Bush Expresses Doubts About Prewar Iraqi Aid

Reflecting on the early years of his Administration, President Bush said Thursday that he might “rethink our position” of providing large-scale American aid to Iraq, if withholding the assistance then might later have deterred Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from invading Kuwait.

Bush’s comments, in a question-and-answer session at a convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, were his most expansive public acknowledgment of new questions about U.S. support of Iraq in the months before the invasion, which occurred in August, 1990.

Interviews and secret documents obtained by The Times recently have shown that Bush and other Administration officials pressed secret efforts to provide loan credits and other assistance to Iraq almost to the eve of the attack, despite growing signs of Hussein’s hostile intentions.

The aid, which included sales of sophisticated technology with both civilian and military applications, contributed significantly to Hussein’s massive military buildup--including the nuclear and chemical weapons programs that continue to plague the United States and its allies from the Persian Gulf War.

Asked whether he regretted providing such assistance, Bush replied: “I guess if I had 90-90 hindsight, and I--any action that we might have taken beforehand would guarantee that Saddam Hussein did not move down into Kuwait, which he did, I’d certainly rethink our position.

“But I can’t certify that by not helping Iraq in the modest way we did, that that would have guaranteed that he would stay within his confines, the confines of his own border . . . ,” the President said. At the time the decisions were made, “we (were) dealing with the facts as they came down the pike,” he said.

Bush presented the support for Iraq as a crucial element in U.S. efforts to bring stability to the Persian Gulf at a time when Iran and its Islamic fundamentalism threatened the region. “We did not want an Iran that would take over Iraq and then inexorably move south. So there was a real logic for that,” he said.

Bush spoke shortly after the Pentagon had admonished Iraq about its violation of the cease-fire agreements with the United Nations, including its use of aircraft, positioning of antiaircraft weapons and massing of 120,000 troops near the northern zone established to protect Iraq’s Kurdish minority from Hussein’s attacks. Bush said he is “very much concerned” about the increased military activity, which has included four consecutive days of practice runs by Iraqi combat jets.

Pentagon spokesman Bob Hall said that the Iraqis “are very aware that we will take whatever actions we would deem necessary to protect our forces.”

Iraqi antiaircraft radar units reportedly have tracked allied aircraft, and the Iraqi training runs have flown north of the 36th Parallel, which has been reserved by the allies for their own air operations.

Allied aircraft operations over Iraq have two missions: to provide information for U.N. teams working to eliminate both Iraqi chemical and biological weapons facilities and facilities that could be used in producing nuclear weapons, and to help provide humanitarian relief to the Kurds.

In his comments to the newspaper editors, Bush referred to The Times’ series, and said: “We did some business with Iraq but I can’t--I just don’t want to sign off on each one of the allegations that some of these stories have contained. But this was our policy. We weren’t trying to help them (the Iraqis) because they were democratic. They were engaged in a very serious war with Iran. We did not want to see total destabilization of the Gulf area.”

The President said that after the Iran-Iraq War ended, “we tried to bring him (Hussein) into the family of nations through commerce, and we failed.”

At the same time, Bush defended his decision, as he has in the past, to halt the ground combat against Iraq after 100 hours. “The U.N. resolutions never called for the elimination of Saddam Hussein,” Bush said. “It never called for taking the battle into downtown Baghdad, and we have a lot of revisionists who opposed me on the war, now saying, ‘How come you didn’t go into downtown Baghdad and find Saddam Hussein and do him in?’ ”

“We have all but removed the threat of Saddam Hussein to his neighbors,” the President said.

Bush said that his decision to halt the battle was supported by Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and by the allied commander in the Gulf, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf.

“I sat in the Oval Office that fateful day when you remember the turkey shoot along the highway going north, and Colin Powell came to me, our respected chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and said: ‘Mr. President, it’s our considered opinion that the war is over, we have achieved our objective and we should stop.’ ”

“Now,” Bush said, “we’re caught up in a real peculiar election year, and you hear all kinds of people, some of whom supported what I did, many of whom oppose it, now going after this Administration and our military for stopping too soon. I don’t think that’s right.”

Bush continued: “Am I happy Saddam Hussein is still there? Absolutely not. Am I determined he’s going to live with these resolutions? Absolutely. But we did the right thing, we did the honorable thing and I have absolutely no regrets about that part of it at all.”