U.S. Secretary of State James Baker apparently warned Iraqi deputy prime-minister Tariq Aziz at their meeting of 9 January 1991 in Geneva, that is before the U.S. began bombarding Iraq, that Iraq would be brought back to the pre-industrial stage if it did not withdraw from Kuwait. The systematic bombing of Iraqi infrastructure and economic facilities corroborates this story.

Translating this warning into acts, the U.S. military forces targeted, disabled, destroyed or damaged major civilian infrastructure over the whole territory of Iraq, including most power plants and transmissions facilities, multipurpose dams, refineries, food-processing plants, food-and-seed storage warehouses, flour mills, a dairy-products plant, sugar refineries, a syringe factory, telecommunications systems, irrigation facilities, municipal water-treatment and sewage plants, a veterinary-vaccine manufacturing facility, civilian vehicles, roads, railways, airports, bridges and numerous industrial, commercial, educational, religious and cultural facilities. This act of barbarism by the United States awaits remedial.