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Cheney: Gulf situation 'fundamentally different' after the war

By ELIOT BRENNER   |   Aug. 1, 1991

WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said Thursday the political and military situation in the Persian Gulf is fundamentally different a year after Iraq invaded Kuwait and was violently ejected with a punishing war.

Cheney, in an interview with wire service reporters on the eve of the anniversary of the invasion, said the war marked an emotional turning point for Americans, producing a catharsis that healed the wounds of the Vietnam War.

Cheney also said:

--He has not ruled out leaving some U.S. troops in Kuwait beyond the Sept. 1 target for pulling out about 4,000 soldiers of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. Kuwait has asked that some troops stay beyond that date.

--The United States does not want a permanent ground presence in the region, but is seeking to stockpile equipment and work out bilateral pacts on joint training exercises and troop and aircraft wing visits.

--Thereis no reason to think Saddam Hussein ever built a nuclear device but inspections show 'there is reason to believe he would have been able to do it sooner than many people thought.' It is also important, he said, to continue to deny Saddam access to technology that could let him reconstitute his forces.

--That although problems still remain, a side benefit of the war has been the progress toward a Middle East peace that evolved from the conflict.

--Next year's defense budget will take additional steps to remedy equipment shortages, sealift problems and other shortcomings in U.S. military operations pointed out by the war.

Cheney said the rapid dispatch of U.S. forces to Saudi Arabia allowed the coalition of nations opposing Iraq 'to stop aggression dead in its tracks and roll it back.'

'We liberated Kuwait,' he said. 'We destroyed Saddam Hussein's ability to threaten his neighbors, thereby making that part of the world safer for some very important friends of the United States like Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt and the gulf states.'

'We denied Saddam Hussein control of the world's supply of oil,' he added. 'We demonstrated conclusively the willingness and ability of the United States to respond forcefully to aggression and that sends a positive signal all around the world.

'Adversaries are going to think twice before committing that kind of act -- but most especially to our friends who depend upon their relationships with the United States and our commitments to help them defend thesmelves. It's a long list of very significant developments that are absolutley unaffected by whether Saddam Hussein is still in Baghdad.'

Within the United States, said Cheney, the war had an impact 'well beyond anything I had anticipated in terms of how it affected the public mood, in terms of how Americans look at themselves and their roll in the world, in terms of how they think about the United States' military.'

'I think there was a catharsis, if you will, as many people have said -- (it) sort of lifted the burden the country had borne almost without being aware of it since the end of the war in Vietnam,' he said. 'In that sense it was almost a healing process for a wound that had been open for along time.'

Cheney said the Middle East is a region that has long been wracked by conflict, 'but we're making some progress' by eliminating the largest military threat in the region.

Additionally, he said a peace conference now appears quite possible, and added that the U.S.-Soviet cooperation 'that was an important part in the way the war was handled' is continuing into the postwar period with cooperation on the Middle East problem.

Cheney also said he had not see any figures on Iraqi war deaths in which he had any confidence -- some published estimates have ranged over 100,000 military deaths -- and said only Iraq could answer the question.