e, indeed, having a devastating effect on Iraq’s economy, for two basic reasons. The Iraqi economy is based on oil, which accounts for about 50 percent of the country’s GNP and almost 100 percent of the country’s hard currency earnings. International sanctions had cut off more than 90 percent of Iraq’s imports, and almost 100 percent of Iraq’s exports, including virtually all of Iraqi oil exports (Dudley 79). The Bush administration countered that if we wait for sanctions to work, Kuwait will further be victimized.According to Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, the Bush administration had begun planning for a shift to the strategic offensive soon after the crisis began. (41). General Powell presented President Bush with two courses of action. One was to build up for the offense. The second was to give the sanctions time to work. The president was noncommittal. “I don’t think there’s time politically for the second strategy to work” (Qtd. In Woodward 42). By November 1990, President Bush announced thatthe U.S. Military Strategy in the Gulf would undergo a fundamental change. Almost forty years Since it had been abandoned, President Bush put the American military back on the strategic offensive:In three months, the U.S. troop contribution to the multinational force in Saudi Arabia has gone from 10,000 to 230,000 as part of Operation Desert Shield. General Schwarzkoff reports that our forces, in conjunction with other coalition forces now have the ability to defend successfully against any further Iraqi aggression. After consultation with King Fahd and our other allies, I have today directed the Secretary of Defense to increase the size of U.S. forces Committed to Desert Shield to ensure that the coalition has an adequate offensive military option should that be necessary to achieve our common goals (President George Bush, November 8, 1990). The decision to go to war was ...
