Maybe it was a kidney stone or perhaps a congenital twist in the ureter that caused the blockage. Most likely the rumblings from Saddam were no big deal either.

Under spinal anesthesia, using cystoscopy to enter the ureter through the urinary tract, it was found that the blockage was too severe to clear from below. To relieve the pressure, a nephrostomy tube was inserted into the kidney through my side so that urine generated in the right kidney could be drained into an external bag. This relieved the symptomatic pain.

All this while observing that Kuwait and the UAE were trying to accommodate Saddam by reducing their production levels, only to be faced with new demands and further threats of war. By July 25, Washington leaked plans for military cooperation with the UAE that made clear our realization that Saddam's military threats had taken tangible form with troop movements that soon massed a force at the boundary that was five times that of Kuwait's.

At this time, I underwent exploratory surgery that entered my right kidney through my side. While I was still under some post-operative sedation, my sobbing wife, Janet, whispered in my ear that the urologist had discerned that what had pinched off my right ureter, yet dimly seen, was a cancer tumor.

As a defense against future blockage of the right ureter by this tumor, a polymeric tube (stent) had been inserted. We immediately transferred to Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge. While I coped with the spasms that accompany a recovery from an incision across muscle tissue, tests were conducted to determine the seat and the involvement of the tumor. A lower gastrointestinal series showed that it was an "apple-core" tumor astride the transverse colon. An upper GI series found the duodenum to be involved.

As the threat to my body was coming into focus, I could see on my hospital TV that so also were the intentions of Saddarn Hussein. Iraq invaded and in short order was astride Kuwait. As it announced annexation of Kuwait, Iraq threatened Saudi Arabia.

Because of its involvement with organs other than the colon, Dr. Bartlett advised that the tumor was itself inoperable. As a further defensive measure, he performed the third operation, this time through a ten-inch incision down my midriff. The GI tract was reconstructed to bypass the colon and duodenum. The strategy was to isolate the tumor so that it could not choke off the GI tract and it could be attacked with X-rays and chemotherapy. For the first time, the tumor was seen directly; "About the size of a peach", Dr. Bartlett said.

Meanwhile, Bush was moving aggressively to isolate Iraq from the international community. By air and sea, US troops and arms were being poured into Saudi Arabia in an activation of our military services without parallel since the Vietnam period. Working through the United Nations, Bush succeeded in obtaining support from the leadership of most Arab countries for an economic blockade of Iraq.

After more than two months of defensive moves, we could plan an attack on the cancer. Medical oncologist Dr. Lange coordinated discussions which brought in a second oncologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital. A strategy was selected which called for combined chemotherapy and X-ray irradiation of the tumor. Unfortunately, the latter promised to also kill my right kidney. In the process of setting up the X-ray therapy, there was the hint of a possible infection in the left kidney. When I appeared for the first X-ray session, the doctor had become nervous about the all-important left kidney, shortly to be my only kidney. The first session was canceled and replaced by a renal scan that showed the left kidney to now not be functioning. So, the next weeks were spent, not in attacking the cancer, but further reacting to its damage.

With far greater discomfort than for the right kidney, a nephrostomy tube was inserted into the left kidney, which had become infected. The kidney was thus found to be functional, but its ureter blocked. After chewing up more time controlling the infection, this tube was used as access in a procedure that succeeded in clearing the ureter and putting in place a stent that would insure drainage of the left kidney. Again positioned to initiate an attack on the cancer, we had to shelve the X-ray therapy because it was now clear that the cancer had spread. Although only capable of having a superficial effect on the main tumor, my only option now was chemotherapy.

What had been a small military contingency in Saudi Arabia, a squadron of F-15 fighters protected by an Airborne division, had grown to one capable, in principle, of launching an attack to remove Saddam Hussein. Our troop levels exceeded 150,000 and land- and sea-based air strength had become sufficient for not only unofficial but even official talk of successfully prosecuting a war. Even so, our only option was to watch as Iraq set out to eliminate the Kuwaitis much as it had the Kurds a few years earlier.

By now, there had been time for reflection on what Bush had really gotten us into. National television news, which had reached a crescendo of largely war hype, had begun to return to normal. Clearly a response to a threat to "cheap oil", our military action was in dangerous resonance with decades' old and accelerating tensions between Israel and much of the popular Arab world over justice for the Palestinians. What looked in the UN General Assembly like a new Allied coalition between the US and even such Arab states as Syria and Iran could hardly be expected to hold up either in the long haul or in the case of a US-initiated war.

So our troops sweltered in the sun and tried to maintain morale as they contemplated a Kuwait that had long since been occupied and was now being converted by the sword to a province loyal to Iraq. What if Saddam Hussein, with his chemical and half-baked nuclear weapons, did bow to the boycott and decide to pull his troops back to the border of Kuwait? From the point of view of a Kuwait devoid of many of its original citizens, of Saudi Arabia and other oil producers, never mind of politically influential Israel, the threat would hardly be gone. With the precedent of 50,000 US troops still in Japan after almost half a century and 40,000 yet in Korea, surely some US military contingent would have to remain in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, making further long-term demands on nonexistent US national resources. Our Secretary of State was somewhat successful in circulating among our oil allies, cup in hand, asking for financial support for the military service being rendered. As Bush said, we do not want it to "appear" that our armed services have been reduced to "mercenaries". Contributions are largely from the oil producing states which manage to cover this cost and then some through the revenues added by higher prices and increased production. It does not take much insight to see that we are the ones actually paying even the oil producers' shares of the military buildup in the Middle East.

My personal experience in coping with a cancer that set its own terms for therapy makes me particularly sensitive to what it means to be able to act from a position of real strength. Through the smoke screen of bravado in apparently seeing the fruits of our military buildup in the 80's pay off, it is clear that in the world as we have made it for ourselves, we can only react to crises. Indeed, given the state of our economy, we actually cannot even afford to do that. Our country is no more in charge of its own course than I had been in charge of the cancer that had been dictating my life for the past months.

As I came out of the hospital and prepared for chemotherapy, the price of a barrel of oil approached $40, more than twice what it was when I first went in. Cries of "ripoff" came from the motoring public as it resented the immediate rise in gasoline prices. But, as always in our so-called free-market system, the price of that oil was set by futures traders who could not afford to do their speculating without trying their best to objectively see into the future, or so they said. In fact, due to increased production by Saudi Arabia and others, the supply of oil was never diminished. Even though the increase in fuel prices was created by speculation and manipulation, the fact is, the true cost of oil for an American had not been reflected at the gas pump for decades. Had our military approach to securing our oil really put us in control?