August 3: IRAQIS NEAR SAUDI BORDER AS U.S. REDEPLOYS WARSHIPS
Iraqi invasion forces in Kuwait have approached the border with Saudi Arabia. "They're moved closer to the border with Saudi Arabia, but their troop strength is nowhere near what it was when it invaded Kuwait," a U.S. government official said. British and U.S. oil sources also reported the Iraqi invasion force had advanced toward the Saudi border. Residents of the Saudi border city of Khafji, reached by telephone, said Iraqi troops early Friday evening had laid down a checkpoint less than a mile from the border. One man, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that earlier in the day, "Iraqi troops almost touched the Saudi territory but went back quiet politely when the Saudi border patrols instantly alerted them."
White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater told reporters: "We are extremely concerned about the possibility of Iraq broadening its invasions plans to any other country. They are close enough to the Saudi border to indicate cause for concern. But we don't know what their intentions or motives are."
There were also reports Friday of continued resistance by loyalist troops in Kuwait City. The fighting came as the United States told its NATO allies that it might use military force if Iraq attacked other countries in the area, alliance sources said. The announcement, made at a meeting of senior NATO officials in Brussels, was the clearest indication yet that Washington might move from economic sanctions against Iraq to military action.
Washington redeployed eight warships, including the aircraft carrier Independence, from the Indian Ocean to assist seven vessels already in the Persian Gulf. The USS Saratoga, based in Florida, was to head for the Mediterranean on Tuesday; the USS Inchon, now at Norfolk, Virginia, carries a Marine amphibious assault group and is due to leave for the Mediterranean on Monday, the Pentagon said. Although said to be routine, those deployments would significantly add to the U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf area.
Bush returned after midnight from a visit to Colorado, where he met with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Both leaders pressed for worldwide sanctions against Iraq. The Senate voted 97-0 for a resolution that endorsed Bush's sanctions against Iraq. Meanwhile, administration figures worked to allay concerns about a possible oil shortage at home. "We do not see any imminent threat to the United States" as a result of the invasion, Deputy Energy Secretary Henson Moore told reporters. "Nor do we see any long-term significant increase in prices." (Deseret News/UPI, Aug. 3 & 4, 1990 – edited)
August 6: PRESIDENT BUSH: “THIS WILL NOT STAND”
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney arrived in the vulnerable oil-rich kingdom of Saudi Arabia today as the Bush administration intensified efforts to secure Arab support for getting Iraq's Saddam Hussein and his "puppet regime" out of Kuwait. President Bush, clearly irate, vowed that Iraq would be forced to reverse course and abandon its conquest of Kuwait. As European allies and Japan joined economic sanctions against Iraq on Sunday, Bush escalated his condemnation of the invasion, declaring that Iraq's "brutal, naked aggression will not stand."
Amid fears that Saudi Arabia could be Hussein's next target, Cheney and deputy national security adviser Robert Gates arrived in the desert kingdom. They were accompanied by General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Commander in Chief of the Army's Central Command, which includes the Persian Gulf; and Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense for policy. They undertook the mission as the United States intensified efforts to build worldwide support for a boycott of oil from Iraq and Kuwait and to press for U.N. sanctions that could include a blockade.
Bush met with top military and civilian advisers Sunday evening at the White House after issuing a stern denunciation of the Iraqi invasion that has inflamed the Middle East. Bush planned to meet on Monday with NATO Secretary-General Manfred Woerner and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, visiting on her way home from Aspen, Colorado.
To Baghdad's claim - accompanied by government television footage - that it had begun pulling out its 80,000 troops, President Bush snapped that the Iraqis "lied once again. They said they were going to start moving out today and we have no evidence that they're moving out. This will not stand. This will not stand - this aggression against Kuwait," a testy Bush told reporters upon returning from Camp David. (Deseret News, Aug. 6, 1990 – edited)
August 7: KSC EMPLOYEE INJURED IN CAR WRECK
A Kennedy Space Center employee was treated and released from Wuesthoff Hospital in Rockledge after her car collided today with an EG&G Patrol Officer, KSC officials said. Patrol Officer William Kirby Lanouv, a resident of Titusville, was heading north on Courtenay Parkway to Spaceport USA on an emergency call about 4:30 p.m. EDT when he tried to make a left turn onto NASA Causeway. His car collided with one driven by Melbourne resident Rosalyn J. Jones, who was heading south, according to KSC spokesman Dick Young. The officer was not injured and no charges were filed, he said. The accident is being investigated. (Florida Today, Aug. 8, 1990 – edited)
August 8: AIR FORCE TO BUILD NEW RANGE CONTROL CENTER AT CAPE CANAVERAL
The Air Force will spend about $1.4 billion through 1996 to update its launch capabilities, and part of that money has been expended at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to construct a new range control center, according to Air Force Space Systems Division Commander Lt. General Donald Cromer. The center includes computers and advanced fiber optics technologies that will speed the processing of rockets, cutting the time needed between tests and launches from several days to as little as an hour.
“Even in this period of declining defense budgets the importance of space to our national security is well recognized,” said Cromer at a dedication for the $19.5 million Test Operation Control Center at CCAFS. “To be a 21st-century superpower, the United States needs the ability to help friends and quell enemies within hours. I think we’re seeing that today over in Kuwait,” Cromer said. (Brown, Florida Today, Aug. 9, 1990 – edited)
August 8:U.S. EAVESDROPPERS ARE BUSY
Billions of dollars' worth of U.S. spy satellites and electronic eavesdropping equipment are trained on Iraq, tracking troop movements and tapping telephone lines, trying to help the White House divine Saddam Hussein's next move. From 500 miles in space, four satellites are sending images of Iraqi tanks so sharp that their serial numbers stand out, photos that can be on the president's desk in an hour. Two more satellites, code-named “Magnum” and “Vortex”, are intercepting hundreds of Iraqi military and diplomatic telecommunications. From Italy in the Mediterranean to Oman in the Straits of Hormuz, U.S. espionage stations are recording the sounds and signals of Saddam's government.
So much raw data flows into the U.S. intelligence community, in fact, that it becomes difficult to absorb and interpret it all, a former CIA analyst responsible for Middle East affairs said. "The real problem is looking for the needles of necessary intelligence in this great teeming haystack," he said. (Deseret News, Aug. 8, 1990 – edited)
August 8: HEAVY THUNDERSTORM DELAYS ATLANTIS ROLLBACK
The Space Shuttle Atlantis eventually started rolling back to Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building for fuel leak repairs late this evening. Meanwhile Columbia was prepared for rollout to Launch Pad 39A tomorrow. Atlantis’ rollback began at 10:14 p.m. EDT and was scheduled to arrive at the VAB at approximately 4:00 a.m. EDT August 9. A heavy afternoon thunderstorm delayed Atlantis’ return to the VAB for about six hours. Bruce Buckingham, KSC spokesman, said, “The main concern was for the shuttle’s tiles.” A shuttle carries some 25,000 tiles at an installation cost of $2,000 apiece. (Halvorson, Florida Today, Aug. 9, 1990 – edited)