U.S. Gave Green Light for Iraq to Invade Kuwait

Arabic-Media ^ | March 3,2003 | Untitled

[Pan_Yan]

This text is actually a internal link from a page of Iraqi history. I hadn't heard this story before. (I know it's from the Arabic Media, don't flame me)

I was doing some research on where Iraq's present boundaries came from when I stumbled on this page.

[dirtboy]

This is so, like, last Bush Administration.

Hard to know exactly what the truth was around that meeting. However, it set Saddam down a path of chronic misjudgement of what actions American was willing to take against him. You would have thunk that sooner or later the despot would have gotten the picture.

[zook]

This story made the rounds long long ago. It's total BS. Someone please pull this thread.

[prion]

Don't pull it. Let it get debunked. That's more useful, isn't it? I've heard the allegation before, I'd be interested to see some citations refuting it.

[Doctor Stochastic]

This rumor has been around since the fall of 1990. (1990 fell with a crash.)

[pitinkie]

Agree

[Pan_Yan]

The link to this article is under to words the go ahead in the section titled Saddam Hussein and the invasion of Kuwait. It is about 4/5 of the way down the page.

[Cicero]

These transcripts, or something very like them, were released before, during the first President Bush's presidency.

As you can see if you read them very carefully, the conversation with April Glaspie is ambiguous, although Saddam seems to have taken her words as a permission.

At the time, April Glaspie was blamed for screwing up and giving Saddam a false impression that he had permission to invade Kuwait. What the actual facts were we may never know.

It should also be remembered that there was a war going on then between Iran and Iraq. Iran was considered our worse enemy, Iraq was a fractious ally.

That was one reason why Bush I didn't finish the war with Saddam--balance of power politics. It was thought that if Saddam was crushed and his army destroyed, Iran would move into the power vacuum and take over the Middle East. In fact, that made a good deal of sense. We had no desire to go in there ourselves for the long term, which meant that preserving the balance of power was the only alternative.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I hadn't heard this story before.

Ok no flame.

But I do remember this and it was debunked a long time ago.

You can probably find some threads on it if you search.

[evad]

The inept bunglings of Ambassador Glaspie are well documented.

Saddam was lead down the wrong path twice:
FIRST by Mzzz Glaspie.
SECOND by the French, leading to his ultimate demise.

Of course his own policy of murdering anyone who gave him a realistic interpretation of world events may have been also contributory.

[VadeRetro]

I hadn't heard this story before.

Old slam on W's daddy. Saddam may have understood creatively, but GHWB didn't authorize and was not pleased when Saddam took Kuwait.

[SamAdams76]

Even if the dialogue quoted above was verbatim (which I highly doubt), it is still quite a stretch to make the case from those conversations that the United States endorsed the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

[middie]

This story was widely reported during and immediately following the first Gulf War. In fact, unless the onset of senior citizenship has caused me recollection dementia, I believe there were some congressional hearings on this FUBAR. In any case, the matter is non sequitur.

[Fiddlstix]

[Cicero]

I should add that it's very hard to conceive why Bush would have given Saddam permission to go ahead. At the time it was clear that Saddam's real goal was Saudi Arabia. He would have knifed right through Kuwait and taken over the Saudi oil fields if we hadn't intervened.

For that reason, the most credible explanation is that April Glaspie simply didn't make it clear enough to Saddam that he would not be allowed to invade Kuwait. Usually the job of an ambassador is to get along with her hosts. Plus Saddam was a megalomaniac who may well have misinterpreted her warnings because they were not explicit enough. He has always thought that he was destined to conquer and rule.

[thoughtomator]

"U.S. Gave Green Light for Iraq to Invade Kuwait"... sure... and don't forget how the Jews use the blood of little Arab children to make matzo for Passover...

[Casloy]

And here is what really happened. Amb GLaspie did have a meeting with Saddam 8 days before the invasion. She never said any of the things mentioned in this transcript. She listened and that was about all. The released transcripts were a total fabrication by the Iraqis. She testified to this before the Senate. Terek Aziz later admitted she was telling the truth, that in fact all she did was listen. So, we are still debating Iraqi propoganda as truth.

[Pan_Yan]

It doesn't hurt my feelings if the story is false. I would like to think that we aren't quite so incompetent that we would imply to a thug we approve of a "little" invasion, just not a "big" invasion.

However, what I know of the State Department leaves the door open for this kind of idiocy.

This is what FR does best, right? Thousands of smart people use their collective information to cull the truth from various shady sources.

[zook]

The Ambassador denied this occured. She may have indicated that the US took no official stand regarding any boundary dispute. That, of course, is not "giving a green light for war."

Frankly, I'd rather see it pulled. It was refuted long ago and I'm tired of having to reinvent the wheel each time some old story pops up. There's enough of this stuff on DU.

[Pan_Yan]

No one is forcing you to read this tread or post to it. You made your opinion clear on post #3. I'll send a little extra in my monthy donation to pay for the band width that this thread is using up. I'm sorry it hurts you so much.