MER Article Calculating "Collateral Damage" Early reports of casualties in Iraq provided only a scattershot picture of damage to residential areas and loss of civilian life, not a clear sense of scope or scale. Only on February 11, after four weeks of intense bombing, did Iraqi officials acknowledge that civilian deaths were in the range of 5 Joost Hiltermann • 4 min read
MER Article From the Editors This issue of Middle East Report is about power, intent, imagery and deceit. We begin with a brief consideration of the impact of the first two weeks of the “allied” air war on civilian populations in Iraq. The antiseptic briefings from the Pentagon and from Gen. Schwarzkopf’s headquarters in The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article Editor's Bookshelf Egypt has been central to providing an Arab cover for the US-led military expedition to the Persian Gulf, in addition to Saudi Arabia. As of December 1990, Egypt’s 15-20,000 troops constituted the third largest force confronting Iraq, after the United States and Saudi Arabia itself. Joint military e Joel Beinin • 4 min read
MER Article Al Miskin The first “instant book” on the Gulf crisis has already reached stores across the United States. In his October 22 column in The Nation, Alexander Cockburn related how Judith Miller of the New York Times sought unsuccessfully to induce Samir al-Khalil, the pseudonymous author of Republic of Fear, to Al Miskin • 4 min read
MER Article Washington Watch House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Lee Hamilton (D-IN) offered the first criticism by a Washington insider of the Bush administration’s handling of the Gulf crisis when, on September 18, 1990, he blamed Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and South Asian Affairs John Kelly for not sending Fred Halliday • 4 min read
MER Article The US in the Persian Gulf The scale of the US military deployment in the Persian Gulf -- half of all US combat forces worldwide -- is something of a shock, even to the Pentagon. “Nobody ever thought they’d be free to commit all those forces,” one military official said. Martha Wenger, Joe Stork • 8 min read
MER Article Halliday, From Kabul to Managua Fred Halliday, From Kabul to Managua: Soviet-American Relations in the 1980s (Pantheon, 1989). To give an account, in a mere 163 pages, of Soviet-American competition in the Third World is no mean feat. After all, this rivalry has lasted nearly half a century and its form has varied considerably. M Rajan Menon • 2 min read
MER Article Washington Watch SUPERCOMPUTERS Some chips in the bargaining between Washington and Tel Aviv prior to the Gulf crisis were two-year-old Israeli requests to buy supercomputers -- mainframes that perform scientific and mathematical calculations with great speed, enabling scientists to accomplish rapidly tasks such as Joe Stork • 5 min read
US Aid to Israel The US has provided over $50 billion in economic and military aid to Israel since 1949, more than to any other country. Israel has the highest GNP per capita of all US aid recipients ($6,810). In 1991 Israel will receive more US aid per capita ($686) than the total GNP per capita of many countries, Martha Wenger • 3 min read
The Money Tree How much money flows from US taxpayers’ pockets into the Israeli treasury each year? Is it the $3 billion figure so often quoted in the press? And what is it used for? When Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN) asked the State Department these questions, he learned that the total for fiscal year 1989 was actual Martha Wenger • 5 min read
Washington's Game Plan in the Middle East The more things change, the more they stay the same. Nowhere does this cynical adage seem more descriptive than regarding United States policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rashid Khalidi, Joe Stork • 9 min read
MER Article From the Editors Events elsewhere in the world -- elections in Nicaragua, death squads in South Africa and recent decisions by the European Commission -- hold much instruction for people concerned with the Middle East. Elections, after all, are not the same as democracy. After ten years of US armed intervention and The Editors • 4 min read
