|
Baghdad and Basra were bombed
relentlessly, killing thousands of civilians. [64]
Iraq had already begun to withdraw from Kuwait when Bush launched the
ground war. The main aim of the ground offensive was, in fact, not to
drive the Iraqi troops out of Kuwait, but to keep them from leaving. The
"gate was closed" and tens of thousands of soldiers, who were trying to
go home, were systematically slaughtered. Elsewhere, U.S. tanks and
bulldozers intentionally buried thousands of soldiers alive in their
trenches in a tactic designed mainly to "destroy Iraqi defenders." [65]
"In the life of a nation there comes a moment when we are called upon to
define who we are and what we believe." (George H. Bush, January 1991)
[66]
Tens of thousands of Iraqis died during the war. And the tragedy
continued after the war ended. Even people died from water-borne
diseases that spread because the U.S. systematically destroyed Iraq's
electrical, sewage treatment and water treatment systems. For over a
decade, the U. S. insited on maintaining the most severe economic
sanctions regime in history, continuing to strangle the devastated Iraqi
economy, with dire consequences for the Iraqi people. [67]
Go to Next Page
|
