Attack on Iraq Spurs Debate on Gulf War Legacy

Renewed hostilities between the United States and Iraq may have much of the world trembling, but for some Orange County residents, it’s an occasion to refight with words the decision not to topple Saddam Hussein after the 1991 Gulf War.

“All you had to do to destroy the regime was to cut into some roads leading into Baghdad and wait them out,” said Stan Brin, editor for the 10,000-circulation Orange County Jewish Heritage, a weekly newspaper.

The Iraqi dictator was left free to cause more trouble, Brin said, “because [of] a really stupid decision of our military and political leadership calling off the Gulf War a day early.”

Brin viewed the Clinton administration’s decision to launch cruise missiles at selected air defense targets such as Iraqi radar installations as “sending a warning,” but “my view is nothing is going to stop Saddam, except stopping him.”

The endless debate over what should have been done in the Gulf War finds no unanimity.

“We could have gone in,” said George Giacumakis, a professor of Middle East history and the director of Cal State Fullerton’s Mission Viejo campus. “But that’s always a gamble because we could have had a tremendous amount of destruction and civilian casualties and that could have backfired. . . . [Then-President George] Bush did the right thing.”

Others, like Ron Prince, a consultant on Iraqi-Kurdish relations, spoke of the human toll taken by Iraqi forces during the invasion of Irbil.

“I think it’s horrible,” Prince said, who recently returned from Irbil. “These Kurds are pro-American, yet they’ve been at a loss, stuck in between Baghdad on one side and the American embargo on the other.”

For 10 years, Prince has worked as a consultant to various employers interested in the Middle East, including the New York-based Freedom House, an organization with a congressional grant to promote democracy for the Kurds in northern Iraq.

Of the three Kurdish employees who worked at the Freedom House office in Irbil, one was missing, another was taken by Iraqi troops and the third was shot and wounded, Prince said.

“OK, so Iraqi troops have withdrawn, the damage is done,” Prince said.

Dr. Fouad Darweesh, a family physician from Fullerton, said that the numbers of Kurdish Americans living in the United States is very small, though growing aware of their voice.

“We’re trying to remind the American people and United States leaders to do as much as possible to try and stop the tragedy against Kurds,” said Darweesh, vice president of the Kurdish National Congress of North America. “If we leave this to the terrorists like Hussein, it can be genocide.”

With the U.S. embargo against Iraq, the estimated 20 million Kurds in the Kurdistan region suffer more than most Iraqis because they have more trouble getting food, mail, and other basic items because of Hussein’s wrath.

“For decades, we have been ignoring this issue,” Darweesh said. “We really don’t have a clear-cut policy and we when there are terrorist attacks, we react. I would like to see us have a proactive plan and be decisive.”

According to Giacumakis, after World War I the Allies who defeated Germany had promised the Kurds that they would have their own state, but it never happened.

“There has been turmoil ever since,” he said. “The Kurds live there but they do not have any kind of political voice, especially in northern Iraq because there’s oil in that area and the Arab government under Hussein doesn’t recognize their rights to that area.”