Saturday, February 12, 2005

Back When They Liked Us

It is always fun to look back (via Instapundit) at how our allies viewed us given how people blame the President for our current problems with our allies. If only a more internationalist UN-friendly President was in office, we'd have had allies in Iraq is their argument. They recall the 1991 coalition with new fondness.

Well. From the "Look What I Found as I Cleaned Up A Pile of Papers" file, this Congressional Research Report from September 1998:


Widespread reluctance in the international community to resort to force against Iraq prevented the United States from assembling a large multinational force like the 35-member coalition that defeated Iraq in 1991. The United Kingdom deployed an aircraft carrier and associated units to the Gulf; Canada sent a frigate and transport aircraft; and Australia and New Zealand sent tanker and surveillance aircraft, respectively, together with small contingents of commandos. Other donor countries offered administrative and logistical rather than combat units: Argentina, Denmark, and Hungary promised medical and humanitarian teams. Poland offered an anti-chemical unit, and the Czech Republic and Romania offered unspecified military support, if needed. Total allied forces deployed or committed came to less than 4,000 personnel, only a fraction of the roughly 210,000-strong allied force committed during the 1991 Gulf war.

Imagine that, in 1998, before our alliance-killing president took office, only Britain contributed significant forces as we built up for a confrontation. Of course, back then everyone assumed Iraq had WMD.

To be fair, I guess we lost Canada in the five years since this build up of forces. My bad. Clearly a more sensitive president could have brought Canada on board. (No offense Canada, but your armed forces have atrophied to an armed Boy Scout troop. Become an ally again Ottawa.)