100 Mistakes That Changed History: Backfires and Blunders That Collapsed Empires, Crashed Economies, and Altered the Course of Our World

by Bill Fawcett

  By 1989, the German Democratic Republic, the most repressive of the Soviet satellites, had eased some restrictions on their people. It was a trend actually encouraged by the new Soviet prime minister, Mikhail Gorbachev. After months of unrest and riots, the East German Krenz government had agreed to allow East Germans to travel through newly independent Czechoslovakia to West Germany. Trainloads of East Germans were soon taking advantage of that liberalization. So many that they were overwhelming the few crossings used in this program.

  So by November 1989, the East German Politburo and leadership had been working hard to create new regulations that eased this pressure while still maintaining a comfortable level of control. The normal communist procedure for such a relaxation of rules was to do it in small, carefully controlled steps. This ensured the government would remain in control of all aspects of whatever was liberalized and prevented a domino effect of increasing expectations and reactions from the population. Simply put, because the GDR leaders significantly held down and controlled their people, the East German government feared relaxing that control too quickly or visibly. The sure result they feared was what did happen. Once a breach in repression appeared, there was no way, short of violence, to keep it from being torn open even further. Moscow, working itself toward what a few years later was the end of communism, would neither allow nor support sending in the tanks, even though this had been a common Soviet reaction to unrest in the 1950s.

  Finally, plans and regulations for lowering restrictions on all border crossings were completed late in the day on November 9. They were to begin taking effect on November 17. Just after these plans were completed, a spokesman for the Politburo, Günter Schabowski, held a televised press conference to answer questions from the Western press corps. He was handed a note that said East Germans would be allowed to cross directly into West Germany. It said that further instructions would be available the following day after the border guards could be informed of the procedures and instructions. No more details were included, since the regulations and procedures had just been finalized a few hours earlier. Schabowski read the note out to the assembled reporters, which meant he was reading it aloud on the state television network. Then an Italian journalist asked him when the regulations were to go into effect. The note seemed, incorrectly, to infer that the change was to take effect that day. All that was needed was for the guards to be informed. It said nothing about gradual change to ensure government control. The spokesman answered, “As far as I know, effective immediately, without delay.” He went on to assure the journalists, and so the German people, that the new regulations included the crossings into West Berlin.

  Within minutes, the crowds near the crossing points in the Berlin Wall were flooded with cheering East Germans. The border guards, who hours earlier were sworn to shoot anyone crossing without very specific paperwork, had no idea what to do. Everyone, including many of those who had been watching television, was sure the regulations had been relaxed. Without orders, the guards kept the crossing closed peacefully the rest of that evening. But the East German government had been caught off guard. No orders were ready to instruct the border guards what to do. Finally that night, as the crowds continued to grow at one crossing after another, the guards simply opened the gates. Crowds of cheering East Germans flooded into West Berlin. Many were chanting, “Gorby, Gorby,” correctly assuming any change had to have come from the top.

  Once open without restriction there was no way to close the borders again. Within months, the wall began to be torn down. It no longer served any purpose except to be a reminder of an embarrassing failure. By July 1, 1990, there no longer were two German states. The Stasi, the East German secret police, was disbanded, and both the economies and the governments merged. The genie had been let out of the bottle by Günter Schabowski’s mistaken announcement, and all of Germany, and Europe, was changed forever.

  96

  UNDERESTIMATING EVIL

  The Price of Oil:

  Invasion of Kuwait

  1990

  It was the widespread belief among President George H. W. Bush and many of his officials that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein had no intention of invading Kuwait in the summer of 1990. It was the widespread belief of Hussein and many of his officials that when they invaded Kuwait, George Bush wouldn’t care. Both were wrong. Despite numerous aggressive actions by Hussein’s regime during that summer, Western intelligence agencies regarded his behavior toward Kuwait as mere saber rattling. Such an error inflated Hussein’s confidence and ushered in a violent invasion, known as the First Gulf War, which eventually led to Western military intervention and numerous avoidable casualties.

  The roots of the conflict lay in economic disputes. Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime considered itself the natural leader of the Arab world in the wake of the Iranian revolution. In 1980, Hussein initiated an eight-year conflict with Iran, which depleted the resources of both countries and ended with no clear winner in terms of territorial gain. Hussein had relied heavily on loans from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and others during the Iran-Iraq War. In the wake of the conflict, Hussein characterized Iraq’s actions as a valiant defense of the Arab world against a Persian onslaught; such an assertion was coupled with pressure on its neighbors to waive debts incurred by Iraq during the war. Kuwait was resolute in its opposition to such a concession—this apparent ingratitude irked Hussein greatly. At an OPEC meeting in the wake of the war, Iraq sought to greatly increase the price of oil to pay off war debts. Kuwait was opposed to such an endeavor, and its efforts to keep oil prices lower was regarded by Hussein as an act of economic warfare.

  In addition, Hussein accused Kuwait of “stealing” billions of dollars’ worth of oil via its drilling in the Rumaila oil field, even though the southern tip of the field lay in Kuwaiti territory. Numerous attempts at wringing concessions from Kuwait were fruitless, and Iraq began resorting to more strong-arm tactics. Hussein delivered speeches describing Kuwait’s efforts as a type of warfare that would earn an equivalent response. He deployed 100,000 troops along the border between Iraq and Kuwait. Despite this, British and American intelligence agencies believed it was a bluff by Hussein and did not condemn the military buildup.

  Such a conclusion seems strange in the context of Hussein’s brutal history. Hussein had no qualms about attacking other nations in pursuit of economic and military hegemony in the region, as demonstrated by Iraq’s participation in the longest war of the twentieth century against Iran. His violent treatment of the Kurds in northern Iraq should have also concerned the West. Hussein had a history of pursuing weapons of mass destruction; his use of chemical weapons against the Kurds and his attempt at shipping in triggers necessary for nuclear weapons clearly demonstrated this. Yet it was concluded that Iraq, with its fourth-largest military in the world, was principally concerned with deterring its neighbors—Israel, in particular.

  This is not to say that the West was completely complacent. Various media outlets and an array of American politicians condemned Hussein as a barbarous villain whom the West would inevitably have to confront. However, attempts at economic sanctions or formal condemnations of the regime were hijacked by the State Department and the Bush administration. While the United States did not hesitate to declare its disapproval of the invasion after it occurred, its actions in the weeks leading up to the invasion emboldened Hussein. Despite unease about Hussein’s endeavors, Washington continued to assure Hussein that it viewed the dispute as an Arab conflict that America had no place in. A Voice of America broadcast, decrying the regime, upset Hussein; Washington’s response was to distance its position from the editorial and to remove members of the government who had expressed their concerns to the media. U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie told Tareq Aziz, Iraq’s foreign minister, that “It is absolutely not U.S. policy to question the legitimacy of the government of Iraq.” Shortly thereafter, she met with Hussein. A recorded transcript of the meeting revealed that Hussein candidly admitted a conflict could result wit
h Kuwait, and he demanded that the United States remain uninvolved. Glaspie told Hussein that the United States had no opinion on “Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait,” a tidbit of 1930s-style appeasement that apparently allayed Hussein’s fears of American reprisal.

  Compounding the problem was America’s evident prioritization of securing stable oil supplies over preserving the sovereignty of smaller nations. Such a policy had its foundations in the Carter Doctrine, a policy that officially stated foreign intervention in the Middle East would be regarded as a threat to American economic interests. While such a threat had dissipated with the fall of the Soviet Union, American concern over oil had not. Such a concern was made extremely apparent in the wake of the invasion when the State Department reiterated its standing policy of remaining “determined to defend the principle of freedom of navigation and to ensure the free flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.” Oil was America’s predominant concern, and Iraq did not fail to notice that. Although the department issued an addendum stating that territorial integrity also mattered, it was obvious where its priorities lay.

  On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait and took over the country in hours. Most of the important government officials escaped, but Iraq had achieved its goal. British intelligence agencies admitted outright their failure to account for this scenario; American intelligence agencies frantically pointed fingers and revealed their incompetence in assessing Hussein’s motives. Hussein himself declared that there was no shortage of signs in the weeks leading to the invasion. Nonetheless, Hussein had made a mistake in underestimating the international response to his actions. Within days, the United States formed a coalition to officially condemn Iraq’s aggression. Long-standing allies, like France, no longer supported the regime.

  The West marginally compensated for its grievous errors in calculating the likelihood of invasion by a swift response in the aftermath. Nevertheless, the United States was a firm response away from deterring a brutal Iraqi invasion into Kuwait. This serious miscalculation set the stage for the subsequent U.S.-led military intervention and America’s continued involvement in Iraq into the twenty-first century.

  97

  STOPPING SHORT

  Saddam Stays

  1991

  At the conclusion of a stunning display of American military might, President George H. W. Bush had Saddam Hussein in the palm of his hand. In the wake of Iraq’s 1990 invasion into Kuwait, months of diplomatic stalemate had yielded minimal results. Military engagement in January and February of 1991 put the United States in the position to supplant the brutal dictator, but inaction allowed Hussein to maintain control of Iraq. Had Bush Senior not been so timid, the current global landscape would be dramatically different. While it’s difficult to conclusively determine what would have resulted, it is likely that the catastrophic civilian casualties resulting from the continuation of Hussein’s brutal regime would have been avoided. It is also likely that if Hussein would have been ousted during the First Gulf War, the subsequent 2003 U.S.-led invasion into Iraq, resulting in the first major war of the twenty-first century, would have also been averted.

  In the months leading up to the First Gulf War, miscalculation was the name of the game. Western intelligence agencies grievously miscalculated the probability of Iraq invading Kuwait; Hussein grievously miscalculated the probability of Western reprisal. Hussein’s murderous tendencies were well-known in his treatment of Kurds in northern Iraq. Tales of horrendous actions by the Iraq army in Kuwait unsettled many Western politicians. Months of diplomatic wrangling won small concessions from Iraq; in December 1990, Hussein released hostages whom he had been using as insurance against an invasion. Nonetheless, Iraq was resolute in its opposition to what Hussein declared as “flagrant Western imperialism.” This period was later to be described by Bush as his attempt at “giving peace a chance.”

  A UN resolution, championed by Margaret Thatcher, issued an ultimatum to Iraq—withdraw by January 15, 1991, or “all necessary means” would be justified against Iraq. Buoyed by oft-embellished descriptions of atrocities committed in Kuwait and the opportunity to assert American dominance in a new era of unipolarity, President Bush narrowly earned authority from Congress to use military force against Iraq shortly before the deadline. On January 17, 1991, Operation Desert Shield, the five-month military strategy of defending Saudi Arabia against aggression by Iraq, became Operation Desert Storm.

  Operation Desert Storm was a remarkably one-sided affair. The U.S. military deployed 1,700 planes in the first assault, losing only one. The air attack (including planes from the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia) focused on destroying weapons facilities (such as nuclear, biological, and chemical), communication centers, air bases, and bridges. Hussein’s palace was bombed, though he had fled to a residential area. Vietnam-era strategies of ignoring civilian casualties had been discarded as the recipe for a public relations disaster; consequently, with few exceptions, the coalition avoided striking areas where civilians were at risk. Iraq lashed out against neighbors Israel and Saudi Arabia with Scud missiles, though most were shot down by U.S. forces. Israel’s desire to retaliate was tempered by the United States, which feared Israeli participation in the war would alienate predominantly Muslim countries of the coalition.

  In mid-February 1991, the ground assault began after Iraq ignored another ultimatum to withdraw. Iraq’s army continued to set oil facilities to fire in Kuwait and did not withdraw. General Colin Powell convinced General Schwarzkopf to begin an assault into Iraq, which began in full force on February 24. Iraq’s troops surrendered in droves and various tank skirmishes had lopsided results. Baghdad radio announced on the twenty-sixth that Iraq would comply with UN demands. The coalition had suffered a mere 379 deaths, half of them due to friendly fire or accidents. These numbers were far lower than preinvasion predictions; the military effort was regarded as a great success.

  It was at this critical juncture that President Bush committed a grave error. While encouraging popular revolt via leaflets distributed by planes across Iraq, he committed no military effort to guarantee the success of such a revolt. Demands of Iraq after the war included withdrawal out of Kuwait and release of hostages, but there was no insistence that Hussein stand trial for his crimes. Bush presumably believed the political defeat Hussein suffered would make his downfall inevitable; however, Hussein’s firm control of the military prevented an internal coup. The Intifada, a popular uprising against Hussein in the wake of the war, was brutally suppressed. U.S. military forces observed the slaughter without providing aid. Many members of the Intifada have since stated that they did not require American troops to fight but merely desired military supplies to help finance their efforts; reports have since suggested that the U.S. military refused such assistance and, in some instances, directly frustrated rebel efforts. America had called for a rebellion and seemingly changed its mind about such a rebellion’s desirability. Tens of thousands of Shiites were slain in the conflict, often via chemical weapons that the United States had specifically condemned. However, the media were largely unaware of such actions as Bush exultantly declared to Congress and the public that the war was over. Fear for American soldiers and coverage of the “Highway of Death” (U.S. bombing of a retreating Iraqi military convoy that was widely deemed unnecessary) made continued U.S. involvement in the Gulf unpalatable to many.

  Margaret Thatcher, no longer prime minister in Britain, was appalled at the coalition’s decision to leave Hussein in power. She declared, “Half measures never work, you’ve . . . got to do the job properly and show the world you’re serious so they better not let it happen again.” She was right—in the decade that followed the war, atrocities continued to be committed by Hussein’s regime. It was not long before Hussein was again shunning the West, hijacking domestic attempts at democracy, and ignoring international demands to investigate Iraq’s potential weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) facilities.

  Aft
er 100 almost casualty-free hours the coalition troops stopped. This left Hussein in control of the core of his country. Why the attack was stopped and he was left in power has been explained many ways. The official explanation was that the UN had said to free Kuwait, and the troops stopped once that was ensured. However, this does not explain occupying half of Iraq and enforcing a no-fly zone over those areas even after the UN forces pulled out. The pundits said that it was because there would be a power vacuum left in Baghdad, which could be bad. This power vacuum was apparently a worse alternative than keeping a psychopathic dictator in power—a man who gladly dropped nerve poison on his own people a few years later. Or maybe the United States just didn’t want to upset Iraq’s neighbors by completing the conquest. The improvement in the relations between the United States with Iran and Syria had not really occurred. Or maybe George H. W. Bush did not want the problems of occupying the country once we had it. Perhaps that reasoning makes the most sense, though he might have mentioned this to his son and saved a lot of trouble later.

  History since has shown that whatever the potential problems, the job should have been finished. Why? Because the United States did it all over again twelve years later. Had the UN and America taken a more courageous stand, tens of thousands of Iraqis might not have had to die in another war and thousands of Americans might not have died in both the second invasion and the subsequent occupation. The problem of Iraq could have ended in 1991. But it did not, and the reverberations of that mistake have negatively affected the U.S. economy, foreign policy, reputation, and social order ever since.

  98

  BELIEVING THE WRONG PEOPLE