Some 23 years ago, senior members of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations paid a visit to Abu Dhabi. Over a lunch in which a whole camel - resplendent with glistening hump - was theAccording to my sources in both camps, the veteran senators were asked why the US persisted with occasional airstrikes against Saddam Hussein's regime. The UAE had just embarked on the massive diversification programme which created the "Hong Kong West" the world is now familiar with.
Because, they were told by the senators, the US plans for the Middle East were not defined by the threat posed by Saddam. Iraq - and Syria - were the only two Arab states that were practically on an industrial and military par with Israel, they said. Five years later, whilst investigating US preparations for its invasion of Iraq, I came across evidence of what this would mean, in practical terms, for the people of Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries on Capitol Hill's hit-list.
First, stockpiles were gathered at hub ports like Salalah in southern Oman and the UAE's Jebel Ali, and then were transhipped to ports in the northern Gulf, predominantly to Kuwait. Naively, I had expected the US and its allies to cater to the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people, seeing as most of them would welcome liberation from Saddam's clutches.
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