The Gulf War of 1991 Reconsidered

Andrew J. Bacevich, Efraim Inbar, Andrew J. Bacevich, Efraim Inbar

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135318017
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Militär- & Seefahrtsgeschichte

The Gulf War of 1991 Reconsidered subjects one of the formative events of the post-Cold War era and a watershed in Middle Eastern international politics to a comprehensive reassessment. Condidering events from Arab, Israeli and American view points, the book examines the Gulf War's historical origins, conduct and legacy.

Part I

Prelude to Desert Storm

1

Arms Transfers to Iran and Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War of 1980–88 and the Origins of the Gulf War

Michael T. Klare

Between 1981 and 1988, during the Iran–Iraq War, Iran and Iraq together purchased $65 billion of conventional weaponry from external sources.¹ Along with Saudi Arabia and a handful of other countries, Iran and Iraq were among the leading recipients of imported munitions during this period, jointly accounting for 22 per cent of all arms transfers to the developing world.² Included in the weapons supplied to Iran and Iraq during these years were many types of advanced combat systems, including fighter aircraft, attack helicopters, tanks, heavy artillery pieces and armored personnel carriers.³ In addition, both belligerents acquired technology and materials for the manufacture of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons along with ballistic missile delivery systems. Indeed, it is hard to think of any other major conflict in which the principal belligerents were able to acquire such a wide array of weapons and technology from the outside world.

There are many aspects of the arms trade with Iran and Iraq during this period that deserve careful study. Much can be said, for example, about the political and economic arrangements devised by the two belligerents to acquire weapons from external sources – in some cases, from identical sources. Likewise, much can be said about the interests and motives of the supplying countries in providing these weapons to one or both of the belligerents.⁴ Of equal interest is the impact of particular arms deliveries on the conduct of the war itself. However, this chapter will concentrate on those aspects of the arms trade to Iran and Iraq in 1980–88 that had a direct bearing on the events of 1990–91.

These are:

1. The empowerment of Iraq. Many factors contributed to Iraq’s military successes in the latter part of the Iran–Iraq War, but one of the most significant was the fact that Iraq was able to import approximately three times as much weaponry (when measured in dollar terms) during this period as was Iran.⁵ Iraq was also more successful than Iran in obtaining relatively sophisticated weapons from foreign sources, giving it a further advantage in combat power. As a result, Iraq emerged from the 1980–88 conflict with a large and well-equipped military force in fact, one of the largest and best–equipped forces in the developing world. As will be argued here, the possession of all this weaponry helped to generate the confidence with which Saddam Hussein initiated the invasion and occupation of Kuwait in August 1990.
2. The impoverishment of Iraq. Although massive arms purchases by Iraq in 1981–88 contributed to its battlefield successes against Iran and endowed the country with a very powerful military establishment, they also depleted the nation’s treasury and forced Baghdad to borrow billions of dollars from foreign lenders. Thus, when the Iran–Iraq War ended and Iraq faced the monumental task of rebuilding its shattered infrastructure, it faced the unpleasant task of paying back its various creditors. This created significant political problems for Saddam Hussein, in that any payments he made to outside creditors would deprive him of the resources he needed to satisfy the desire of his constituents to see some benefits for their enormous sacrifices during the war itself.
3. Iraq’s quarrel with Kuwait. Of Iraq’s various creditors during the Iran–Iraq War, Kuwait was one of the most significant. According to some estimates, Kuwait lent Iraq some $10 billion for military purchases during the 1980–88 conflict.⁶ These sums were evidently provided to Baghdad with the tacit understanding that Iraq was defending the lower Gulf Arab states against the revolutionaries in Tehran. Hence, when the war was over and Iran was defeated, Saddam Hussein had some reason to believe that the loans would be forgiven as a reward for Iraq’s great sacrifices in the common struggle. When this proved not to be the case, Saddam became furious at the Kuwaiti leadership and began making preparations to address this problem through extraordinary and irregular means.
4. America’s embrace of Saddam Hussein. Although the United States did not directly arm Iraq in 1980–88, it facilitated Iraq’s arms buildup in several ways: by permitting its allies in the region to transfer their own US-supplied weapons to Iraq; by allowing Iraq to acquire civilian products in the United States that could be used for military purposes (such as heavy trucks and helicopters); and by awarding agricultural credits to Iraq that were used to acquire military technology. The United States also sought to discourage its allies from providing weapons to Iran – an endeavor known as Operation Staunch – while encouraging them to sell to Iraq. These moves were described at the time as expressions of a US ‘tilt’ towards Iraq (or, more accurately, as a desire to contain revolutionary Iran, then viewed as the greater threat to US interests in the Gulf). To what degree this led Saddam Hussein to conclude that he could invade Kuwait without risk of intervention by the United States cannot be known, but it must have been a factor in his overall calculations.

When connected, these four points suggest that arms sales to Iran and Iraq during 1980–88 played a significant role in setting the stage for the Gulf War of 1990–91. But before developing this argument further, supporting data will be provided for each of these four points.

The Empowerment of Iraq

The Iran–Iraq War of 1980–88 was the longest interstate conflict of the twentieth century, and one of the bloodiest. According to conservative estimates, the two belligerents jointly suffered 367,000 dead and over 700,000 wounded during the war. Both sides also experienced substantial physical devastation, entailing the destruction of cities, roads, bridges, refineries and other forms of infrastructure. The destruction of both human life and materials was the product of a war in which both parties fought one major battle after another in an unrelenting effort to achieve a decisive victory.

At the war’s onset in 1980, both belligerents possessed substantial quantities of major weapons. Iran had been a major recipient of US arms during the 1970s, under the reign of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. (This relationship was terminated in January 1980, when the Shah fled Iran and the country came under the control of radical Shi’ite clerics.) Iraq, meanwhile, had established a significant arms-supply relationship with France and the Soviet Union.⁷ As a result, both parties entered the conflict with a wide array of modern combat systems – tanks, artillery, aircraft and so on. These included, for Iran, M-48, M-60 and Chieftain tanks, F-4, F-5 and F-14 fighter planes, and AH-IS helicopter gunships; for Iraq, they included T-54/55, T-62, T-72 and AMX-30 tanks, MiG-21 and MiG-23 fighters and Mi-24 helicopter gunships.⁸

Almost from the beginning, the two sides committed major forces to the military contest, producing intense battles that claimed many lives and resulted in the rapid attrition of existing arms supplies.⁹ In the intense air and ground campaigns of January 1983, for example, Iraq is believed to have lost 80 combat aircraft and Iran 55.¹⁰ To sustain the fighting, therefore, it quickly became necessary for both belligerents to obtain fresh military supplies from external sources. (Although both Iran and Iraq at that time possessed some capacity to manufacture small arms and light weapons, they lacked the capacity to manufacture tanks, aircraft and other heavy weapons.) The procurement of arms from abroad thus became a major consideration in the military planning of Iran and Iraq.¹¹

The fact that both parties to the conflict required large quantities of fresh weaponry gave external suppliers considerable influence over the course of the war: by favoring one side or the other in their collective deliveries, they could help decide which belligerent would enjoy the advantage in military firepower; by denying arms to a particular belligerent, moreover, they would weaken that side’s capacity to undertake major offensives. That the major suppliers, particularly the United States, France and the Soviet Union, chose to employ this leverage for their own national purposes is beyond dispute.¹²

In the early stages of the war, when Iraqi forces invaded and occupied Iranian territory and Iran sought to mobilize sufficient strength to push the Iraqis out, the major suppliers remained neutral in the conflict and refrained from major deliveries to either side. However, when Iran invaded Iraq in July 1982, the attitudes of the suppliers underwent a significant change. The United States, which feared the ascendancy of revolutionary Iran, began to aid Iraq in a variety of direct and indirect ways (Washington was also angry at Iran for the 1980 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran and the subsequent hostage crisis). France, which had established close ties with Saddam Hussein – and was owed considerable sums for the transfer of weaponry – sought to bolster Iraqi defenses. And the Soviet Union, which also feared the aggressive posture of Iran, joined the United States and France in aiding Iraq. A number of other suppliers (including Israel and North Korea) chose to align with Iran at this time, but Iraq became the principal beneficiary of external arms flows.¹³

Over the eight-year course of the war, both the United States and the Soviet Union chose to supply Iran with weapons at certain moments. In Washington’s case, this was part of an attempt in 1985 to win the release of US hostages in Lebanon and to curry favor with (supposedly) moderate clerics in Tehran – an initiative known to us today as the Iran-Contra Affair.¹⁴ Similarly, Moscow sought to gain favor with Iran’s new rulers early in the conf...