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February 28, 1991
Bush Halts Offensive Combat; Kuwait Freed, Iraqis Crushed
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By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
ashington -- Declaring that "Kuwait is liberated" and Iraq's army defeated, President Bush ordered allied forces on Wednesday night to suspend offensive military operations against President Saddam Hussein's isolated and battered army.
Mr. Bush said the suspension, which began at midnight Eastern time, would continue as long as Iraq did not attack allied forces or launch missile attacks on any other country. In an address from the Oval Office that was televised around the world at 9 P.M. Eastern time, he called on Mr. Hussein to send his commanders to meet with allied officers in the war zone within 48 hours to settle the military terms of a permanent cease-fire.
For such a cease-fire to be approved, he said, Iraq must comply with all 12 United Nations resolutions concerning Kuwait, including measures calling for Iraq to void its annexation of the territory and agree in principle to pay reparations to Kuwait and other countries. Iraq must also free all prisoners of war and detained Kuwaiti citizens, and give the allies the location of all land and sea mines that Iraq had laid in the region, Mr. Bush said. No Official Word From Iraq
Administration officials said they had received no authoritative response from the Iraqi Government. At the United Nations, Soviet diplomats said Iraq had submitted a letter signaling its willingness to comply with all 12 resolutions adopted by the Security Council. But the letter did not say whether Baghdad was willing to comply with the rest of Mr. Bush's demands, including the freeing of Kuwaiti civilians seized in recent days.
[Text of the letter, page A10. ]
Pentagon officials said this morning there were no reports of renewed Iraqi attacks on allied positions. Speaking in a solemn voice, President Bush said: "This war is now behind us.
Ahead of us is the difficult task of securing a potentially historic peace."
He seemed to invite the citizens of Iraq to overthrow the man who had defied the assembled military and political power of the international alliance. "Coalition forces fought this war only as a last resort," Mr. Bush said, "and look foward to the day when Iraq is led by people prepared to live in peace with their neighbors." Unusually Low Casualties
Mr. Bush, who had staked his Presidency on being able to resolve a crisis that had shattered the post-cold war calm and led to the largest single American military offensive since World War II, declared an end to the war in his third nationally televised speech from the Oval Office since Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2.
To arrive at the point where he was able to declare victory last night, Mr. Bush had to command what military experts said was one of the largest combat operations ever conducted with such low casualties, counter political opposition at home and navigate the shoals of diplomacy complicated by last- minute Soviet peace ventures that plainly irritated the President and his war council.
"At midnight tonight, Eastern standard time, exactly 100 hours since ground operations commenced and six weeks since the start of Operation Desert Storm, all United States and coalition forces will suspend offensive combat operations," Mr. Bush said.
Mr. Bush did not say when he would start bringing American troops home. Marlin Fitzwater, his spokesman, said late Wednesday night that there was no specific timetable, but added: "We'll measure it in days, not weeks. Clearly, the President wants to start the withdrawal as soon as possible."
Within hours after Mr. Bush spoke, the United States, Iraq and the Soviet Union each tried to gain control of the public relations of peace with messages directed at their domestic political audiences.
Baghdad Radio defiantly proclaimed Iraq's triumph over "the forces of evil" and Soviet diplomats at the United Nations said that it was Iraq's promises to heed the United Nations resolutions, delivered through Moscow's intercession, that had prompted Mr. Bush to give his speech.
Senior White House officials insisted that Mr. Bush knew nothing of the reported letter of agreement from Iraq when he went on television Wednesday night. Mr. Fitzwater said the speech was motivated in part by a desire to assure the families of military personnel that they would soon be coming home.
The President, who had brushed aside Iraq's last attempt to win a cease-fire on favorable terms earlier in the day, said: "Iraq's Army is defeated. Our military objectives are met. Kuwait is once more in the hands of Kuwaitis in control of their own destiny.
"The Kuwaiti flag once again flies above the capital of a free and sovereign nation, and the American flag flies above our embassy," Mr. Bush said.
Baker to Go to Mideast
After seven months of holding together a disparate international coalition and rallying American public opinion with the promise that he would not allow the Persian Gulf crisis to become another Vietnam, Mr. Bush said he was sending Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d to the Middle East to "look beyond victory and war" and to "meet the challenging of securing the peace."
Mr. Bush's speech capped a six-week allied military offensive against Iraq in which fewer than 100 Americans were killed, according to the latest report today from the Pentagon, and whose swiftness astonished even the President's war council.
He spoke only a few hours after his commander in the Persian Gulf, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, described the last major battle of the war, between allied armored divisions and Iraq's Republican Guard, the last remants of what had been Mr. Hussein's huge military machine, near the southern Iraqi city of Basra. A Balancing Position
Mr. Bush's speech, scheduled less than three hours before it was delivered, seemed to represent a balancing of the American position, that Iraq should not get off too easily, with mounting international pressures to stop the assaults on an obviously defeated army.
Reflecting those pressures, Mr. Bush said: "In the future, as before, we will consult with our coalition partners. We've already done a good deal of thinking and planning for the postwar period."
He said: "There can be and will be no solely American answer to all these challenges, but we can assist and support the countries of the region and be a catalyst for peace."
With Mr. Hussein still in power in Baghdad, the declaration of victory left major political and diplomatic issues ahead, including the question of a postwar role for Iraq in the region, the durability of Mr. Hussein himself and the inevitable pressure on the United States to take a leading role in resolving the so-far intractable Middle East problems to which the Administration is now turning its attention, including the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Jubilation in Washington
Mr. Bush's speech produced jubilation in Washington. Residents streamed to the gates of the White House, waving small American flags, and drivers honked their horns as they passed by along Pennsylvania Avenue.
Senator George J. Mitchell, the majority leader, said, "All Americans rejoice at the news that our servicemen and women may soon be returning home." He added, "Our hearts go out to the families who have suffered the loss of loved ones in this effort."
The Speaker of the House, Thomas S. Foley, said: "The majority in Congress voted to give the President the authority, and he has taken that authority and I think conducted this operation brilliantly. And we can all be deeply grateful that the casualties have been so low and the victory has come so fast."
Mr. Bush's declaration of victory was the climactic moment in a crisis that began in the early hours of Aug. 2, when a huge Iraqi armored column swept into sparsely-defended Kuwait. It followed the breakdown of negotiations over Mr. Hussein's demands for territorial concessions and financial payments in return for his eight-year war against Iran.Rallied Coalition, Choked Iraq
Startling the world with the swiftness of his response, Mr. Bush began sending American soldiers to the Middle East six days later, a deployment that quickly surpassed even that of Vietnam. He rallied a coalition that revived the moribund Security Council, with the crucial help of the Soviet Union, and began choking Baghdad with a series of economic sanctions enforced by allied naval power.
As diplomacy faltered and sanctions failed to drive Iraq out of Kuwait, Mr. Bush doubled the American force in October, until there were more than a half- million allied forces in Saudi Arabia. In late November, the allies gave Mr. Hussein a final ultimatum: Get out of Kuwait by Jan. 15 or face war.
An offer for direct talks with Baghdad floundered in diplomatic brinksmanship and Mr. Bush sent allied warplanes into combat on Jan. 16. For six weeks, they poured an unequalled rain of explosives onto Iraqi communications networks and military positions until, judging that Iraq's forces were ripe for the kill, Mr. Bush unleashed the ground offensive last Saturday night.
Before Mr. Bush spoke, it had been a day for optimistic predictions of victory, tough talk against Iraq and the back-and-forth struggle of diplomacy and semantics between Washington and Baghdad. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, speaking to the American Legion yesterday afternoon, said, "It looks like what's happened is that the mother of all battles has turned into the mother of all retreats."'He Was Pretty Serious'
In his office Wednesday night, Marlin Fitzwater, Mr. Bush's spokesman, said the President had not been strongly encouraged by a 2:30 P.M. briefing from his military advisers. "He was pretty serious and concerned," Mr. Fitzwater said.
"He had just rejected the Iraqi offer complying with three of the resolutions. That didn't seem like such a good sign in spite of the fact of what was happening on the battlefield. But as it became more and more clear that the fighting was over and that the military objectives were met, the President's spirits improved considerably."
The President asked his military advisers when he could tell the American people that the shooting had stopped and that the troops were going to come home. "I'd like to do it tonight," Mr. Fitzwater quoted Mr. Bush as saying.
The President decided to speak on Wednesday night because he was assured by his advisors, Mr. Fitzwater said, "that the military backbone of Iraq was broken."
"As a fighting force, it was over for them," Mr. Fitzwater said. "The President wanted to tell the American people at the earliest possible moment and to tell the families that their children, husbands and wives were out of harm's way. His advisers talked about tommorrow, and he said, 'What about tonight?' "Arranging 'a Solid Peace'
Gen. Colin L. Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, replied, "I think we can do that," Mr. Fitzwater said.
"The message here was we've won the war and we've now got to go through the arrangements for a solid peace," he said.
As usual, Mr. Bush had consultations with his allies, speaking to President Francois Mitterrand of France in the morning and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney of Canada, who has emerged as perhaps his closest confidant among foreign leaders, in the evening. He also spoke with the British Prime Minister, John Major.
Mr. Baker and Brent Scowcroft, the President's national security adviser, called other allies to tell them of the President's decision and Mr. Baker had an extensive discussion with Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd of Britain.
Mr. Fitzwater said the allies had been solidly behind the President for not accepting the Iraqis' last attempt at winning a cease-fire and had not been under pressure to call an end to the fighting. No Calls to Gorbachev
Notably absent from Mr. Bush's round of calls was President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who had made a failed attempt at mediating peace before the ground war began.
Wednesday began with a message to the United Nations from Baghdad in which Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz of Iraq said his Government, which had promised to heed the United Nations resolution requiring its withdrawal from Kuwait, now "agrees to abide" by two other resolutions. One would nullify Iraq's annexation of the occupied sheikdom, and the other would require Baghdad to pay war reparations.
Mr. Aziz also said Iraq would release all prisoners of war "within a very short time." But he conditioned these promises on a cease-fire enforced by the United Nations and on the lifting of all economic sanctions imposed on Baghdad after the invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2.
The alliance held out for Iraq's unconditional acceptance of all 12 United Nations resolutions, the continuation of sanctions beyond the war, and the surrender of all Iraqi tanks and other weapons. Official statements had made it clear that the coalition had political and military aims beyond driving the Iraqis out of Kuwait.
Mr. Cheney said, "Even after we've achieved our military objectives, even after we've destroyed his offensive military capability and expelled his forces from Kuwait, liberated Kuwait, the world will still be vitally interested in the future course of events with respect to the kinds of activities and policies pursued by the Government in Baghdad."
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