Gulf Crisis Lessons for the United Nations

The campaign, run by the US public relations firm of Hill & Knowlton, was financed by ‘Citizens For a Free Kuwait', whose contributions consisted of a few hundred dollars from actual citizens and USD 11.85 million from the Kuwait government. The P. R. firm orchestrated the testimony of an unidentified Kuwaiti girl, ‘Nayirah', before a US Congressional committee about Iraqi troops throwing Kuwaiti babies out of incubators. The story was later refuted by Amnesty International, and ‘Nayirah' turned out to be the daughter of the Kuwait Ambassador to Washington. See CBS News, 26 January 1992

Cf. among others Dickson H. R. P. , Kuwait and Her Neighbours (London: Allen & Unwin, 1956); R. Schofield, Kuwait and Iraq (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1991), for the early history. At the General Assembly in 1962 Iraq's Foreign Minister Hashim Jawad stated that ‘the people in Iraq and Kuwait who know that they belong to one country … will never accept the fait accompli imposed by the British imperialists. They will achieve their national and territorial unity in due course after sweeping away the puppet rulers of Kuwait and their national and international supporters'. In 1962 Saddam Hussein was a 25-year-old law student in Cairo

No border in the African continent, the Arab east, South Asia, South-East Asia, the former USSR or Eastern Europe is free of these imperial delineations which lack any form of local evolution or consultation

Kampala Document for the proposed Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Co-operation in Africa (CSSDCA); Kampala, Uganda, 22 May 1991. Now under OAU study

Author's estimates based on official reports of actual military costs, between USD 65 and 80 billion; costs up to March 1991 on only 36 developing countries, USD 12 billion (Briefing Paper, Overseas Development Institute, London); another USD 12 billion for other developing countries

Among others, Ambroggi R. , Scientific American, Vol. 243:3, September 1980; Population and the Environment: The Challenges Ahead (New York: UNFPA); and annual issues of State of the World (Washington, DC: World Resources Institute)

Cf. among others UN Documents ST/SGB/225, March 1987; A/45/649; also author's observations

Urquhart B. Childers E. , Reorganization of the UN Secretariat, first published March 1991 and reproduced in Development Dialogue, 1991: 1–2 (Uppsala: Dag Hammarskjold Foundation) under the title ‘Towards a More Effective United Nations'. Views in this present paper are, of course, solely my own

For discussion of other effects of these forecasts, cf. Childers E. , ‘The Future of the United Nations. The Challenges of the 1990s', Bulletin of Peace Proposals, Vol. 21, no. 2, June 1990, pp. 143–152

On 20 October 1990 US Defense Secretary Cheney said that the sanctions were beginning to have a serious impact on the Iraqi economy, cf. among others Washington Post, 21 October. On 5 December 1990 CIA Director Webster confirmed to the House Armed Services Committee the reports widely circulating at the end of November that he had advised the White House that the sanctions were working; Iraqi industrial production had been cut by 60%, and exports by 95%. See among others the New York Times, 6 December 1990

There is no overall or ‘chapeau' text in Chapter VII that can legitimate this usage. On the contrary, its very opening paragraph, Article 39, explicitly states that the Security Council must ‘decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42'

The Court normally responds to submissions by one or more states. Iraq offered to go to the Court but no interest was shown in this

Lecture at Oxford University, 12 May 1986, UN Release SG/SM/3870, 13 May 1986

The Coalition carried out over 70,000 air sorties in 43 days, fully a quarter of all sorties over Europe carried out by the US Eighth Air Force in the whole of World War II; Middle East International, London, 22 February 1991, and USAAF reports for WW II. In the first 36 hours alone, the tonnage of bombs dropped exceeded that upon Dresden in 1945, which killed some 135,000 German civilians; US News and World Report, 28 January 1991. A total of over 2 million tons of high explosives were dropped on Iraq and Iraqi forces around Kuwait, one-third of the total tonnage dropped on Europe between 1943 and 1945; five times the explosive power of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs combined; E. Hoogland, Middle East Report, Washington, July 1991 and USAAF data for WW II. In addition to B-52 carpet bombing and cruise missiles, 15,000 lb. cluster (mass evisceration) and fuel–air (mass suffocation) bombs were used; and on the ground bulldozer tanks buried thousands of surrendering Iraqis alive in their trenches (US 2nd Brigade Colonel Moreno to News-day 12 September 1992). On 25 February at Wadi al-Mout outside Kuwait a 25-mile caravan of trucks, cars, buses and clearly marked ambulances was sealed off and then mercilessly bombed with explosive and napalm; one pilot called it a ‘turkey shoot'; Lt. Col. George Patrick confirmed to reporters that ‘it's like shooting ducks in a pond'; Los Angeles Times, 27 February and Washington Post, 17 March 1991. UN Under-Secretary Ahtisaari reported that Iraq ‘has been relegated to a pre-industrial age'; UN S/22366, 20 March 1991. Post-war Pentagon briefings acknowledged that ‘many of the targets in Iraq's Mesopotamian heartland (which) grew from about 400 to more than 700 in the course of the war, were chosen (to) amplify the economic and psychological impact of international sanctions on Iraqi society'; Barton Gellman, Washington Post in Guardian Weekly, 30 June 1991. Despite exultant ‘victory' parades, the Iraqi casualty count ‘may never be known because the Bush Administration is determined to obscure it and Baghdad has been no more forthcoming'; Gellman, Washington Post, 20–26 January 1992. Dead Iraqi troops were quickly bulldozed under the sands and, in violation of Geneva conventions, no accounting has ever been rendered. Estimates have ranged from 65,000 dead troops (Mr Cheney) to as high as 150,000 (US Defense Intelligence Agency); most sources estimate about 100,000. Less than 50 Coalition troops were killed. Even at the lowest estimates of Iraqi deaths there has never been a ratio of this order in the history of any war

For detailed discussion of the appointment, cf. Urquhart B. Childers E. , ‘A World in Need of Leadership: Tomorrow's United Nations', in Development Dialogue 1990: 1–2

E.g. proposals from the Conference for a More Democratic United Nations (CAMDUN), Vienna 17–19 September 1991

See among others Professor Bill J. A. , The Eagle and the Lion (New Haven, CT: Yale University 1988), pp. 204–208; Gary Sick, October Surprise (New York: Random House, 1991), pp. 113–114

Third World governments have also expressed interest in such an instrument of international law, e.g. Brazil at UNECOSOC, July 1991

The USA subsequently commenced payment of some of the arrears – to be spread over five years

Cf. also Common Responsibility in the 1990s. The Stockholm Initiative on Global Security and Governance, 22 April 1991 (Stockholm: Prime Minister's Office, 1991)