Victory which turned into a disaster
Early in the morning of August 2, 1990, the residents of the Kuwaiti capital were awakened by the crack of machine gun bursts, and the close explosions of shells and bombs. Iraqi entered the city, clanging caterpillars Tanks.Without giving his people a proper way to move away from the war with Iran that lasted for eight years, the Baghdad ruler pulled the country into a new adventure. Neither Saddam nor anyone else in the world knew then that a victorious campaign against Kuwait would result in complete defeat for Baghdad, would be the beginning of the end of the Iraqi state and would cost the lives of both the dictator himself and tens of thousands of citizens of this country.
It took Saddam's troops less than two days to fully occupy Kuwait, although some centers of resistance were suppressed only by the end of August 6. It took about the same amount of time to clear Kuwait of the invaders by the forces of the anti-Iraq coalition led by the United States after 7 months.
In the postwar stories there are quite a few events that the overwhelming majority of states would condemn with such unanimity. The UN Security Council adopted the 12 resolutions relating to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, including resolution No. 678 of November 29 of 1990 of the year permitting the use of military force against Baghdad. The Soviet Union supported anti-Iraq resolutions, although it was always a supporter of a political settlement of the Gulf crisis.
Saddam Hussein tried to reason with him many times - to convince him to withdraw his troops from Kuwait. However, the Iraqi ruler was deaf to all reasonable arguments. He did not believe that they would use force against him.
17 January 1991, as part of Operation Storm in the Desert, began an air attack by multinational forces based on American forces. For one and a half months, Iraq was subjected to massed rocket-bombing attacks on headquarters, command and control centers, communications centers, missile positions, air bases, as well as the main military and industrial infrastructure, units and formations of the Iraqi army.
IN AMMAN EVERYTHING IS QUIETLY
In mid-February, the Red Star received a letter from the Iraqi embassy in Moscow, announcing readiness to receive two journalists of the newspaper in Baghdad “for objective coverage of events related to the American aggression”. It was decided together with me to send to Baghdad our photojournalist Alexei Efimov, a reliable, sociable man who went through the fire, water and copper pipes of all the hot spots at that time. Then suddenly the authorities decided that I should go to Iraq alone. I thought, and still remain in my opinion, that it is better to make “walks” to the war at least together.
Yuriy Tegin, my institute comrade, with whom we studied together at the University in the same language group, gladly responded to the offer to make me a company. At that time he worked at the Institute of Military History. In addition to his other virtues, Yura undoubtedly possessed extraordinary penetrating abilities, expressed in the ability to convince his bosses, as well as valuable connections in the Ministry of Defense and the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee, which helped to quickly resolve the issue of financing the trip and arranging our official passports. Yurin talents are very useful this time, especially when force majeure circumstances arise.
The planes did not fly to Baghdad, and they had to travel to Iraq through Jordan. I have been in the Hashemite Kingdom before, still working as a UN military observer in the Middle East. There were also familiar diplomats from the apparatus of the military attache. We hoped for their help, naively believing that it would be as easy to get to Baghdad as to solve a problem from a school textbook about two cars, starting to meet each other from two different points to meet in the third. We just expected: to get from Amman to the Iraqi border with one of our own, and then transfer to a car sent to meet us from Baghdad. Moreover, the editorial office promised us to contact those leaders who would give orders to the military attaches to assist us.It turned out, however, almost according to Leo Tolstoy, when a dynamically changing operational environment and new intelligence data completely negate the initial battle plan, and the chosen disposition is not suitable for anything. It turned out that no one gave us any instructions about us, and when we shared our plans with our comrades in Amman, we were looked at as two, to put it mildly, not quite adequate people.
“Yes, are you guys,” we were told, “to drive a car from Baghdad to Rabut under bombs, almost 700 miles and then go back, and even with the severe gasoline shortage there, only to deliver two journalists?” In addition, if in peacetime the Jordanian and Iraqi checkpoints on the border were almost next to each other, now they have been spread by 70 kilometers!
Anyway, the guys from the military attache apparatuses helped us a lot in Amman and in Baghdad. Without any instructions from above.
Of course, it was possible to hire someone from the desperate taxi drivers (there were those) who were ready to risk their heads in order to cross 600 for over a kilometer along the “road of death” connecting Baghdad to the Jordanian border. By the way, many journalists, primarily foreign ones, did just that. But for such a pleasure it was necessary to pay no less than 2 thousand dollars. Ours with Tagin finance would hardly be enough to get to the Jordanian border.
With the start of the air operation, Amman became the capital of the front-line state, which, moreover, supported the aggressor, but outwardly almost did not change. Unless there were more armed policemen on the streets and concrete blocks that blocked access to government offices, foreign embassies.
The day of the Soviet army coincided immediately with two other events: the end of the air operation, more precisely, its transition to a ground operation and the assignment of another military rank of lieutenant colonel to me. The new stars, as expected, were washed, which is why the volume of the report that went to Moscow the next day was noticeably reduced.
Local media did not enjoy the abundance of this very information. But we were really lucky when we managed to meet with our ambassador to Jordan, Yuri Stepanovich Gryadanov. The conversation with him dragged on for three hours.
TRADER FOR SADDAM
Yuri Stepanovich believed that the real causes of the conflict in the Persian Gulf are much more profound in nature than just the discontent of Saddam Hussein with the behavior of the Emir of Kuwait Al-Sabah. His refusal to forgive Baghdad 1980 – 1988-years accumulated during the Iran-Iraq war exceeded 14 billion dollars and pay 2,5 billion more in compensation for the alleged “theft” of Iraqi oil using technology Oblique drilling really really pissed Saddam off. However, the insults of the Baghdad dictator in Kuwait were more likely to cause an attack.
The true causes of the conflict are primarily related to the fundamental changes in the region and in the world as a whole, which began with the Iranian revolution of the end of the 1970s. Anti-monarchical, anti-imperialist and anti-American, it shook the foundations of the region’s previous order, changed the geopolitical alignment. Iran from yesterday’s strategic ally of the West has become one of its main opponents. Tehran left CENTO, liquidated foreign military bases, tore up military and civilian contracts. Of particular concern was the possibility of exporting the Islamic revolution. Iran has become a real threat to US strategic allies in the face of Israel and the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf. Iran needed to be urgently stopped, to put a barrier in its path.
The role of "terminator" best suited Saddam Hussein. His personal qualities were taken into account: heightened self-esteem and painful ambition, as well as the traditional hatred of the Sunni elite of Iraq to Shiite Iran, Baghdad’s hopes to press down Iran, slaughtering part of its territory for itself, taking advantage of the weakness of a post-revolutionary state. Many high-ranking officials and the military were removed, arrested, and even executed by revolutionaries. In place of experienced personnel in the army came the youth. Particularly trying American intelligence, which did not get tired of throwing Saddam with falsified evidence that the Arabs of the southern Iranian Iraqi border province of Khuzestan can’t wait for “wise Saddam” to “rid them of Iranian slavery”. The Iran-Iraq war began with Khuzestan.
Almost immediately, money from rich Arab monarchies and mountains weapons and the latest technology from Western countries. They flirted with Saddam, he was extolled to the skies, closing his eyes to the arrests and torture of oppositionists, including the communists, the use of poisonous substances against the Kurds and other tricks of the new Nebuchadnezzar. In Washington, he was called "our strong man in Baghdad." It was only during 1985 – 1990 that the US government issued 771 permission to export the latest technologies to Iraq, including the means to create weapons of mass destruction. The country was accelerated into a regional superpower, which could guaranteedly restrain the spread of the Islamic revolution.
And such a superpower appeared. But it turned out that, sensing the strength of the pumped muscles, Baghdad began to gradually get out of control. Saddam Hussein began to show stubbornness, intractability, and even openly rebelled. From Baghdad, more and more threats have been heard to wipe Israel out of the earth or transparent hints that it would be a good idea to redistribute the oil wealth of Arab sheiks more equitably. Saddam increasingly became a threat to the West and the Gulf countries. Moor, who did his job, now had to die.
The combination in which Iraq fell into a trap did not even need to be invented. The ruler of Baghdad created it himself; all he had to do was help him a little. And such assistance was not long in coming. 25 July 1990, that is, 5 days before Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, US Ambassador to Baghdad April Glasby said that her task was to develop friendly relations with Iraq, and Washington was not interested in territorial disputes with Kuwait. Saddam took these words as a sign that Washington will not interfere in the Arab "disassembly". After the Anschluss of Kuwait, Ambassador Glasby as the 19 of the Iraqi province “left” very quickly into the shadows, and Saddam continued to believe that the USA would not touch him until the start of Operation Desert Storm.
LONG ROAD TO BAGHDAD
We left Amman on the first passenger bus the very next day after the 28 of February, the Americans announced that they were stopping not only air, but also land operations.
The driver circled the city for a long time, stopping at some shops. The interior of the back of the bus and the passage between the seats were quickly filled with bags of flour, sugar, rice, pasta, plastic bottles of drinking water. At the same time, the hump on the roof was growing. Automobile wheels, gas canisters, some boxes, suitcases, bales were sent there. In bombed Iraq, everything was needed. The driver was clearly not in a hurry, doing his small business and calculating the time in such a way as to arrive at the border exactly at midnight.
Finally, already in deep twilight, we leave Amman in the direction of the Iraqi border. The driver cut the music at full volume so as not to fall asleep. Sometimes, on straight sections of the road, he got up from the driver’s seat, throwing the steering wheel for a few seconds and, as if dancing, took a couple of steps to the front door in order to loudly slap his hand, to eliminate the gap, and at the same time cheer up and stretch his legs. He had to drive a car for nearly a thousand kilometers alone, without a mate.
“Look, do not talk too much - the Iraqis are very angry now,” the driver told us with Yura in a low voice when we arrived at the Iraqi checkpoint.
It is clear that there were no reasons for joy for the Iraqis, but we did not feel any special “anger” towards us, the two Soviet journalists. But besides the raid of fatigue, usual for night workers, the faces of Iraqi customs officers and border guards were stamped with some kind of emptiness, offended by the pride of the people who had suffered a cruel defeat, mixed with anger at their enemies.
After passing the borderline formalities of passengers diminished. A few people — these were Palestinians — for reasons unknown to us and, possibly, to themselves, were removed from the flight.
The bus gently rolled the tires along the very “road of death” along which the pilots of the anti-Iraq coalition had recently hunted for everything that was moving or standing still. Occasionally on the bends, the headlights were snatching out of thick darkness the worn out trusses of radio relay masts, the ruins of some buildings, the remains of burnt trucks.
HUMOROUS MORNING
The dawn of the next day was foggy. After Rumadi, they crossed the Euphrates along the pontoon bridge, it can be seen, most recently induced by sappers alongside the old, broken and semi-drowned. Now, Baghdad is close at hand, but the closer to the Iraqi capital, the more often military posts come across. Barely glancing at the blue service passports with the emblem of the USSR, we are allowed to stay on the ground. The rest of the men are taken out and lined up facing the bus board for checking documents. At the entrance to Baghdad, the tank soldiers in the liquid shadow of the palm trees hang laundry on the barrel of a tank gun.
In Iraq, I have not been 15 for years. This was my first “abroad”, where I was sent for an internship in the third year of the Institute. In what countries the fate would have thrown then, unwittingly compared them with the first one. We were treated by Soviet people very well. A country with huge oil reserves predicted brilliant prospects.
Peering into the streets of the city. In Baghdad, many have built a new, and now a lot destroyed. We drive past the site, unevenly covered with concrete brick stitched. On the edge of it stands an iron tower, almost leaning to the ground, all hung with, like a Christmas tree, antennas and repeaters. So, the military managed to stick this tower into the thick of residential buildings. No matter how Americans boasted of their “smart” and high-precision weapons, it was still not possible to avoid the destruction of residential buildings. Aiming at the repeaters, the Americans at the same time demolished a dozen houses where, apparently, far from the richest Iraqis lived.
We bombed most of the bridges across the Tigris, including the suspended one, as we called it "Krymsky", for its similarity to its Moscow "namesake." But not far from him in 1970-e located the apparatus of the main Soviet military adviser in Iraq. We are driving through the glass "cube" of some newcomer, "with a needle," buildings with steel ribs turned out to the outside. Many of the letters on the facade are torn off, but you can also guess from the rest that this was the Ministry of Communications. It can be seen, one cruise missile flew into the building at the level of the fourth and fifth floors, the other - from the opposite side, a little lower, and there they rushed inside.
From the bus station on foot we reach the hotel "Rashid", which has become a shelter for journalists from around the world. At the entrance there is a rug with the image of George Bush Sr., so that everyone who comes in wipes his feet on the portrait of the hated American president. Though not on the battlefield, this was the way to humiliate the hated American president.
During the war, not a single bomb or a rocket of the Allies fell on the “Rashid”, although “smart ammunition”, just a few hundred meters away, like a house of cards, laid down a gray bulk of the pompous palace of congresses. Many journalists climbed to the roof of the hotel to watch the flights of cruise missiles circling over the city right next to the hotel. Nevertheless, the spacious hotel grounds with a luxurious garden are dotted with twisted small arms bullets. From it, the Iraqis fired planes and cruise missiles. Having lost their destructive power somewhere high in the sky, pieces of lead fell to the ground, returning this same force to themselves due to acceleration, which, according to the well-known law of physics, is equal to 9,8 m in a “square” second. Such a bullet fell on someone's head - it will not find it.
Among the Rashid guests were their “veterans” who worked in Baghdad from the very beginning of the conflict until the end of Operation Desert Storm, and real TV stars such as Peter Arnet from CNN. Compared to us, foreign journalists arrive fully “packed”, equipped with the latest technology at the time from computers to cell phones. TV crews come in whole caravans. Several cars are carrying equipment, food, water, gasoline. Everything you need for fully "autonomous swimming." Quickly deploy satellite antenna, "umbrella" and begin to work, as they say from the wheels. True, under the strict control of the Iraqi authorities. Losing information war completely, they carefully checked that the footage did not inadvertently disclose any military secrets and, in general, that there was no sedition.
With the onset of darkness, the city plunges into darkness. Power stations are destroyed, sewage treatment plants do not work, Baghdad is threatened with epidemics. People move around the hotel with pocket torches or candles. Even in the “Rashid” cold, mixed with sand, water from the Tiger is served only for an hour and a half a day and in the evening. It is necessary to have time to take an invigorating shower, do something and then take some water in the bath for technical needs.
"THE CANDLES OF THE CAPTALS ARE ON."
One evening, our diplomats from the military attache's office came after us to the hotel, took them to the embassy where they lived during Operation Desert Storm. When I asked whether there were any magazines and newspapers during this period, I received an unexpected answer. Waving his hand in the direction of the embassy corridor, through which drafts walked, one of the diplomats said: “Come into any office and everything that you find from the press will be yours. The papers that had to be destroyed were burnt long ago, so do not be shy. ”
During the war in Baghdad, along with Ambassador Viktor Viktorovich Posuvalyuk, 17 people remained - diplomats, technical workers, without whom the work of the Soviet diplomatic mission would have been impossible. They honorably fulfilled their official duty, working in a country that was bombed and shelled for a month and a half. They lived practically in a barrack-like situation, in turn prepared. One friendly family, united team. Considerable merit in this belonged to Viktor Viktorovich. He was a real soul of the team, his core: he had a fine sense of humor, he wrote poetry, composed music, played musical instruments, not to mention that he was a brilliant diplomat, the highest professional.
Before the bombing began, they began to build shelter from fragments, well aware that it would not save them from powerful ammunition penetrating multi-meter reinforced concrete structures. Buried about two meters in the sandy ground, they threw it away. From fragments it was equally possible to hide behind the walls of the embassy building. Fortunately, the quarter where the diplomatic missions were located was not bombed. Only once crashed, meters in 500 from our embassy.
The conflict in the Persian Gulf unfolded in front of our children, they themselves were directly involved in those events, in particular, they organized contacts between Saddam and Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov, who hoped to convince the Iraqi leader to withdraw troops from Kuwait. Baghdad became a place of pilgrimage for many emissaries, who were in a hurry to meet Saddam and explain to him that he was playing with fire. According to Posuvaliuk, such heightened attention to the person of the dictator created for him the illusion of his own exclusiveness and importance in world politics and ultimately led to the emergence of a kind of complex of impunity. However, Saddam did not take into account that the titles of many of the VIPs who came to him, began a long time ago with the “ex” prefix, and their influence on decision making was minimal.
As an experienced diplomat, Posuvalyuk was restrained in his estimates and projections, weighed every word. But from what he said, either directly or hinting, it was clear that the diplomat was seriously concerned about the likelihood of a radical transformation of the entire system of international relations, the transformation of the USA into a world hegemon, a sharp weakening of the USSR’s positions, its ousting, including from the Middle East. turbulence processes in the region with unpredictable consequences. Alas, very soon life confirmed the validity of the concerns of our diplomats.
With a good half of our ambassadorial children, who remained during the war in Baghdad, we were acquainted. We studied together with someone in the University of Foreign Languages, intersected with someone, working in various countries. Never forget that our gatherings until the morning in the de-energized embassy, by candlelight, with the sound of a guitar. For our guys, these were the first quiet days and nights without a booze of gaps, without automatic bursts. In the morning we were taken back to the Rashid.
The hotel was filled with sometimes the most incredible rumors, gossip, assumptions. Something quickly dropped out, although at first it seemed quite plausible, something very soon received confirmation. It was rumored that the Americans decided to resume fighting and their tank columns were about to enter Baghdad, and a Shiite uprising began in the south of the country.
The Iraqis remained silent about this or denied everything. But two days later, the authorities suddenly began to urgently expel foreign journalists from the country. Hotel "Rashid" empty in front of his eyes. Yura Tegin and I somehow managed to somehow catch on for a couple of days in Baghdad, but then we were persistently asked. The Shiite uprising spread to Baghdad, fighting in some parts of the city began. Many then expected that the Americans would come to the aid of the rebels, and at the same time they would overthrow the regime. Bush Sr., however, did not help anyone, and the regime change and the physical elimination of Saddam Hussein completed through 12 years Bush Jr.
FORGIVE IRAQ
Again the bus and checking on the roads. This time a lot tougher. Together with other male passengers, at gunpoint, they take us too. Hands - "uphill", legs - shoulder-width apart, face - into the side of the bus. Many men are gone somewhere, only a few people get to the border. In addition to checking documents and inspection of baggage. Women also lined up, but a little to one side. To them, all the same attitude softer.
Just after midnight we enter the Iraqi checkpoint, where an unpleasant surprise awaits us. Shortly before our arrival here from Baghdad it was ordered not to let out a single car with Iraqi numbers from the country. We understand that these ill-fated 70 km that divide the Iraqi and Jordanian checkpoints, we can not overcome neither for the night, nor, perhaps, for a day. Not at all pleased and a quick inspection of the area. Machines with Iraqi numbers were urgently sent back to Baghdad or other cities - at the place of their “registry,” cars with non-Iraqi numbers were missing, like the long-disappeared dinosaurs.
We begin to bypass the offices of Iraqi chiefs, explaining what a ridiculous situation we are in. They just throw up their hands, they say, can not help. It is clear: who would dare to break a strict order from Baghdad. So you can lose your head.
Yura Tegin includes all his talents as a negotiator, all-terrain vehicle and rammer. As the last trump card, he puts the Iraqi Jumhuria number on the table of the customs chief with our interviews for the newspaper and hand-drawn faces published there.
Running through the text, the customs chief smiled wearily, then called one of his subordinates.
“Take my car,” he said, throwing a key ring with Volvo keys on the table, “and those last 5 liters of gasoline.” That should be enough to get to the first gas station in Jordan. Take these people to the Soviet embassy in Amman.
* * *
The car rushed wildly along the empty night highway towards the Jordanian capital. We were leaving Iraq without knowing how difficult its future would be, at least for the next quarter of a century. The country was once again bombed in 1998, then humiliated with deals like “Oil for food”. With the finesse grace manipulated from the UN podium with a tube of white powder, fooling the whole world and arguing that Saddam again dreams about weapons of mass destruction, does not comply with UN resolutions, supports Al-Qaida (banned in the Russian Federation). In the 2003 year, under President Bush Jr., Iraq was invaded again, occupied the country, caught and hung Saddam.
It turned out that the matter is not only and not so much in it. Throwing out of the active political and economic life of many Sunnis, essentially depriving them of any prospects, the country quickly collapsed into several large parts, and to the still-disappearing Al Qaeda was added a more terrible beast - the Islamic State RF). According to the schemes worked out in Iraq, they then bombed and dismembered Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Libya, only occasionally taking care of pushing the necessary resolutions through the UN, and sometimes spitting at all on this international organization, which has already degraded greatly over the past decades. I almost strangled Syria, did not push Egypt into chaos. And how wonderful it all began for Saddam Hussein in the early morning of August 2 1990 of the year. And what a long-term disaster later turned out for millions of Iraqis ...
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