I say I think so, because I haven’t read it yet, which is often considered a prerequisite for saying something intelligent about a book. However, I have read an extract that appeared in Politico Magazine, claiming that Bush 41 launched the first invasion of Iraq in 1991 out of moral revulsion, not realpolitik.
Around Christmas that year, Bush became deeply disturbed by an Amnesty International report on the brutalities of the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. He cited it frequently, offering it as evidence in support of his moral case for war. The Right Reverend Edmond Browning, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States, called at the White House to urge peace. An unusually passionate president handed Browning a copy of the Amnesty International report, then peppered the bishop with questions. In light of such systemic terror, “Now what do we do about peace?” Bush asked. “How do we handle it when these people are being raped?” His growing determination led him to one of his rare open avowals of the price he was willing to pay to remove Saddam from Kuwait. “If I don’t get the votes” in Congress for war, Bush remarked to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Robert Gates one day in the Oval Office, “I’m going to do it anyway. And if I get impeached, so be it.”
Nowhere in this “passionate” discussion does Meacham acknowledge that, as the historical record clearly shows, the Bush Administration had given Saddam Hussain “permission” to take part of Kuwait—just not the whole thing. So I guess a few rapes would be okay, but not, you know, a lot. Just prior to Saddam’s invasion, Bush’s ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, told Saddam in a personal interview that the U.S. desired a “deeper, broader” relationship with Iraq, said deeper, broader relationship including a willingness of the part of the U.S. to look the other way while Saddam took a piece, but only a piece, of Kuwait.
It’s also worth pointing out that this desire for a “deeper, broader” relationship existed after the notorious Halaba Massacre of March 16, 1988, when Saddam’s troops murdered over 3,000 Kurds, and injured thousands more, regarded as the worst instance of chemical weapons use against civilians in recorded history. Where was George’s “passion” then?
That’s not the only thing that sucks about Meacham’s book. Jim Kelly, reviewing Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush for the New York Times, notes that Meacham quotes Bush’s disgust at losing the 1992 presidential election to a “draft dodger” without remarking that oldest son George dodged the draft as well and that Jeb, coming of age in a draft-free environment, was able to pass on military service entirely.
