THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER

Written and Compiled by Black Max

1990

Voter News Service founded

• The "Voter News Service" is established.

  Election fraud

  VNS is the outgrowth of a number of exit polling organizations that have worked with the television networks since 1972, though it can be traced back in some form or fashion as far back as 1964. VNS is used as a single source for exit poll information and vote result predictions by ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, NBC, and the Associated Press, and is funded by these organizations. Before 1990, each organization had its own polling service, but due to heavy budget cuts in all five news outlets, the organizations decided to pool their resources. "The VNS would become the single source of polling data for all the networks and the AP," writes eminent journalist Marvin Kalb. "If the source was right, everyone was right; if the source was wrong, everyone was wrong." VNS, like its predecessor News Election Services, is kept very quiet, and consistently refuses to divulge its budget or its methodologies to outside inquiries. VNS results will be relatively reliable in the 1992 and 1996 national elections, before its budget is again slashed. Insiders at VNS warn of quality loss and possible disaster, but their warnings are ignored. In 2000, during the extremely close presidential election, VNS will twice predict wrong results in Florida, first for Gore and then for Bush, leading the networks to make faulty predictions, confusing the public, and precipitating a political crisis that would ultimately lead to the election being decided by the Supreme Court. In 2002 VNS will attempt to use a computer designed by an outside contractor to accurately predict Congressional race outcomes; a system failure prevents this from happening. Because of these two high-profile failures, VNS will be disbanded in January 2003. For the 2004 presidential elections, a new organization called the "National Election Pool" will be set up by the same organizations, utilizing consultants Edison/Mitofsky for exit polling and the Associated Press for official returns. However, the NEP will have controversies of its own that year when it releases exit polling data early that is significantly different than the final results, leading many to believe that the 2004 presidential election, like the 2000 election, may have been stolen.
• The Florida presidential elections of 2000 are not the only ones possibly disrupted by VNS. VNS is suspected in "rigging" a number of elections, including the Iowa GOP primaries of 1996, where according to VNS results, Bob Dole edged out Pat Buchanan; however, vote tallies from individual counties seem to show that Buchanan actually beat out Dole. In the 1996 Arizona primary, Buchanan inexplicably came in a distant third when weeks of polling showed he and contender Steve Forbes battling for the state, with Dole coming in a lackluster third. Instead, according to the results, Forbes narrowly beat out Dole, with Buchanan coming in a distant third. Note that the national GOP did not countenance the Buchanan candidacy; Dole was their choice for challenging Bill Clinton later that year. The national GOP feared a harsh repudiation at the polls with the caustic, iconoclastic Buchanan leading their party. And at least one voting fraud expert, James Collier, believes the 1988 Republican presidential primaries may have been rigged in favor of George H.W. Bush, saving his floundering candidacy.
• Collier notes that many expert observers believe Bush's 1988 campaign was marked by "CIA-type disinformation operations and deceptions of the sort that America used in Vietnam, Chile and the Soviet Union." Hours before the polls opened, Bush was widely predicted to lose New Hampshire to Bob Dole, a loss which would have doomed his candidacy. Instead, Bush won the state, prompting the following headline in the Washington Post: "New Hampshire Confounded Most Pollsters." Collier writes, "Nothing was said in the press about the secretly programmed computer chips inside the 'Shouptronic' Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines in Manchester, the state's largest city. These 200-pound systems were so easily tampered with that the integrity of the results they gave -- and George Bush was the beneficiary of their tallies -- will forever be in doubt." He notes how easily the Shouptronic machines could have been tampered with, and notes that no electronic oversight of the machines' results was allowed. Collier also believes that the 1988 results between Bush and Democratic contender Michael Dukakis may have been electronically altered. It is notable that in all documentable cases of possible vote fraud either perpetuated by or participated in by VNS, every one has benefited the national GOP choice of candidates.
• In 1996, Princeton University's Howard Strauss will tell interviewer Dan Rather, when asked if a national election could be rigged, "Get me a job with the company that writes the software for this program. [Strauss was referring to the most common computer program in use.] Then I'd have access to one third of the votes. Is that enough to fix a general election?" Strauss will add, "When it comes to computerized elections, there are no safeguards. It's not a door without locks, it's a house without doors." (Wikipedia, VoteScam, VoteScam, VoteFraud, Marvin Kalb)
• In the wake of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, Congress concludes that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) needs more immediate access to current intelligence, and urges that an FAA security official be assigned to the relevant offices in the CIA, the FBI, and the State Department.

  Islamist terrorism

  Leo Bolvin, who headed the program, recalls that while the CIA and State Department were cooperative, "the FBI effectively said no -- that it wasn't going to happen." In 1996, after the crash of TWA Flight 800 (now believed by many to have been an al-Qaeda operation), Vice President Al Gore will call again for closer liasons; the FBI will refuse to give the FAA's security officer a building pass that would permit him unfettered access to the FBI's headquarters. According to the FBI, they would tell the FAA anything they determined the FAA needed to know. Even after 9/11, the FBI will continue to buck having an FAA security officer in its ranks, and will try to get rid of the FAA's liason man because he is "too pushy about trying to get information." Additionally, the cost-conscious airlines will successfully lobby against implementing many of the security recommendations made by the Gore commission, including more stringent security checks on airline employees and tighter screening of passenger baggage. Former FBI director William Webster, who served under presidents Carter and Reagan, will serve as the airlines' chief lobbyist. As a result, the airlines will remain vulnerable to hijacking until after 9/11, when the newly created Transportation Security Administration takes over security for airlines. Even then, bureaucratic infighting keeps the most basic security guidelines from being successfully implemented. (Seymour Hersh)
• At the urging of his son Jeb, George Bush pardons convicted hijacker and terrorist Orlando Bosch.

  Domestic terrorism

  In 1976, Bosch caused the explosion of a Cuban airliner which killed 73 passengers. He is also believed to have been involved in dozens of other terrorist bombings. Bosch, who carried out his attacks in the name of opposing Fidel Castro, was convicted of entering the US illegally and was facing deportation to Cuba. The FBI maintained that Bosch had "repeatedly expressed and demonstrated a willingness to cause indiscriminate injury and death." The Justice Department denied an application for asylum in 1989, saying, "For thirty years Bosch has been resolute and unwavering in his advocacy of terrorist violence. He has repeatedly expressed and demonstrated a willingness to cause indiscriminate injury and death." Bush's own Attorney General had called Bosch "an unreformed terrorist." Cuban-Americans and other Republicans in Florida agitated for his release; Jeb Bush, who was busy building a political power base that included that element, prevailed upon his father to release Bosch from prison. Two years later, he will be granted permanent residence in the US. (Jeb Bush is joined in lobbying for Bosch's release by, among others, Otto Reich, George W. Bush's rejected nominee as Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs.) Bosch now lives in luxurious exile in Florida. (Salon, US House of Representatives, Joe Conason)
• Saudi financier Adnan Khashoggi is charged by the State of New York in aiding and abetting former Filipino first lady Imelda Marcos in hiding billions from her country after she and husband Ferdinand Marcos were forced to flee the island nation.

  Adnan Khashoggi

  The charges are brought by New York Attorney General Rudolph Giuliani, who apparently has a personal score to settle with Khashoggi after Khashoggi defeated Giuliani's client John Tumpane in a business lawsuit. After a long and heated court battle, during which time Khashoggi was forced to stay in New York City under house arrest, the jury acquits Khashoggi of all charges. According to a former Army intelligence officer, Giuliani gets the indictments filed after months of effort by threatening George Bush that if he doesn't stop blocking the indictment, that he will call a press conference and complain that the White House is interfering with the criminal justice system merely to protect Bush's friend Khashoggi. (Larry Kolb)
• Violeta Chamarro defeats Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua's presidential elections, ending Ortega's six years of Sandinista rule.

  US actions in Latin America

  Many international observers believe that the election was illegally manipulated by US intelligence. (Wikipedia, Wikipedia, Larry Kolb)

January 1990

• January: Concerned about the reports of poison gas, Congress ends Iraq's "sweetheart deal" with the Export-Import Bank,

  Gulf War

  but is overruled by President Bush, who says it is in America's "national interest" to continue aiding Iraq. Shortly after, a Voice of America broadcast terms Iraq a police state; James Baker directs Ambassador April Glaspie to personally apologize to Saddam Hussein, an apology echoed by GOP senator Robert Dole. (New American)
• January: Neil Bush is found guilty of criminal activity in the Silverado affair,

  Bush family

  but is given such a light sentence that he drops his appeal. He and his former firm is fined $26.5 million, a fine paid by Republican fundraisers. (Bushwatch, Austin Chronicle)

Harken Oil contracts to drill in Persian Gulf

• January: Bahrain awards Harken Oil exclusive offshore drilling rights, a surprising choice since Harken has no experience outside of the US and has never handled an ocean drilling venue; speculation is that Bahrain was trying to curry favor with Harken CEO George W. Bush's father, President Bush, in light of the impending US invasion of Iraq.

  George W. Bush and Harken Oil

  According to Greg Palast, "The petroleum guys here [Midland, Texas] laugh at the idea that Bush's company Harken got the Bahrain deal because of their skill -- it was solely the Gulf Arabs way of buying their way into the son of the President of the United States." An insider to the deal says, "Hell, that's why he's on the damn board. ...You say, 'By the way, the president's son sits on our board.' You use that. There's nothing wrong with that."
• Bush tells conflicting stories about his involvement in the Bahrain deal: first he says he recused himself from all discussions of the deal, claiming that he didn't want to give the appearance of any undue governmental influence on the negotiations; later he claims that he opposed the deal. But a company insider says that Bush was excited about the Bahrain deal. "Like any member of the board, he was thrilled," the associate says. "His attitude was, 'Holy sh*t, what a great deal!'" Bahrain had been negotiating for Amoco Oil to handle the drilling, but after Michael Ameen, a State Department consultant working with President Bush's new ambassador to Bahrain, Charles Hostler, put the Bahraini government in touch with Harken, Bahrain made the change and awarded the contract to Harken, facilitated by Sheikh Khalifah, the prime minister of Bahrain, brother of the emir, and a BCCI shareholder. Sheikh Abdullah Bakhsh, another Harken stockholder and BCCI associate; Bahksh places his representative, Talat Othman, on Harken Energy's board of directors. After the Harken-Bahrain deal is settled, Othman becomes one of 15 Arabs who met with President George Bush and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft three times in 1990 -- once just two days after Iraq invaded Kuwait -- while serving on Harken's board of directors. To further finance the deal, the billionaire Bass brothers, both heavy Republican donors, contribute millions in return for a piece of the deal. Harken stock raises sharply in value.
• In June 1990, with the threat of war and subsequent damage to Harken's deal with Bahrain on the horizon, George W. Bush sells two-thirds of his stock in Harken for $848,560, a 200% profit. In August, when Iraqi troops invade Kuwait, Harken stock plummets over 60% in value and soon after posts a loss of $23 million. Bush fails to file a report with the SEC for almost a year (February 1991), and later claims that the report was "lost." Bush uses the profits from his stock sale to pay off part of the loans he took out to buy the Texas Rangers. After Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Harken stock drops to near-worthlessness. Bush insists that he was not the beneficiary of insider trading, and claims it was merely good fortune that he sold his stock when he did. Harken's desultory attempts to drill for oil off the Bahrain coast will later come up empty. (Bush later claims he opposed the Bahrain deal, a lie proven by his recorded vote in favor of the venture during a meeting of the Harken board of directors.) (Village Voice, Consortium News, Bushwatch, CCR, Mother Jones, David Corn)
• January: Jeb Bush swings a deal with the federal government that has the government pay off the $4 million Bush owes to a failed Florida thrift.

  Bush family

  Bush defaulted on the loan in 1988, and will eventually pay it off at less than 10 cents on the dollar. He will call himself "a victim of cirtumstance." (Village Voice, Bushwatch, Mother Jones)
• January 19 - 20: 26,000 Soviet troops storm Azerbaijan's capital city of Baku in an attempt to prop up the Communist regime.

  Fall of Soviet Union

  In the subsequent violence, over 130 Azerbaijanis die. Defense Minister Dimitri Yazov states that the use of force in Baku is intended to prevent the de facto takeover of the Azerbaijani government by the noncommunist opposition, to prevent their victory in upcoming free elections (scheduled for March, 1990), to destroy them as a political force, and to ensure that the Communist government remained in power. A Human Rights Watch report states: "Indeed, the violence used by the Soviet Army on the night of January 19-20 was so out of proportion to the resistance offered by Azerbaijanis as to constitute an exercise in collective punishment. Since Soviet officials have stated publicly that the purpose of the intervention of Soviet troops was to prevent the ouster of the Communist-dominated government of the Republic of Azerbaijan by the nationalist-minded, noncommunist opposition, the punishment inflicted on Baku by Soviet soldiers may have been intended as a warning to nationalists, not only in Azerbaijan, but in the other Republics of the Soviet Union. The subsequent events in the Baltic Republics -- where, in a remarkable parallel to the events in Baku, alleged civil disorder was cited as justification for violent intervention by Soviet troops -- further confirms that the Soviet Government has demonstrated that it will deal harshly with nationalist movements." Azerbaijan will win its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. (January 20.net)

March 1990

• March: Iraqi missiles are moved near the Jordanian border where they were capable of reaching Israel.

  Gulf War

  Additionally, triggering devices for nuclear weapons -- apparently purchased with funds from the BNL -- were seized on their way to Iraq by the British. By April, the violations of the Agriculture Department's CCC program loans were blatant enough to call a halt, but State prevailed upon Agriculture not to announce the suspension. Agriculture balks until National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft intervenes and the last $500 million guarantee was put on hold without being announced -- a suspension that Ambassador April Glaspie was attempting to have lifted as late as the end of July. Bush administration officials are not the only ones cozying up to Hussein. In April, liberal Democratic senator Howard Metzenbaum, on a visit to Iraq, tells Hussein that "I am now aware that you are a strong and intelligent man, and that you want peace." GOP senator Alan Simpson on the same trip was little better: "I believe that your problems lie with the Western media and not with the U.S. government." GOP senator Robert Dole, after apologizing for the VOA's criticism of Hussein, visits Hussein and then tells President Bush that Hussein is "a leader to whom the United States can talk." (New American)
• March: The Israeli government of Yitzhak Shamir loses a vote of no confidence, and a new government under Labour's Shimon Peres is attempted.

  Middle East unrest

  Peres fails to form a coalition with a variety of religious groups, and eventually Shamir is able to regain the Prime Minister slot as head of a Likud-based government. The entire period of internal turmoil is studded with violent attacks against Israeli targets by the PLO. (Dan Cohn-Sherbok)

April 1990

• April 7: John Poindexter is convicted of five counts of wrongdoing

  Iran-Contra scandal

  in the Iran-contral trials. (Federation of American Scientists)
• April 9: Lebanese-Iraqi financier Ahmad Chalabi is convicted in absentia in a Jordanian court of embezzling from a bank that he mismanaged into collapse.

  Ahmad Chalabi

  Chalabi is sentenced to 22 years in prison, but will not return to Jordan to serve his sentence. (Mother Jones)

June 1990

George W. Bush breaks insider trading laws in unloading Harken stock

• June 22: George W. Bush quietly unloads 60% -- 212,140 shares -- of his Harken Oil stock, garnering $848,560.

  George W. Bush and Harken Oil

  A week later, Harken's report will announce a quarterly loss of $23.2 million. Less than two weeks later, Saddam Hussein's Iraq will invade Kuwait, rendering Harken's oil contract with Bahrain virtually worthless. (The oil deal between Kuwait and Harken is fascinating: Kuwait had terminated negotiations with Amoco, an expert in Gulf drilling, to sign with Harken, who had never worked outside of Texas, at the recommendation of Sheikh Abdullah Bakhsh, a Harken board member who worked the deal through his connections with BCCI. The deal was cemented with the help of several influential Republican friends of the Bush family, particularly Charles Hostler, a San Diego real estate mogul recently named ambassador to Kuwait by President Bush. The financing itself came in large part from the billionaire Bass family of Houston, a clan long known for its support of GOP and rightist business clients.) Harken's stock plummets in value from $4.12/share, where it was when Bush sold off his stock, to $2.37 a share. Bush denies any knowledge of inside information that might have led to his stock dump, though he sits on Harken's board of directors, on its audit committee, and on a panel looking at corporate restructuring which had met in May with financial consultants from Smith Barney. As a member of Harken's audit committee, he is in a prime position to know about the Bahrain contract and the upcoming "corporate restructuring," which will essentially gut the company's finances due to its attempt to hide substantial losses through selling a subsidiary through several channels back to itself, a deal the Securities and Exchange Commission will later term a "phony transaction;" Bush will be accused of insider trading and stock fraud.
• An SEC investigation will find Bush blameless. The SEC is headed by Bush appointee and family loyalist Richard Breeden, and the SEC's general counsel, James Doty, handled the sale of the Texas Rangers for Bush and his fellow investors in 1989. During the SEC investigation, Bush will be represented by lawyer Robert Jordan, a former law partner of Doty's at Baker Botts. (Bush will name Jordan as the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia in 2001; Breeden, Doty, and other Baker Botts partners will become heavy contributors to the Bush political campaigns.) Bush insists he knew nothing of the firm's mounting losses, but hides the fact that Harken's lawyers had explicitly warned Bush and other Harken directors against insider trading just days before Bush sold his stocks. (Bush is spared the task of lying directly to the SEC investigators, since Breeden and Doty refuse to have him, or any other Harken director, called to testify.) Bush knows that Harken is almost broke; a 1989 phony profit of over $10 million from selling Harken assets at inflated prices to Aloha Petroleum, a front company owned by Harken insiders, served to conceal Harken's indebteness from investors long enough to allow Bush and others to bail out. Molly Ivins says that the Aloha deal was a microcosm of the later Enron scandal. The SEC will declare the accounting unacceptable and force Harken to restate its earnings. The "aggressive accounting" practices of Arthur Andersen, the firm retained by Harken to rig its books, originally shows a $4.6 million profit; after the SEC forces Harken to restate its earnings, the figure is actually a loss of $12.57 million. During his gubernatorial and presidential campaigns, Bush will repeatedly insist that the SEC exonerated him of wrongdoing; a cursory reading of the final SEC report proves the opposite: the investigation "must in no way be construed as indicating that the party had been exonerated." David Corn writes, "Harken's Enron-like practices may well have helped Bush become a multimillionaire."
• In fact, the Harken insider stock profiteering did, indeed, turn Bush into a multimillionaire. His Harken gains enables him to pay back the $500,000 loan he took out to buy his bit (under 2%) of the Texas Rangers, an investment that would ultimately pay off thirty-fold, when Bush pal Tony Hicks later buys the Rangers for triple the amount that Bush and his colleagues had paid for it and Bush and the other investors made out handsomely. But Bush profited even more, according to journalist Joe Conason: "The other members of the Rangers partnership fattened Bush's payout six times over, by awarding him additional shares in the team at the time of the sale that brought his 1.8% share up to 12%. Without that extra consideration, his investment would have earned far less." Bush winds up making $15 million. Mark Crispin Miller writes, "That he had repaid the crucial bank loan with the profits of insider trading casts his sudden fabulous enrichment less as a fantastic stroke of luck than evidence, perhaps, of racketeering -- as it would no doubt be considered, and investigated, if Bill Clinton were the lucky man in question." The Harken trade and the subsequent spotlight as the public face of the Rangers' ownership also catapults Bush into the political arena, enabling him to become a viable Republican candidate for governor. With that in mind, it becomes clear why his rich business friends were eager to enrich his bank accounts -- for future quid pro quos, which Bush as governor, and later as president, would eagerly repay. (Joe Conason, Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose, David Corn, Mark Crispin Miller)

July 1990

• July: Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman enters the United States on a much-disputed visa issued by an undercover CIA agent.

  Islamist terrorism

  Though Abdul-Rahman is on a terrorist watch list, his entry is undisputed. A CIA-trained veteran of the Afghan wars, Abdul-Rahman has always proclaimed his ultimate intention of working to overthrow the governments of the United State and Egypt, is known to have been involved in the assassination of Anwar Sadat, and is known to be a close colleague of Osama bin Laden. He sets up shop in New York City, and immediately begins setting up a terrorist network, with bin Laden partially footing the bill. Abdul-Rahman's involvement in the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane is ignored by US authorities. One FBI agent says in 1993, he is "hands-off.... It was no accident that the sheikh got a visa and that he's still in the country. He's here under the banner of national security, the State Department, the NSA, and the CIA." An Egyptian official claims, "We begged America not to coddle the sheikh." Egyptian intelligence warns the US that Abdul-Rahman is planning new terrorist attacks, and on November 12, 1992, terrorists connected to him machine-gun a busload of Western tourists in Egypt. But still he lives freely in New York City until his arrest in 1993 for his role in the 1993 WTC bombing, for which he is convicted. (CCR)
• July 6: NATO offers political and military assistance to new democracies in Eastern Europe. (NATO and UN History)
• July 20: Oliver North's conviction is vacated on appeal because of his Congressional grant of immunity,

  Iran-Contra scandal

  a grant which was recognized in court even though North repeatedly lied to Congress. (Federation of American Scientists)

US government gives Saddam Hussein green light to invade Kuwait

• July 25: In a meeting between Saddam Hussein and US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie, Glaspie tells Hussein, "I have direct instructions from President Bush to improve our relations with Iraq.

  Gulf War

  We have considerable sympathy for your quest for higher oil prices, the immediate cause of your confrontation with Kuwait. ...We know you need funds. We understand that, and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. We can see that you have deployed massive numbers of troops in the south. Normally that would be none of our business, but when this happens in the context of your other threats against Kuwait, then it would be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this reason, I have received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship -- not confrontation -- regarding your intentions: Why are your troops massed so very close to Kuwait's borders?" Hussein answers that he intends to try to negotiate a peaceful settlement with Kuwait; Glaspie asks what solutions Hussein would find acceptable. Hussein wants to keep the entire Shatt al Arab [a strategically important waterway] under Iraqi control, and if given that, he is willing to make concessions to Kuwait. However, if he has to give up some control of the Shatt, he will renounce all control in favor of bringing Kuwait back under Iraqi dominion. Glaspie replies, "We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary [of State James] Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960's, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America." Reportedly Hussein takes this as a green light from the US to proceed with the invasion.
• A month later, Glaspie is confronted by British journalists with the transcripts of the meeting, and is asked, "You encouraged this aggression -- his invasion. What were you thinking?" She lamely replies, "Obviously, I didn't think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take all of Kuwait," to which the astounded journalist asks, "You thought he was just going to take some of it? But how could you? Saddam told you that, if negotiations failed, he would give up his Iran [Shatt al Arab] goal for the "whole of Iraq, in the shape we wish it to be." You know that includes Kuwait, which the Iraqis have always viewed as an historic part of their country!" When Glaspie refuses to answer, the journalist continues, "America green-lighted the invasion. At a minimum, you admit signalling Saddam that some aggression was okay -- that the U.S. would not oppose a grab of the al-Rumalya oil field, the disputed border strip and the Gulf Islands [including Bubiyan] -- territories claimed by Iraq?" Again, Glaspie refuses to respond, and is driven away in a limousine before she can refuse to answer further questions.
• Later evidence shows that the entire Iraq-Kuwait dispute may have been engineered by the United States. Author and investigative producer Barry Lando says in February 2007, "After Iraq's war with Iran ended, the Kuwaitis manipulated the world oil price through their production -- they greatly increased their oil production, which dropped the world oil price. That really hurt Iraq, because Saddam was counting on oil revenues to rebuild after the war. He went to the Kuwaitis and he said, look, back off because you're killing my economy. The Kuwaitis refused to back down. Later it came out that the Kuwaiti's leaders had been meeting with the CIA exactly to put pressure on Saddam Hussein. [Glaspie] told Saddam Hussein that we will not take any position as far as your border disputes with Kuwait go. Her superior, Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly, also testified before Congress a couple of days later. When asked point blank, 'If Saddam invades Kuwait, do we have any treaty with Kuwait?' he said, 'No, we don't.'"
• Lando continues, "If Saddam had gone in and just taken a portion of the country -- a couple of islands near the border with Iraq was what some people thought he would do -- maybe nothing would have happened. But he went all the way down, almost to the border with Saudi Arabia. At that point, the US got very worried. The Saudis got worried, too. The big dispute is whether or not he was planning to actually invade Saudi Arabia, as the US claimed at that time. A number of facts came out afterwards that showed it was highly unlikely that he was planning to invade Saudi Arabia. But the US used that as a pretext to convince the Saudis to accept American troops, which they did. And then there was the war -- the first Gulf War."
• Speculation has always been rampant about why Bush, who formerly considered Hussein a staunch ally against Iran and Islamist influences in the Middle East, suddenly turns on his former ally. Lando has a partial reason. "One of the reasons was [British prime minister] Margaret Thatcher, who had a talking to him," he writes. "She told him he had to act like a man and react. But it was also the fear that Saddam would take over Kuwait, and then have a much stronger position in the world oil market. That really scared George Bush.... At that point, he totally turned around. They began calling the man who had been almost a de facto ally a few months earlier, a man worse than Hitler. And Bush started shipping thousands of American troops to the Gulf." (New York Times/Montclair State University, US/Iraq Relations Timeline, Consortium News, Iraq History and Culture, Buzzflash)
• July 26: State Department spokesperson Margaret Tutwiler is asked by a journalist,

  Gulf War

  "Has the United States sent any type of diplomatic message to the Iraqis about putting 30,000 troops on the border with Kuwait? Has there been any type of protest communicated from the United States government?" Tutwiler responds, "I'm entirely unaware of any such protest." This is a direct contradiction of the meeting between Ambassador Glaspie and Hussein the day before. (Iraq History and Culture)
• July 31: John Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs, testifies to Congress

  Gulf War

  that the "United States has no commitment to defend Kuwait and the US has no intention of defending Kuwait if it is attacked by Iraq." When Kelly is asked, " If Saddam invades Kuwait, do we have any treaty with Kuwait?" Kelly replies, "No, we don't." (Iraq History and Culture, Buzzflash)

Mid-1990

• Mid - 1990: Bush chooses Enron's Kenneth Lay to organize the G-7 economic summit, held in Houston, and later names him to the President's Export Council.

  Oil profiteering and the "oiligarchy"

  Lay's government connections apparently help Enron land a lucrative British contract for energy development, the first ever awarded to an outside corporation; John Wakeham, Britain's secretary of state for energy, later becomes an Enron board member. Other contracts soon follow, including the $2.9 billion Dabhol power plant in India; the Dabhol plant's tremendous unpopularity among the Indian people would be one of the factors contributing to Enron's demise. (Kevin Phillips)

August 1990

• August 1: The last sale of high-tech equipment from the US to Iraq occurs one day before the Kuwaiti invasion;

  Gulf War

  it is put on hold and eventually cancelled.

Iraq invades Kuwait; Bush responds with "Operation Desert Shield"

• August 2: Iraq invades Kuwait. The US believes, or says it believes, that Iraq intends to invade Saudi Arabia and take over its oil production.

  Gulf War

  Bush expresses shock over the "surprise" invasion, even though Iraq had been threatening to invade and take over the northern oil fields of Kuwait since 1989, the US military had been wargaming responses for the past six months, and US ambassador April Glaspie had given Hussein tacit permission to invade in April. Interestingly, the US military was in the middle of a huge wargame exercise called "Internal Look" on the day that Iraq moved into Kuwait. Bush begins organizing a multinational coalition to seek Kuwait's freedom and restoration of its legitimate government. The UN Security Council authorizes economic sanctions against Iraq. UN Resolution 660 calls for Iraq's full withdrawal from Kuwait. Unbeknownst to the world's media outlets, Iraq's Saddam Hussein negotiates with Israel to withdraw from Kuwait if Israel and Syria will withdraw from Lebanon, and if Israel will withdraw troops from the occupied territories. The PLO's Yasser Arafat declares his organization's support for Saddam Hussein, believing that the US would not intervene and the situation will be resolved by diplomacy between Arab nations. After Iraq's defeat in April 1991, the PLO finds itself disconnected from the Arab nations who joined the US-led coalition to defeat Hussein. Large numbers of Palestinian workers will be expelled from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and many Palestinians in Kuwait are the target of revenge attacks. Many Palestinians flee to Jordan, which is already swollen beyond capacity with refugees from Iraq. Bush justifies the deployment of American troops to Saudi Arabia by saying, "Our nation now imports nearly half the oil it comsumes and could face a major threat to its economic independence." Defense secretary Dick Cheney, a veteran oil executive, warns that once Iraq has gained control of Kuwait, Hussein "would be in a position to be able to dictate the future of worldwide energy policy, and that [would give] him a stranglehold on our economy." It is obvious that the concerns over oil are driving American foreign policy.
• Cheney has been pushing for an intervention against Iraq ever since Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the ambassador to the US and a close friend of the Bush family, told Cheney that the Saudis were worried about the Iraqis. (Cheney knows Bandar well, having helped cover up the fact that Bandar steered $25 million in Saudi money to the Nicaraguan Contras through the auspices of CIA director William Casey.) Publicly, Cheney and other Bush officials decry Iraq's invasion of another sovereign country; privately, the US is far more concerned about the oilfields of Saudi Arabia. But Cheney is practical, and even cautious. He wants to avoid a military confrontation with Iraq's million-man army, and privately complains about Bush's heated rhetorical attacks on Hussein. He cautions Bush against allowing US soldiers to board Iraqi tankers to signal the onset of an American blockade.
• Cheney visits Saudi Arabia to meet with the Saud's King Fahd in early August. Cheney, accompanied by his aide Paul Wolfowitz and General Norman Schwarzkopf, isn't there to negotiate, but to lay down an imposition of American will on the reluctant king. US forces will be deployed in Saudi Arabia, Cheney dictates, with no caps on the size of the troop deployments. There will be no fixed date for the troops to leave Saudi Arabia. They will remain, Cheney says, "until justice is achieved," but does grant Fahd one concession: the troops will leave if Fahd makes a direct request for their removal. Cheney uses classified satellite intelligence to convince Fahd that Iraq intends to invade his country (see the August 5 item below that shows much of the satellite intelligence was falsified), and frightens Fahd with the (false) prospect of the Iraqi Army pouring over his borders. Cheney says that once Iraq is inside Saudi Arabia, it will be almost impossible for the Americans to force him to leave. Authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein write, "Fahd, the custodian of the two holiest sites of Islam, was being asked to accept the presence of troops from the country that was Israel's financial and military underwriter. Cheney wouldn't allow him time to think it over." It is later determined that much of the jihadist fervor created and exploited by Islamic terrorist groups like al-Qaeda will be fueled by the US troop presence in Saudi Arabia. (MidEast Web, History Lesson: Middle East Timeline, FactMonster, BBC, A Timeline of Oil and Violence, Mother Jones, Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Dawoud el-Alami, Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein)

US falsifies evidence that Iraq is preparing to attack Saudi Arabia

• August 5: US State Dept. representatives, including General Colin Powell, fly to Saudi Arabia, and tell the Saudis that Iraqi forces are massing on their borders preparing to invade.

  Gulf War

  In support, the Pentagon releases reports of satellite photos purporting to show 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks massing at the Iraqi-Saudi border. The US warns that Iraq is threatening to invade Saudi Arabia. After the Pentagon refuses to release the actual photos, media outlets find other satellite photos of the same region and the same time frame, and find that no Iraqi troops are anywhere near the Saudi border. But the proof that the allegations of Iraqi threats to Saudi Arabia come too late; the original false allegations help sway Congressional and public opinion towards invasion of Iraq. Months later, the US media reveals that the commercial satellite photos from the same time period show no such troop buildup on the Iraq/Saudi borders, and the photos shown to the Saudis by Powell and the State Department are later proven to have been doctored. Journalist Jean Heller later writes, "That [Iraqi buildup] was the whole justification for Bush sending troops in there, and it just didn't exist." (Christian Science Monitor, A Timeline of Oil and Violence, Asia Times)
• August 6: President Bush sends troops to Saudi Arabia as the first deployment in what will be called "Operation Desert Shield," to protect that country from the nonexistent Iraqi threat.

  Gulf War

  230,000 American troops arrive in Saudi Arabia to take defensive action, but when Iraq continues a huge military buildup in Kuwait, the President orders an additional 200,000 troops deployed to prepare for a possible offensive action by the U.S.-led coalition forces. (MidEast Web, FactMonster)
• August 6:

  Gulf War

  UN Resolution 661 imposes economic sanctions on Iraq. (BBC)
• August 8: Iraq announces the annexation of Kuwait.

  Gulf War

  Later documents prove that the US would have likely allowed Iraq to keep the northern Kuwaiti oil fields, but had no desire to see Iraq completely occupy Kuwait, make the country a part of Iraq, and gain access to the Persian Gulf. (A Timeline of Oil and Violence>
• August 12: As part of the political machinations preceding the US military response,

  Gulf War

  Hussein offers to leave Kuwait if Israel will withdraw from Palestine and Syria will withdraw from Lebanon. Both countries, along with other members of the anti-Iraq coalition formed by the US and UN, repudiate this offer. (MidEast Web)

September 1990

US falsifies evidence that Iraqi troops murdered Kuwaiti babies; the global outcry legitimizes US military escalation in Kuwait

• September 5: A story appears in Britain's Daily Telegraph reporting that Iraqi soldiers have murdered dozens of babies in a Kuwaiti hospital by taking them out of their incubators and leaving them to die.

  Media manipulation and marketing by GOP

  The story is repeated all over the globe, and is used by the Bush administration to whip up public support for a punitive invasion of Iraq. In 1992 the story is proven to be completely false, a fabrication created by the American public relations firm Hill & Knowlton on assignment from a group called Citizens for a Free Kuwait. The group is led by Craig Fuller, who was Bush's chief of staff during the Reagan administration. H&K dedicates 119 executives in 12 offices across the country to the job of drumming up support within the United States for the 1991 war, orchestrating an all-out PR blitz which includes distributing tens of thousands of "Free Kuwait" T-shirts and bumper stickers at colleges across the US and setting up observances such as National Kuwait Day and National Student Information Day. H&K also mails 200,000 copies of a book titled The Rape of Kuwait to American troops stationed in the Middle East. The firm also massages reporters, arranging interviews with handpicked Kuwaiti emissaries and dispatching reams of footage of burning wells and oil-slicked birds washed ashore. After convening a number of focus groups to try to figure out which buttons to press to make the public respond, H&K determines that presentations involving the mistreatment of infants receives the strongest reaction.
• On October 10, Hill & Knowlton sends a Kuwaiti girl known as "Nayirah" to testify that she had seen the atrocities with her own eyes. Her testimony is orchested with the cooperation of House Democrat Tom Lantos and Republican John Porter. Weeping and shaking, the girl describes a horrifying scene in Kuwait City: "I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital," she testified. "While I was there I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns and go into the room where babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die." Allegedly, 312 infants were removed. Of the seven other witnesses who testify that day, five had been prepared by H&K and used false names. The tale receives tremendous publicity, including discussion before the UN Security Council. Seven of the main pro-war senators bring up the baby-incubator allegations as a major component of their argument for passing the resolution to go to war. Ultimately, the motion for war passes by a narrow five-vote margin. The girl "Nayirah" is actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US, Saud Nasir al-Sabah, and lived in Washington during the time of the alleged incident. Hill & Knowlton also produce a video about the incident that is shown to the UN Security Council. Says Susan Trento, the author of a book about the firm, "The diplomats, the congressmen, and the senators wanted something to support their positions. The media wanted visual, interesting stories." The story is widely credited with helping Bush "sell" the war to the American people. Ultimately the story is proved to be an utter fabrication. (Christian Science Monitor, Asia Times)

"Everything which the Arab reality offers that is generous, open and creative is crushed by regimes whose only anxiety is to perpetuate their own power and self-serving interest. And what is often worse is to see that the West remains insensitive to the daily tragedy while at the same time accommodating, not to say supporting, the ruling classes who strangle the free will and aspirations of their people." -- Moroccan writer Abdellatif Laabi, September 5, 1990

• September 8: At a summit meeting in Helsinki, Bush and Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev discuss Iraq's proposal to withdraw

  Gulf War

  from Kuwait if Israel will withdraw from Lebanon and the occupied territories. Gorbachev wants to agree to the proposal, but Bush refuses. (Dan Cohn-Sherbok)

October 1990

• October: Bush business associate Fred Malek arranges a complex deal that in essence has the state of Texas buy land for a new stadium, while George W. Bush and other Rangers investor retain almost all of the profits.

  George W. Bush

  (David Corn writes, "The Rangers franchise became so valuable partly because the city of Arlington, Texas, raised local taxes and condemned private property in order to build a new $180 million stadium for the team. That is, Bush -- a tax-cut advocate, a fan of property rights, and a champion of welfare reform -- became independently wealthy because he was part of an enterprise that pushed for higher taxes, that violated property rights, and that benefited from corporate welfare.") Malek has already arranged with the Carlyle Group for George W. Bush to serve on the board of directors of Caterair, one of the country's largest airline catering firms. Bush will later be asked to leave the board; according to David Rubenstein, co-founder and managing director of the Carlyle Group, Bush was put on the board at the request of Malek, who, according to Rubenstein, described Bush as "down on his luck a bit. Needs a job. Needs a board position. Needs some board positions. Could you put him on the board? Pay him a salary and he'll be a good board member and be a loyal vote for the management and so forth." Rubenstein continues, "We put him on the board and [he] spent three years. Came to all the meetings. Told a lot of jokes. Not that many clean ones. And after a while I kind of said to him, after about three years -- you know, I'm not sure this is really for you. Maybe you should do something else. Because I don't think you're adding that much value to the board. You don't know that much about the company." Soon after, Bush resigned from the board, saying he didn't like it much anyway. Rubenstein recalls, "so, if you said to me, 'Name 25 million people who would maybe be president of the United States,' he wouldn't have been in the category. So you never know." (Bushwatch, Progressive Review, David Corn)
• October: After negotiations between Israel and Iraq fall through, partially because of the US's refusal to support the proposals,

  Iran-Contra scandal

  Iraq threatens to fire missiles at Israel. In response, Israel issues gas masks to its citizens, but not to Palestinians living in the West Bank. (Dan Cohn-Sherbok)

David Souter joins Supreme Court

• October 9: David Souter is sworn in as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

  Supreme Court

  Considered by many a moderate, Souter is called a "stealth candidate" because of his thin judicial record; Souter, a former prosecutor, is a former member of the New Hampshire Supreme Court and the US Court of Appeals. Souter will prove a disappointment to many conservatives, who erroneously consider him part of the liberal wing of the Court. Souter, like Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, can move from a more liberal viewpoint to siding with conservatives on some issues. He will vote with the minority in 2000's Bush v. Gore case. (Wikipedia)
• October 19: Disgraced former Arkansas public employee Larry Nichols, fired two years before for defrauding the state in connection with his illicit support of the Nicaraguan Contras and a criminal who reneged on a deal to pay restitution for multiple counts of theft, announces a $3 million libel lawsuit against Arkansas governor Bill Clinton.

  Whitewater / Lewinsky and related "scandals"

  He claims that he was wrongly fired for being a "scapegoat" in order to conceal "the largest scandal ever perpetrated on the taxpayers of the state of Arkansas," a wildly concocted farrago of accusations that Clinton had defrauded the state of millions of dollars through Nichols's former employer, the Arkansas Development Finance Authority. As part of his lawsuit, Nichols announces that he intends to subpoena five alleged mistresses of Clinton, whom Clinton is supposed to have spent the money. One of the women is Gennifer Flowers, a former cabaret singer who worked with Nichols in recording advertising jingles, and who, two weeks before, had applied for a job in Clinton's administration. The other women include a former Miss Arkansas, the current Miss America, a Little Rock newspaper columnist and TV anchor, and Clinton's own press secretary. Two of the women are black, adding the tang of interracial sex to the mix. The TV anchor, Deborah Mathis, summed up the allegations in an irreverent comment to friends: "Hell, no," she had never slept with Clinton, "but if I did sleep with that fat white boy, he'd still be grinning." Three of the women hire lawyers and threaten to sue Nichols; all but Flowers vehemently deny the allegations. The women's names are not published, and the story of the lawsuit dies a quiet death in the media. Reporters soon learn that Nichols, who filed the lawsuit without benefit of legal council, had received legal help from Bob Leslie, the Republican state chairman and a close friend of Sheffield Nelson, a former Republican gubernatorial challenger and a bitter enemy of Clinton. Repeated efforts by Nichols to publicize the lawsuit and embarrass Clinton go nowhere; the suit is finally proven for what it is when Nichols offers to settle the suit if Clinton will pay off his house mortgage and provide an additional $150,000. The offer is rejected.
• However, Gennifer Flowers refuses to go away. In December, she calls Clinton, apparently distraught, and claims that Nichols's allegations are causing her to miss out on nightclub gigs. She also expresses her concern that Arkansas Republicans are smearing Clinton's name in the press. What Clinton does not know is that Flowers is taping their phone conversation. She will tape three more phone conversations between her and the governor. On January 30, 1991, Flowers's attorney demands a cash settlement from a radio station which had aired Nichols's allegations and threatens to sue.
• Privately, Flowers claims that she and Clinton had had a torrid, long-term love affair five years before. A letter to Clinton from Flowers, penned in 1986, is later released by Clinton's office, confirming that the two had spoken by phone and featuring Flowers asking for a job. No followup is ever recorded, and Flowers never received a job offer. Flowers now resumes her attempt to gain state employment. On February 25, she writes Clinton complaining about her failure to land a job with the state, and includes a copy of her lawyer's complaint against the radio station. In June 1991, she lands a job as an administrative assistant. She lasts six months, but makes waves by making a number of tasteless and inappropriate sexual remarks. Her stories are contradictory, and a supervisor later recalls, "she asked if I knew she was one of the women named in the Larry Nichols lawsuit as having had an affair with Bill Clinton. When I told her I didn't, she said it was all bullsh*t anyway." The Clinton-Flowers media saga is just beginning. (Joe Conason and Gene Lyons)

October 1990

Rabbi Meir Kahane assassinated

• November 5: Rabbi Meir Kahane, the head of the Jewish Defense League, is assassinated by an Egyptian with close ties to radical Islamist Sheikh Abdul-Rahman.

  Middle East unrest

  The assassin, El Sayyid Nosair, is arrested and found to be involved in a much larger terrorist plan. Documents in his possession give details of al-Qaeda and discuss plans for destroying tall US buildings; these documents are not translated until years later. Nosair was prosecuted as a "lone gunman;" the massive body of evidence showing his terrorist connections is not presented in court, his confession is not mentioned by the prosecution, and Nosair is acquitted of Kahane's murder. He does, however, get 22 years in jail on lesser charges. Osama bin Laden contributed heavily to Nosair's defense fund. Many of Nosair's associates go on to plan and carry out the 1993 WTC bombing. Why Nosair's terrorist connections were hidden during his trial is not known. One FBI agent laments, "The fact is that in 1990, myself and my detectives, we had in our office in handcuffs, the people who blew up the World Trade Center in '93. ...We were told to release them." Who exactly gave the order to protect Nosair and his associates is not known. (CCR)
• November 8: Over 400,000 US troops are now in Saudi Arabia.

  Middle East unrest

  Fundamentalist Muslims are outraged by the presence of "infidel" troops on what they consider to be holy soil; one of those outraged fundamentalists is wealthy Saudi businessman Osama bin Laden. (A Timeline of Oil and Violence)
• November 8: Texas Agricultural Commissioner Jim Hightower, a populist progressive, is defeated for re-election by Republican Rick Perry, a handsome, rich ranch owner, in an exceptionally dirty campaign managed by the GOP's Karl Rove.

  GOP campaign strategies

  Rove spreads a combination of truths, half-truths, and outright lies about Hightower and his aides being involved in a kickback scheme; although Hightower is never charged with a crime, three of his aides are eventually convicted on federal charges, and Hightower's election bid is torpedoed. Years later, Perry will go on to win election as governor of Texas in a campaign managed by Rove.
• The Hightower allegations stem from information leaked by a disgruntled former employee, Bob Boatwright, who ran for the commissioner's office himself as a Republican but received no support from the Texas GOP. After the allegations begin surfacing in the summer of 1990, Boatwright apologizes for the leaks, stages his own suicide, and drops out of sight. Just before Boatwright's disappearance, Rove holds a press conference in which he tells reporters that Hightower and his aides are about to be indicted; Hightower's campaign manager, Geoff Sugarman, is livid: "How the hell does he know that?" he asks. "Is he getting information straight out of the US attorney's office or the federal investigators supposedly working on this case? Or is he making it up?" Boatwright later turns up at a mental clinic in California, but the investigation proceeds, and Boatwright disappears again before he can be questioned by authorities. The information Rove gives to the press probably comes from investigator Larry Beauchamp, whose boss, district attorney Joseph Thigpen, is Rick Perry's brother-in-law. FBI agent Greg Rampton, who had proven so useful to Rove in the 1986 campaign when Rove accused Democrats of bugging his office (Rove likely planted the bug himself), is heavily involved in the Hightower investigation, even after it becomes clear that his investigation is largely fueled by his loyalty to the Texas GOP and not by a desire to find the truth. Rampton's investigation, including a politically timed subpoena of Hightower, is later proven to be directed by Rove himself, an unprecedented example of the abuse of the FBI for political gain. Rove also has high-level sources in the Texas Department of Agriculture, who illegally leak information about the FBI investigation to Rove throughout the summer and fall, information that Rove uses to smear Hightower throughout the campaign.
• Deputy Agriculture Commissioner Mike Moeller, a Democrat, later says that he found out employees in the Department of Agriculture were routinely approached by GOP operatives and told that, if they had allegations to make against Hightower, to take them to Karl Rove; Rove would then screen the stories and take the useful ones to the FBI for investigation. Many employees later accuse Rove and Rampton of tampering, and accuse Rampton of committing perjury in court over the allegations. Perry says of Rove after his narrow victory, "He did everything. He says, 'Here's who to hire. Here's who not to hire. Here's how to run the campaign.' He showed me a plan and pointed to it. Lots of numbers. He points to it. He says, 'You'll stay pretty much underground until this point.'" Moeller and four others, Pete McRae, Bill Quicksall, Bob Boyd, and Russell Koontz, are indicted on various counts of accepting kickbacks while in office; meanwhile, Perry names Beauchamp as his ethics advisor to undo any damage incurred by the investigation. Koontz and Boyd are dropped from the case due to health reasons; the defense team's attempt to prove that the allegations are politically motivated is quickly scotched by Judge Sam Sparks. Moeller, McRae, and Quicksall will be convicted in late 1993 of bribery and fraud charges, and receive stiff jail terms. McRae insists to this day that Boyd and Koontz were the only ones who actively broke the law in running what he calls a "shakedown operation" to help Moeller and Hightower without the knowledge of either of the two commissioners. Hightower will leave politics and become a political commentator. Rampton will eventually transfer to the Boise, Idaho FBI office, where he will be found to have tampered with evidence in the Ruby Ridge trial of Randy Weaver, whose wife and son were killed by FBI agents during an armed standoff at Weaver's house. As for Rove, he will put together a stable of successful GOP candidates in Texas, ranging from attorney general John Cormyn, Senate candidate Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Perry, who will become lieutenant governor and later governor, to George W. Bush as governor. Part of Rove's drive is to defeat his rival, fellow GOP consultant John Weaver; often Rove and Weaver find themselves at odds with opposing GOP candidates. Almost inevitably, Rove wins these battles, culminating in the 2000 presidential primary, where Weaver will advise the McCain campaign. Weaver eventually tires of being Rove's favorite whipping boy and will defect to the Democrats shortly after his failure in 2000. (James Moore and Wayne Slater)
• November 29: UN Resolution 678 authorizes the coalition to use "all necessary means" to force Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait.

  Gulf War

  Yemen votes against the resolution, and is informed by a US diplomat, "that will be the most expensive 'no' vote you ever cast." Days later, Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, has its US aid budget cut to zero. (BBC, A Timeline of Oil and Violence)

December 1990

• December 6 - 7: NATO supports a UN resolution demanding that Iraq

  Gulf War

  withdraw its forces from Kuwait, but refuses to join the US-led coalition that will invade Iraq. (NATO and UN History)

1990-91

• Late December: In a staggering about-face of administration policy, Bush sends troops to the Middle East to repulse Iraq's invasion of Kuwait (details below).

  Gulf War

  Operation "Desert Storm" lasts about 5 weeks. Some of the evidence used to convince other countries to join the coalition was later shown to be falsified: i.e. photographs of a Iraqi military buildup at the Iraq-Saudi Arabian border that never happened. Hussein's entire battle plan was inexplicable when judged from the viewpoint of a military force that who actually wants to occupy and annex a country. Although most of the war is a staged-for-TV event rather than a real war, 149 Americans and 25,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians and soldiers from "throwaway" regiments, die. Iraq is driven out of Kuwait, but no real effort to oust Hussein is made. The war costs $60 billion, which was paid for in large part by American allies. After the war, Iraq is subjected to UN sanctions and divided into three sections, only one of which is under Saddam's direct control. (According to former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the no-fly zones as established by the US-led coalition are illegal. Asked why the zones were allowed to be created by the UN, he replied that the subject was never broached.) (ZNet, FactMonster, US/Iraq Relations Timeline, MidEast Web)
• Americans are informed by the Bush administration that Iraq is a formidable military opponent, possessing the world's fourth largest military force with over a million soldiers, including the elite Republican Guard.

  Gulf War

  After the coalition invasion, those estimates are reduced to between 200,000 and 300,000 troops; after the war is over, those estimates are further reduced to less than 100,000 troops, most of which were badly trained and were coerced into holding their positions against coalition attacks. The fact that Iraq possesses no air force or navy is not emphasized. Canadian military analyst Gwynne Dyer remarked after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait that "Saddam Hussein was not a problem that kept anybody awake in July [1990]." (Iraq History and Culture)

1990-1994

• 1990 - 1994: During this time period, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio all become one-newspaper cities.

  Media manipulation and marketing by GOP

  Lacking competition, the state's main newspapers stop doing much of the spadework necessary to find out the realities behind the politics. At the same time, small, politically motivated newspapers gain new influence. Two newspapers, the Christian Right-owned Dallas-Fort Worth Heritage and the weekly Austin Review, funded by the Republican right, begin an orchestrated campaign of smear and innuendo against incumbent governor Ann Richards. They insinuate Richards is a lesbian who is packing state government with "sisters," and imply that Richards has shady connections to Hollywood celebrities and financiers. Before long, the large Texas newspapers are repeating the rumors. The smear campaign is organized and supervised by consultants Karl Rove, a protege of GOP propaganda meister Lee Atwater, and Karen Hughes, with Rove concocting the stories and Hughes getting them media coverage. In 2000, anti-Bush activists familiar with the slash-and-burn tactics against Richards will warn the Gore presidential campaign about the tactics they will face from Rove and Hughes (both top-level consultants in the George W. Bush campaign), but the Gore campaign will largely ignore the warnings. (Laura Flanders)

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