White House Blames Hussein for War Damage

The White House on Friday said Saddam Hussein is to blame for massive damage and suffering in Iraq during the Persian Gulf War and declared, “You will not find America feeling guilty.”

President Bush’s press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, was responding to questions about a U.N. report that said “near-apocalyptic” allied bombing sent Iraq back to a “pre-industrial age.”

“People are thinking we fought the war decisively, we fought it well and we fought it as discriminatingly as we could. Were there thousands of Iraqis killed? Yes. Do we know how many? No,” Fitzwater said.

“The fact is that the Iraqi deaths are attributable to the invasion of Saddam Hussein” into Kuwait, Fitzwater said.

“So you will not find America feeling guilty for Saddam Hussein’s invasion and destruction of his own people.”

Fitzwater said he was unaware of U.S. military estimates of 100,000 Iraqis killed in the conflict.

At the Pentagon, spokesman Pete Williams said: “The idea that we bombed Baghdad back to the Stone Age is clearly not true.”

He said reporters who were in Baghdad were able to verify that air attacks were limited to military facilities and that there was “very little collateral damage.”

“There were lots of people killed and lots of vehicles destroyed,” Williams said. “That’s there for the world to see.” But he said it was limited to military facilities and roads and bridges that supported the war effort.

The U.N. report this week found that Iraq has been “relegated to a pre-industrial age” by the allied assault that ended in a cease-fire three weeks ago.

It said Iraq could soon face “imminent catastrophe, which could include epidemic and famine, if massive life supporting needs are not met.”