Connacht Tribune
Syrian attack leaves Ireland uncomfortably on the fence
World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
Almost thirty years ago Iraq invaded Kuwait. It was a local dispute and there had been many in that region. Iraq itself had been at war for a decade. Russia had invaded Afghanistan and was facing huge resistance from the Mujahideen. The wars were being reported, but there was no huge interest from the west.
Kuwait was different. It was also a land grab by a bigger and well-resourced neighbour. And the one element that made it international was that Kuwait held huge oil reserves, and from a geopolitical perspective, the prospect of Iraq controlling those was unpalatable.
Hence, the US-led response to the invasion. It was the first time I had ever seen cruise missiles being used. The television pictures of the US bombing of Baghdad were spectacular at the time.
Only three foreign correspondents succeeded in remaining in Baghdad. One was the CNN correspondent Peter Arnett who gave eyewitness accounts of what was happening.
Talking about the precision of the cruise missiles, one report said joked one come up a street, stopped at the red traffic lights and then proceeded on its way.
The notion of the high-precision high-tech war was born. This would be a war where only military targets would be hit with minimal loss to civilian lie.
As it transpired, that was not the reality. Sure a cruise was less crude and wanton than a daisy-cutter bomb but after the war, it emerged they were not as accurate as they had been made out to be. They had got their bearings wrong, some had detonated in the wrong places and quite a few had failed.
On top of that, their success all depended on the quality of intelligence that was being provided and that turned out to be very questionable. In one attack, some 300 Iraqi civilians were killed when the bunker in which they were seeking shelter was destroyed by an American attack.
And in any instance, the enemy with less access to military materiel than a superior power will always look for alternatives.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.