Castro, who was in Venezuela for one day to meet with leftist President Hugo Chavez, said he tried on numerous occasions to persuade Saddam to withdraw from Kuwait, warning the Iraqi leader that, not just Western countries, but also Arab nations, would turn against him.
Castro called Saddam's invasion of Iran "absolutely unjust," during an interview late Monday with Venezuela's state-run television station, Venezolana de Television.
"The other big mistake that never should have been made was the occupation of Kuwait," he added, wearing his olive-green fatigues for the interview on Venezuela's La Orchila island.
"We made great efforts (to persuade Saddam) to rectify," he said.
Castro said he sent two letters to Saddam to try to "persuade him that it was a mistake and he should withdraw" from Kuwait "or there would be a war with a coalition (of) Arabs, NATO, Muslims, everyone because Kuwait was a country recognized by the United Nations." In the 1980s, Saddam waged an eight-year war against Iran that killed hundreds of soldiers on both sides. He invaded Kuwait in 1990 but a U.S-led coalition drove his army out. ***
When Americans think about Cuban independence, they think of themselves as liberators through the 1898 war with Spain.
Cubans, on the other hand, think that that war was a way for Americans to steal the Cuban struggle for independence led by their national hero, Jose Marti. They think they would have won their independence without American help. They see their defiance of the US as an assertion of their independence.
In its early days, the Revolution had a puritanical streak. It closed the casinos, which had been a magnet for American tourists but which also brought mafia interests to the island. It suppressed prostitution. In the surviving nightclubs, it put showgirls in more modest costumes. The revolution saw these steps as necessary to end what it saw as morally corrupting influences from the US. ***