Asharq Al-Awsat is exclusively publishing excerpts from a new memoir, “Al-Qarar” (The Decision), by former Jordanian Prime Minister Mudar Badran. The book was officially released in Amman on August 17. The memoirs are filled with developments and stances that will be revealed for the first time, including moments Jordan experienced in the last quarter of the 20th Century.
In this third and final excerpt, Badran speaks of American pressure on Jordan to convince it to join the international coalition against Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. He recalls how Jordan endured an economic crisis because it chose to stand by Saddam, which Badran said was in line with the “Arab solution.” He also details a secret visit Tariq Aziz carried out to Amman where he informed officials that everything in Iraq, including the presidential palace and oil refineries, was not spared from air strikes. Badran also recalls how late King Hussein was put in a difficult spot after coming under political, popular and parliamentary pressure to support Iraq in the war.
We were living in crisis. All state institutions and late King Hussein exerted efforts to ride the wave as we braced for the fallout from the war.
The Syrians kicked off a media campaign against us. It was expected as some members of parliament had criticized Syria in the media, so we expected it to retaliate through the same platform. Information Minister Ibrahim Ezzeddine sought to contain the crisis with the Syrians and managed through his vast diplomatic experience to bring a halt to their campaign against Jordan. Our government, in turn, ordered ambassadors, who do not have enough experience in making political statements during times of war, to stop their statements in order to ease Arab antagonism against us.
The Syrians helped us by providing us with oil. Hafez Assad was true to his word and a committee began overseeing the transport of oil from Syria.
We decided that media statements must commit to the official line. We refused to attack any Arab country and we recognized the system of rule in Kuwait. We also recognized the boycott against Iraq. We adopted a balanced and rational approach to these issues. Each word was carefully chosen.
The American Ambassador, Roger Harrison, meanwhile, kept up his constant pressure on us, until I frankly told him that we will not yield to any American prodding. I told him that we supported the peaceful and Arab solution to the Iraqi-Kuwaiti crisis. Our popular position is in line with the official one. I informed cabinet that the Americans would use aid as a means to pressure us every time. At this, we began to prepare ourselves for the possibility that the crisis would stretch on for some time.
Any error in assessment spelled disaster for us, because, to put it simply, we could not isolate ourselves from the world and our surroundings. Our lifeline was connected to basic goods that are all imported from abroad.
During that time, King Hussein intensified his contacts with countries all over the world. He worked tirelessly during those days. He was in constant contact with official civilian and security leaderships and the emergency councils. In late January, King Hussein met with us at cabinet and as always, presented us with his vision, which gave us a great boost in handling the challenges at hand.
What I recall the most from that meeting was his warning that the war sought only one goal: keeping Israel as the only powerful force in the region. He told us: “Kuwait was a trap and Saddam was lured into it.” He also predicted that Iraq will continue to be pounded for a long time in order to deplete its strength and bring it to its knees.
The Americans kept up their pressure on us to change our position and join the international coalition. The American charge d’affaires even told us to “declare your position against Iraq and then do whatever you want.”
King Hussein was in a very tight spot. He was surrounded from all sides as political, popular and parliamentary powers all wanted him to support the war on Iraq. International powers were pressing Jordan to declare an official position against Iraq. How could you do this while you were under pressure from the people? We had just resolved a crisis of trust between the people and political system (1989 protests known as the April boon) and we had seized the opportunity to restore their faith.
Towards ground war
In mid-February 1991, Iraqi Prime Minister Saadoun Hammadi attempted to visit us by land, but could not due to the heavy bombing on Baghdad. He landed in Jordan by air, traveling via Tehran, carrying a message from the Iranian president. It revealed that Iraq had agreed to declare a withdrawal from Kuwait in exchange for the pullout of foreign forces from the Arabian Peninsula. That was the Iranian initiative that the Iraqis accepted, but they said it should only be disclosed when the timing was right.
Days later, statements from Iraq revealed that they had agreed to pull out from Kuwait. Baghdad, however, continued to maneuver and stall because it wanted the international community to meet its pledges to the Palestinian cause before it could withdraw its troops.
During his meeting in Jordan, Hammadi revealed that coalition forces were focusing their strikes on civilian areas and infrastructure with the aim to weaken Iraq. He stressed, however, that the morale was high and the front was still keeping it together. The losses were much less than what the enemy was claiming. Iraq believed that the situation was still tolerable, especially since the strikes seemed to have eased in intensity.
On February 24, at exactly 5 am, (US President George) Bush declared the beginning of the ground operation. This was a new development that Jordan had to contend with very seriously. The Iraqis informed us that if they were to be dealt with destructive strikes, then they would launch a chemical attack against Israel. They stressed, however, that they would not be the ones to deal the first blow. Information on the ground showed that the Americans were advancing on al-Jahra in Kuwait with the plan to besiege the city and cut off supplies.
During that time, we were confronted with an internal security challenge, which was the possibility that attacks would be carried out against Israel by perpetrators who would infiltrate the West Bank. Such attacks could be used by Israel to lure us into the conflict. We therefore, resisted attempts to drag us to war. We endured a period of great doubts and suspicions because we were living in real danger. We were alone and needed to avoid any clash.
The bad news was delivered to us by (Iraqi Foreign Minister) Tariq Aziz during a secret visit to Amman. That news was a major turning point in the military position against Iraq. He informed us that there was nothing left of Iraq to be attacked. The presidential palace was wiped out five times, he said, as was the conference palace, the oil refineries and others. They were irreparable. All factories were destroyed. All but three bridges still stood in Baghdad.
The political process continued to operate. All we wanted was a ceasefire. Conflicting news was emerging from Iraq about the extent of the destruction and the sizes of the losses. Iraq endured in 40 days of strikes the same amount of attacks Germany endured throughout the entire second world war.
On February 26, 1991, Iraq pulled out of Kuwait. We were shocked, not at the withdrawal – which we had hoped for – but because fighting was still raging at the battlefronts. Iraq endured its greatest losses during the withdrawal process because the coalition forces continued their attacks even as the Iraqis were pulling back to their borders.
Humanitarian aid to Iraq
We were destined to experience all wars and their results as a defeat and catastrophe. At the end of the war, we were defeated. God forgive Saddam Hussein and may God rest the soul of King Hussein, whose calls, had they been heeded, would not have led us to this painful and miserable point.
We met at cabinet. All ministers were dejected. We were shocked by the war. During that meeting, we stressed that Jordan had performed its duties in full. It had gone above and beyond and left its system and leadership to the hands of fate without regrets. We stressed that history will attest that the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan took a stand that a major nation, such as the Soviet Union, could not. We stood our ground. We did not support the occupation of Kuwait and hoped that it would never have happened.
The most important development were fears voiced by Foreign Minister Taher al-Masri over the Palestinians residing in Kuwait, estimated at some 200,000. King Hussein had predicted this and revealed to us that he had met with the ambassadors of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to warn them over the fate of the Palestinians. He urged the need for their return to Egypt and asked Cairo to recognize their documents and status. Even during Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait, the Palestinians had rejected an Arab country’s occupation of another fellow Arab nation.
Iraq’s defeat posed a dangerous security challenge for us. The danger lied in citizens who may react angrily and attempt to protest in front of embassies. The dejection here was a great danger. We didn’t want the security forces to clash with the protesters. Indeed, an all-female march was held, but prevented from reaching the American embassy.
At a public parliament meeting, I declared that the government did not view Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait as a defeat, rather the idea of the pullout had been on the table since the beginning of the crisis. I added that King Hussein had contacted Saddam, who informed him that he would withdraw in a matter of days. King Hussein again asked Saddam for a pullout date, in return for holding the small summit in Jeddah. Saddam revealed that the Revolutionary Command Council had approved the withdrawal to take place at 7 am on Sunday, August 6, 1990, meaning the decision had been taken even before military operations began.
Some have spoken at exaggerated length that we provided Iraq with military support during that period, I can confirm that that never happened even though the Iraqis had requested our help to train Iraqi officers on the use of the Hawk missiles that they had moved to Iraq from Kuwait during the occupation. We did not meet their request.
Crisis management
Our position at the time was clear. We supported the Arab solution to the crisis. We did not want any foreign interference to resolve the issue. That is why we were committed to staying out of the international coalition against Iraq. We needed to make our position clear because a lot of friends and brothers wronged us in this regard. All we did was form a cell that would analyze the crisis. King Hussein was the first to inform us of his analyses of the crisis and we took part in assessing the situation. We took decisions based on these assessments.
During that stage, and days after the end of the occupation, we completed drafting a letter to the Security Council and informed the Americans that we would continue to export essential goods, such as rice, wheat, sugar, oil and meat to Iraq. We will also continue to import oil from Iraq, despite the siege imposed against it.
It was true that our outlook of the crisis was bleak, because we were aware of the international community’s rejection of the political solution. It believed that the military solution was the answer. What comforted us was Iran’s distancing of itself from the crisis. In fact, their relations after the war improved. Had the Americans and Iranians seen eye-to-eye, the ensuing catastrophe would have been too much for the region to tolerate.
As the crisis dragged on, we endured massive economic and security burdens. The people clamored to store food because they feared an attack against Jordan. The cabinet was assured that we had enough stocks to last us six months. As for the financial situation, it was truly terrifying. At the beginning of the crisis, all deposits in dinars and foreign currencies were withdrawn from banks. In just two hours, 8 million dinars were withdrawn from the banks and the country witnessed a severe dollar shortage, which led to the weakening of the local currency. Complicating matters was the halt of financial transactions with Iraq and Gulf countries’ freezing of our funds in their banks.
On the Arab front, we exerted diplomatic efforts to hold a meeting for foreign ministers of countries that supported the Arab solution. The plan was to hold the meeting, at Iraq’s request, in Oman with the participation of Jordan, Yemen, Sudan, Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. It sought to break the political siege against Iraq. We also started to dismiss Aziz’s reassurances and confirmed that the only valid source of information was Arab media.
Dealing with the now completely destroyed Iraq, we feared that military information would be leaked to the Soviet Union. The situation in Basra, the Iranian interference and the fleeing of some 6,000 Iraqis to Iran was also a major security challenge to Iraq’s territorial integrity.
Up until the beginning of the land war, the Iraqis believed that the Russian initiative would be successful and accepted by the Americans. We believed that the US wanted an unconditional Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. The losses were massive. I heard stories of a tank battle that left 1,500 Iraqi soldiers dead or injured.
Since that land operation, it became clear that the goal was to weaken the Iraqi front. Iraq had already lost contact with troops on the advanced frontlines. The result was slow communication between the political and military commands.
In Jordan, the white book that was prepared by the Royal Court documented the efforts of our politicians, journalists and historians. This book proves Jordan’s efforts to secure an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait before it was too late. It also carried a historic divisive message that King Hussein insisted on relaying to Saddam in order to secure the inter-Arab solution that several sides thwarted.
