Vancouver Sun

THE UNKNOWN MULRONEY

HOW THE FORMER CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER HELPED SHAPE THE MIDDLE EAST

- FEN OSLER HAMPSON

When Canada joined Desert Storm, the U.S.-led invasion to liberate Kuwait, the government was criticized for doing the bidding of George H. W. Bush. But what the press and public didn’t know, writes Fen Osler Hampson in his new book Master of Persuasion: Brian Mulroney’s Global Legacy, is that the Canadian prime minister was a critical adviser during the conflict — starting with an off-therecord meeting in the Bush family quarters of the White House in August 1990.

Bush had just returned from a conference in Aspen, Colorado, where British prime minister Margaret Thatcher had urged the president to take swift and decisive military action against Saddam Hussein. “Don’t go wobbly on me George, don’t go wobbly,” she said.

But over dinner at the White House, Mulroney asked how the United States planned to lay the political groundwork for military action against Saddam Hussein. Mulroney’s advice on that matter was clear and pointed. He urged Bush to build a broad internatio­nal consensus that would include the support of both the UN and NATO before any kind of action was taken. “You must have consensus,” he said, adding that without a UN resolution, Canada “could not support this initiative.”

Mulroney also urged Bush to reach out to French president François Mitterrand right away, stressing that it wasn’t good enough to consult only with the British prime minister if he wanted to bring the Europeans onside. Mulroney had developed close relations with Mitterrand through the two leaders’ cooperatio­n in the creation of La Francophon­ie. He knew that Mitterrand was sensitive and status conscious. By calling him at the beginning of the crisis, Bush was sending a clear signal that he needed Mitterrand’s support, which he got right away.

As the dinner ended, Bush handed Mulroney the raw CIA files on Iraq and the top-secret brief he had just received from the U.S. envoy to Iraq, April Glaspie, to read on his flight back to Ottawa — a remarkable sign of the trust and respect. And over the course of the next several weeks, Mulroney provided counsel to the U.S. president on a wide range of issues.

He tried to ease tensions between Bush and King Hussein of Jordan, who the president believed was too cosy with Saddam Hussein. During a visit to the presidenti­al summer compound at Kennebunkp­ort, Maine, Mulroney suggested that the president meet directly with the king to hear out his concerns and better understand his position. The meeting took place a few weeks later.

Bush shared with Mulroney the pressure he was coming under from hawks within his own administra­tion and members of his own party in Congress who wanted him to take swift military action. “When you’re up 72–0 it is not time for the long bomb” (i.e., a surgical strike), Mulroney advised Bush.

Bush also asked Mulroney to call Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, to draw the Arab world — a first — into the internatio­nal coalition he was forming. The Egyptian leader was wary about getting too close to the Americans. He told Mulroney that Saddam had promised Egypt billions of dollars from the Kuwait treasury in exchange for its support. But Mubarak disliked Saddam and was deeply worried about the consequenc­es for the Arab world of one Arab state seizing the territory of another.

In late November of 1990, the Security Council passed Resolution 678, drafted with the assistance of Yves Fortier, a distinguis­hed Montreal lawyer whom Mulroney had appointed to head Can- ada’s mission to the United Nations. The resolution essentiall­y delivered Iraq an ultimatum: withdraw from Kuwait before January 15, 1991, or the council would reserve to itself the right to use “all necessary means” to force Iraq out of Kuwait after the deadline.

The prime minister knew that he also had to lay the domestic groundwork for the military action that would almost surely come. Innately suspicious of American intentions, neither the Canadian public nor the political opposition favoured military action, preferring to let sanctions take their course in the hope that Saddam Hussein would back down.

By September, the government had already sent two destroyers and a supply ship to the Persian Gulf to help police the economic embargo against Iraq. Mulroney also ordered a squadron of CF-18 fighters to support the UN mission.

Mulroney had stuck his political neck out with both deployment­s, a move that did not go unnoticed by other world leaders.

“It is so important that we should all be seen to be present alongside the United States,” Thatcher wrote to him.

Thatcher obviously wasn’t aware that not only was Canada there with its military to support the Americans, but that Mulroney was also providing constant counsel to the U.S. president on the diplomatic course he should follow.

On January 15, 1991, Parliament convened for an emergency session on the Gulf crisis. The prime minister made a motion to reaffirm “support of the United Nations in ending the aggression by Iraq against Kuwait,” but the newly elected Liberal leader was having none of it.

Jean Chrétien proposed an amendment to urge “the continued issue of economic sanctions” and exclude “offensive military action by Canada at this time.”

However, Chrétien quickly discovered that his own caucus was deeply divided. John Turner, the former Liberal leader, sided with the government, as did many Liberal MPs.

The House of Commons eventually approved the government’s motion on January 22, with 217 for and 47 against.

The U.S.-led invasion, known as Operation Desert Storm, began on the night of January 16–17, 1991. At 7 p.m., as he was returning home in his car, Mulroney received a call from President Bush telling him the attack would be launched in two hours. The operation commenced with an aerial bombardmen­t against a wide range of strategic targets in Iraq, with Canadian aircraft providing “sweep and escort missions.” Saddam Hussein retaliated by firing scud missiles into Israel in the vain hope that the Israelis would attack Iraq and thus draw Arab countries to his defence.

It didn’t happen. The war against Iraq was short and swift, and the 35-member coalition suffered few casualties. As one observer wrote of the day of the ceasefire, March 3, “In a swift and decisive campaign, lasting 100 hours Iraq’s armed might was destroyed. Kuwait, ravaged by the Iraqi occupiers, was restored to independen­ce.”

It had taken a little over a month from start to finish to rout the Iraqi invader. It was a remarkable achievemen­t diplomatic­ally and militarily by any standard, and one in which Canada had played an important role on both counts.

IN A SWIFT AND DECISIVE CAMPAIGN, LASTING 100 HOURS IRAQ’S ARMED MIGHT WAS DESTROYED.

Excerpted from Master of Persuasion by Fen Osler Hampson. Copyright © 2018 by Fen Hampson. Published by Signal, an imprint of McClelland & Stewart, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangemen­t with the Publisher. All rights reserved

 ?? MIKE SPRAGUE / AFP / GETTY IMAGES FILES ?? Then-Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney with former U.S. president George H. W. Bush in Washington, D.C., in April 1988. A new book from Osler Hampson reveals Mulroney was a critical adviser to Bush during the U.S.-led invasion to liberate Kuwait...
MIKE SPRAGUE / AFP / GETTY IMAGES FILES Then-Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney with former U.S. president George H. W. Bush in Washington, D.C., in April 1988. A new book from Osler Hampson reveals Mulroney was a critical adviser to Bush during the U.S.-led invasion to liberate Kuwait...

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