporting continued to annoy me throughout the war. For example, we blew up a plant that our intelligence indicated was a factory for the manufacture of biological weapons. The next day, Arnett reported on CNN that it was a “baby milk” plant. That the sign outside the factory was in English should have tipped him off that the Iraqis’ claim was suspicious. Also, although CNN occasionally did insert the word “censored” on the screen during Arnett’s reports, I felt CNN should have done a better job of warning its viewers that everything that came out of Iraq was censored.]
January 21st
I must say I get tired of hearing the whining reporters saying that they are not getting enough information. I am sitt
ing here watching ABC, and there have been some comments about that they are being “spoon fed” and then they are trying to show that we are in disarray in terms of bomb damage, or what our objectives are. Press, God Bless them, are a menace that we can’t live with, and we can’t live without.
January 22, 1991
His Eminence Bernard Cardinal Law
Brighton, Massachusetts 02135
Your Eminence, my friend,
I want to reply to your letter of January 16 because I have thought long and hard about the question, “War or no war?”
You say, “war is at best a lesser evil.” But war started back on August 2. The Kuwaitis don’t believe the war ever stopped. Wait until we hear the real story of the brutality to Kuwait.
Before ordering our troops into battle, I thought long and hard about casualties, or, as our severest critics would put it—“body bags.” But as I pondered that horrible question, I also thought of unchecked aggression, of what would happen if the butcher of Baghdad could emerge the hero. What would that have meant for tomorrow?
Now he has launched his people-killing, city-busting Scuds against Israel.3 The world sees more clearly now what this man is. And, I must confess my mind always went back to the questions: “What if Hitler’s aggression had been checked earlier on? How many lives would have been saved? How many fewer Jews would have been exterminated? How many more Polish patriots would be alive today?”
You state that “recourse to war” could make Saddam a hero and a martyr. Yes, there may be such a risk, but the risk of having him prevail is far worse. He has been the bully in the neighborhood for a long time. He stepped back from that posture when he needed help from the Gulf States during the Iran-Iraq war, but everyone out there knows he is brutal, unforgiving, and determined to dominate the entire Gulf area. Obviously, Saddam tried to make the Palestine question the rallying cry, tried to use it to cover up his brutal takeover of Kuwait. The Aziz press conference in Geneva that followed Jim Baker’s meeting with Aziz made this so clear that everyone in the world understood it.
I remain determined that he not link the Palestine question, which urgently needs a solution, to the rape of Kuwait. His recent reckless use of Scud city-busting missiles is a blatant attempt to rally all Arabs who hate Israel to draw them into the war. I am determined that he fail in this.
In conclusion, my friend, I must disagree with your conclusions that a quick war from a strategic standpoint would be a “major blunder,” and that use of “lethal force which a quick military victory would demand could well render the judgment that the war was fought immorally.” What you are telling me is that all war is wrong—morally, unforgivably wrong. I do not agree. This war started back in August. Saddam Hussein showed no signs at all of doing that which the whole world called on him to do. After exhausting all diplomatic initiatives, after the UN’s call for withdrawal on a date certain, it is my view that to have done nothing would be the immoral path, for it would have condemned the UN’s revitalized peacekeeping effort and it would have convinced our coalition that standing up against evil does not work.
As to the use of lethal force, we have been very careful in the planning of this liberation effort. I think you will agree that up until now, the performance of the Allied Air Forces has been magnificent in the accuracy of its attack and in achieving our goal of limiting casualties to innocent civilians.
Of course, war is hell, but I must conclude that you and I have an irreparable difference over this war. For me this is good versus evil. It is right versus wrong. It is the world versus Iraq’s brutal dictator, with his cruelty, his international arrogance, his thumbing his nose at the rest of the world. I thought I was through being appalled by Saddam Hussein, but this recent “parading” of our POW pilots is the last straw.4
You have given me “frank and respectful counsel.” I welcome that. I hope you are not offended, my friend, when I tell you that I clearly disagree with you. I respect enormously where you are coming from. I respect your view that every human life is precious, but I find myself in all of this opposed by some whom I respect the most, particularly in the clergy. I do not enjoy being on the opposite side of this from you, from Bishop Browning, and from many others I respect. I, too, have prayed over this matter. I pray that God will spare the loss of the innocent. I pray that this war will end soon. I pray that Kuwait will no longer have to suffer the brutal torture wreaked upon it by Saddam Hussein. And I pray that out of this turmoil there then will come a peace, not only to the Gulf, but eventually to the entire Middle East. The United States, its credibility restored by its leadership in the Gulf Crisis, can play a significant role in this.
I guess the bottom line is that I do feel that in certain situations, failing to use force is an immoral position, and in certain situations, using force is not immoral, not against God’s will.
Thanks for your caring, your friendship, and your loving attention to me and my family.
Sincerely,
George Bush
As the nightly air raids continued over Baghdad, tension mounted in the Baltics, and we increasingly worried that Gorbachev might resort to force to keep the republics in the Soviet Union. Already on January 13, Soviet troops had opened fire and killed fourteen Lithuanians at a TV station in Vilnius.
1-23-91
His Excellency Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
President of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Moscow
Dear Mikhail:
I am writing to you to express my deep concern about the recent turn of events in the Baltic states. I think that you know how much I value the unprecedented level of cooperation that we have achieved in U.S.-Soviet relations over the last two years. I have also said repeatedly that our successes have been due in large part to your efforts to reform the Soviet Union. As such, the response of my Administration to events in the Baltic states over the last year has been restrained. You, yourself, know that I have faced pressures from many quarters to take stronger measures and that I have resisted doing so.
Last June, during the Washington Summit, we talked about the effect of Soviet actions in the Baltic states at great length. I explained that I appreciated the constraints under which you were operating but that I too faced certain pressures. Nonetheless, I honored your personal request and signed the Trade Agreement in spite of the economic blockade that the Soviet Union had imposed on Lithuania. You gave me assurances that you would take steps to settle peacefully all differences with the Baltic leaders. Several weeks later, you lifted that blockade and began a dialogue with Lithuanian and other Baltic leaders. From that time on, our cooperation in the economic sphere has expanded, culminating in the steps that I took on December 12 in response to the difficult circumstances that your country faced as winter approached. I said then that I wanted to do something to help the Soviet Union stay on the course of political and economic reform.
Unfortunately, in view of the events of the last two weeks—resulting in the deaths of at least twenty people in the Baltic states—I cannot, in good conscience, and indeed will not continue along this path. I believe that the leaders of the Baltic states have acted with restraint, particularly in the last two weeks, and did not deserve to have their quest for negotiations met with force. The unrelenting intimidation, pressure, and armed force to which these democratically elected leaders have been subjected is something that I frankly cannot understand.
I had hoped to see positive steps toward the peaceful resolution of this conflict with the elected leaders of the Baltic states. But in the absence of that and in the absence of a positive change in the situation, I would have no choice but to respond. Thus, unless you can take these positive steps very soon, I will freeze many elements of our economic relationship including Export-Import credit guarantees; Commodity Credit Corporation credit guarantees; support for “Special Associate Status” for the Soviet Union in the International Monetary Fund and World Bank; and most of our technical assistance programs. Further,
I would not submit the Bilateral Investment Treaty or Tax Treaty to the United States Senate for consent to ratification when and if they are completed.
I would not take these steps to, in any sense, punish the Soviet Union. I viewed the expansion of our economic and commercial relationship not as a reward but rather as a natural response to Soviet political and economic reform. Sadly, events in the Baltic states call into question the Soviet government’s commitment to the very reforms that provide the basis for much of what we are trying to do in the economic sphere. I remain hopeful that conditions in the Baltic states will soon permit the renewal of our efforts.
In the meantime, I intend to do everything in my power to preserve our relationship throughout this difficult period and to work toward progress in areas of mutual advantage. We have come too far in U.S.-Soviet relations to return to a confrontational course—a turn of events that would serve no one’s interests. We have both talked of our desire for a new world order, and we both understand the importance of U.S.-Soviet cooperation to the achievement of that goal. I remain committed to that objective.
In closing, let me say that I do not underestimate the difficulties that you face: I understand that the path to fundamental economic and political reform is neither straight nor easy. No one wishes to see the disintegration of the Soviet Union. But Mikhail, I cannot help but recall that you, yourself, told me that you personally could not sanction the use of force in the Baltic states because it would mean the end of perestroika. You said that only political means in the settlement of political disputes were consistent with your vision of a society based on the rule of law. I urge you to turn back now to a course of negotiation and dialogue and to take concrete steps to prevent the further use of force and intimidation against the Baltic peoples and their elected leaders.
Sincerely,
George
I received a remarkable letter from the widow of the first American pilot killed in Desert Storm, Lieutenant Commander Scott Speicher. She sent me a note saying, “I want you to know that I feel the same way now that my husband and I felt when he was deployed last August. We supported you then and I support you now with all my heart.”
All the Best, George Bush: My Life in Letters and Other Writings Page 55