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

Arabic-Media ^ | March 3,2003 | Untitled

[Pan_Yan]

April in July

On July 25, 1990, eight days before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, a quiet, largely unreported meeting took place between Saddam Hussein and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie at the Presidential Palace in Baghdad, which has since been destroyed by the war. The transcript of this meeting is as follows:

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie:

"I have direct instructions from President Bush to improve our relations with Iraq. We have considerable sympathy for your quest for higher oil prices, the immediate cause of your confrontation with Kuwait. (pause) As you know, I have lived here for years and admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. We know you need funds. We understand that, and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. (pause) We can see that you have deployed massive numbers of troops in the south. Normally that would be none of our business, but when this happens in the context of your other threats against Kuwait, then it would be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this reason, I have received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship - not confrontation - regarding your intentions: Why are your troops massed so very close to Kuwait's borders?"

Saddam Hussein:

"As you know, for years now I have made every effort to reach a settlement on our dispute with Kuwait. There is to be a meeting in two days; I am prepared to give negotiations only this one more brief chance. (pause) When we [the Iraqis] meet [with the Kuwaitis] and we see there is hope, then nothing will happen. But if we are unable to find a solution, then it will be natural that Iraq will not accept death."

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie:

"What solutions would be acceptable?"

Saddam Hussein:

"If we could keep the whole of the Shatt al Arab - our strategic goal in our war with Iran - we will make concessions (to the Kuwaitis). But, if we are forced to choose between keeping half of the Shatt and the whole of Iraq (which, in Saddam's view, includes Kuwait) then we will give up all of the Shatt to defend our claims on Kuwait to keep the whole of Iraq in the shape we wish it to be. (pause) What is the United States' opinion on this?"

(Pause, then Ambassador Glaspie speaks carefully)

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie:

"We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960's that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America."

(Saddam smiles.)

---

The Green Light and the Limosine

At a Washington press conference called the next day, State Department spokesperson Margaret Tutweiler was asked by journalists:

"Has the United States sent any type of diplomatic message to the Iraqis about putting 30,000 troops on the border with Kuwait? Has there been any type of protest communicated from the United States government?"

to which she responded:

"I'm entirely unaware of any such protest."

On July 31st, two days before the Iraqi invasion, John Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs, testified to Congress that the

"United States has no commitment to defend Kuwait and the U.S. has no intention of defending Kuwait if it is attacked by Iraq."

Eight days later, on August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein's massed troops invaded and occupied Kuwait (ironically, this was done in a method historically similar to the American anexation of Texas). One month later in Baghdad, British journalists obtained the tape and transcript of the Hussein-Glaspie meeting on July 25, 1990. In order to verify this astounding information, they attempted to confront Ms. Glaspie as she was leaving the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

Journalist 1:

"Are the transcripts (holding them up) correct, Madam Ambassador?"

(Ambassador Glaspie does not respond)

Journalist 2:

"You knew Saddam was going to invade (Kuwait), but you didn't warn him not to. You didn't tell him America would defend Kuwait. You told him the oppose - that America was not associated with Kuwait."

Journalist 1:

"You encouraged this aggression - his invasion. What were you thinking?"

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie:

"Obviously, I didn't think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take ALL of Kuwait."

Journalist 1:

"You thought he was just going to take SOME of it? But how COULD YOU?! Saddam told you that, if negotiations failed, he would give up his Iran (Shatt al Arab Waterway) goal for the "WHOLE of Iraq, in the shape we wish it to be." You KNOW that includes Kuwait, which the Iraqis have always viewed as an historic part of their country!"

(Ambassador Glaspie says nothing, pushing past the two journalists to leave)

"America green-lighted the invasion. At a minimum, you admit signalling Saddam that some aggression was okay - that the U.S. would not oppose a grab of the al-Rumalya oil field, the disputed border strip and the Gulf Islands (including Bubiyan) - territories claimed by Iraq?"

(Again, Ambassador Glaspie says nothing as a limousine door closes behind her and the car drives off.)

---

Ross Perot gets to The National Honor

Two years later, during NBC News Decision '92's 3rd round of The Presidential Debate, 1992 presidential candidate Ross Perot was quoted as saying:

"...we told him he could take the northern part of Kuwait; and when he took the whole thing we went nuts. And if we didn't tell him that, why won't we even let the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee see the written instructions for Ambassador Glaspie? - "

At this point, he was interrupted by former president George Bush who yelled:

"I've got to reply on that. That gets to the National Honour!... That is absolutely absurd!"

Later on in the debate, President Bill Clinton stated:

"...Several government departments, several, had information that he was converting our aid to military purposes and trying to develop weapons of mass destruction, but in late '89 the President signed a secret policy saying we were going to continue to try to improve relations with him, and we sent him some sort of communication on the eve of his invasion of Kuwait that we still wanted better relations..."

On August 23rd, Iraq offered to withdraw in return for the lifting of economic sanctions, guaranteed access to the Gulf, and full control of the Rumalyah oil field. The proposal was not accepted. In late February, the Soviets negotiated a peace proposal involving a three-week withdrawal period on the part of the Iraqis, in exchange for removal of the sanctions. George Bush did not accept.

It soon became reported in American newspapers, magazines, and television media that the Iraqis had the world's fourth-largest army with estimates of up to a million soldiers, including the battle-hardened elite republican guard. Later, it was estimates were reduced to 2-3 hundred thousand Iraqi soldiers. By the end of the war, this number was further reduced to a hundred-thousand untrained troops, most of whom were forced to maintain their positions. This is ironic, considering that in the fall of 1990, after the start of the war, Canadian military analyst Gwynne Dyer remarked that "Saddam Hussein was not a problem that kept anybody awake in July." Three successive American administrations did nothing from 1980 to 1988, when Saddam Hussein was responsible for killing over 150,000 Iranians and 13,000 of his own civilians including approximately 4,000 unarmed Kurds.

---

[lewislynn]

"I have direct instructions from President Bush to improve our relations with Iraq. We have considerable sympathy for your quest for higher oil prices

That says more to me about "read my lips" Bush than anything else in the article.

[zook]

It doesn't hurt me. It's just bullsh**. If you like spreading bullsh**, then post away. Hope you're enjoying your Moby CDs.

[Rome2000]

The fact that April Glaspie is an idiot has been widely known since 1991.

Her stupidity pales in comparison, however , to that of Saddams.

Saddam didn't learn from his mistake back in 1991 either.

He still didn't understand that there is a difference between Democrats and Republicans.

[vbmoneyspender]

This is the transcript that Hussein prepared of his meeting with Gillespie. As such, it's veracity should be taken with a grain of salt, particularly since the meeting that is allegedly transcribed here took place in Iraq, which meant that Ms. Gillespie probably didn't have her own transcriber at the ready.

[Stagerite]

The use of the term "Greenlight" is misleading in that America did not santion or issue invasion orders to Iraqi troops. In addition, it was diplomatically unacceptable for an American official to advise against invasion of Kuwait.

America's dominant reasons for militarily stopping Saddam in 1990 was the protection of Saudi oil fields and the maintenance of stabiilty in the Middle East.

[Pan_Yan]

This is the rational reasoning and substantiated analysis of our resident academic?

[RonHolzwarth]

"So, we are still debating Iraqi propaganda as truth."

What? Arabs lie?

Surely you joust?

s/

[Pan_Yan]

When she appeared before House and Senate panels last March, the former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, persuaded their members that she had talked tough to Saddam Hussein in the days before he invaded Kuwait. "I hope my credibility is at least as great as Saddam Hussein's," she told the Senators then. Contradicting the Iraqi leader's derisive account, she insisted that she had firmly warned him that the U.S. would not tolerate the use of force against Kuwait.

Not so, say Senators who have now seen the cables she sent back to the State Department in those critical days. Instead of a spirited defense of U.S. interests, Senators found waffling and appeasement. "No place does [Glaspie] report clearly delivering the kind of warning she described in her testimony to the committee," said Democratic Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island. California Democratic Senator Alan Cranston charged that she "deliberately misled Congress about her role."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: Time, 7/22/91, Vol. 138 Issue 3, p44, 1p

[Petronski]

Oh geez, not this $h!t again.

[wingster]

Where are the endorsements by then Pres. Bush Sr. for Iraqi military members to condone the dismemberment and torture of little children, infants, minorities, and women, particularly pregnant ones...

Y-A-W-N!!!

Also, if this is true, then where was all the outrage in the then media as a result of the Cain raised by the Iraqi's and Sad-damn Hussein for getting "double crossed" by Bush.

This notion is as silly as that of Kerry being anything other than a fool.

[Pan_Yan]

Congress seemed to accept Glaspie's claim that she dealt firmly with Saddam, and that served both her interests and Baker's. No one in the administration was eager to admit, on the record, that prewar U.S. policy toward Iraq was tinged with appeasement in hopes of making Saddam more cooperative. "We virtually gave him the green light [to attack Kuwait]," said a senior U.S. diplomat in the Middle East. "If I had been sitting where he was sitting and getting the signals he was getting from Washington and elsewhere at the time, I would probably also have gambled on the invasion of Kuwait." So far, the State Department refuses to publish Glaspie's cable. The administration deliberately muzzled her as the gulf crisis unfolded, a Bush aide conceded, in order to cut off discussion of how Washington had handled Saddam. "It would have highlighted how cozy we were trying to be with him," he said.

Could the invasion have been prevented by a stern lecture on July 25? Not from a schoolmarmish ambassador, and probably not from anyone. Even if Glaspie had adopted a tougher tone, it would not have made any difference. Except to her career. Although Glaspie may have salvaged her reputation, she herself is stuck in bureaucratic limbo. Her successor in Baghdad has already been selected, and so far no new job has been announced for her. She is an expert on the Arabs, and speaks their language "like a nightingale," says one of her friends. She was the first American woman to become ambassador to an Arab country and was highly regarded by her professional peers. But Washington's judgments often put style ahead of substance, and April Glaspie is unlikely to win another high-profile Arab embassy.

Source: Newsweek, 4/1/91, Vol. 117 Issue 13, p17, 1p

I don't see how this means we gave permission for torture, etc. It just raises the question of how competent our policy was with regards to Iraq prior to the Kuwait invasion.

I expected more factual data from FR than this. If this story is such BS, then FR should be full of links and posts refuting it with facts. So far I haven't gotten any.

[vbmoneyspender]

Whose transcript do you think you are reading? Do you think that is Gillespie's transcript of the meeting because Hussein kindly let her bring her own transcriber to their meeting, which took place in one of Hussein's pleasure palaces, or do you think that is Hussein's transcript of the meeting? Answers these questions and you'll figure out why people didn't pay too much attention to the argument that Hussein made on this subject.

[wingster]

Don't be a dope!

I was clearly being facetious. If even an inkling of this had been true Blather, Brokenjaw, CNN, the NYT, LAT, etc., etc., etc. would have been all over this like a cheap suit at some point. Can you even imagine?

They get excited over lies, pure lies. If this had been true we wouldn't have been here discussing this today wondering if it were or not. It'd have been out a decade ago easy. And in spades!

It's drivel! Screed!

[Consort]

Try to catch up to the rest of us.

[Pan_Yan]

I am trying to catch up. Thats why I posted this and asked the Freepers to fill me in on what I had missed. Once again, I am looking for the truth and am only getting white noise.

Feel free to show me where this has been debunked by a legitimate source. The Arabic Media might be slightly biased (/sarcasm). But your propaganda doesn't cancel out their propaganda. It just puts you in the same class as them.

[Casloy]

The point wasn't whether she told Saddam what he should or shouldn't do regarding Iraq. The point is she never told him the US wouldn't care if he invaded Iraq. I have no idea if she is defensible or not, and at this point it is totally irrelevant. On the other hand, I wouldn't put a lot of value in anything Pell or Cranston said, either.

[Consort]

I am trying to catch up.

You have to try harder. Don't worry about what happened back then; the Democrats will do that for you.

[Rome2000]

It'd have been out a decade ago easy. And in spades!

It was out a decade ago.

It's another reason you shouldn't send a woman to do a mans job.

The fact that Glaspie didn't have enough sense to make herself clear about the consequences of an Iraqi invasion of Kuwat doesn't translate into her or the USA being responsible for that maniacs agression.

It just makes us responsible for putting the wrong person in the job.

[zook]

My reasoning? Well, I'd never allow much class time to be spent on passing myths for facts. I wouldn't allow students to use class time to spread phony ideas. The story you posted falls into the category of "Hitler didn't really kill all those people" type stories. You could have done a few web searches and found out that the story was bogus. But instead, you posted it here with an aura of phony innocence.

I hear "We Are All Made Of Stars" is a really nice tune.

[mewzilla]

It's another reason you shouldn't send a woman to do a mans job.

Tell it to Maggie Thatcher :)