From: anwar+@cs.cmu.edu (Anwar Mohammed)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.bush
Subject: Re: Whatever happened to ... Iraq?
Date: 11 Sep 92 13:07:38 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon

In article <1992Sep10.202536.26994@athena.mit.edu> anders@athena.mit.edu (Anders W Hove) writes:
>In article <27672@life.ai.mit.edu>, elwin@ai.mit.edu (Lee Campbell) writes:
>|> 
>|>    What did our ambassador to Iraq say to Saddam Hussein just before
>|> he invaded Kuwait?  Ross Perot claimed the ambassador gave Iraq
>|> permission to take over some oil fields, and then we were surprised
>|> when he took the whole country.  Is this true?  Did we blunder?  Who
>|> instructed the ambassador?  Why weren't Perot's allegations checked?
>|> 
>|>    Naahhh... "family values" are much more important, aren't they?
>|> 
>|> 						- Lee Campbell
> 
>
>    Ross Perot was refering to the conversation held between a State Dept
>official named April Glaspie and Saddam Hussein a few days before the latter
>invaded Kuwait.  Glaspie was an Arabist who was of the opinion that we were
>really making progress with the Iraqi regime (in terms of the cause of
>democracy). Because she feared that irking Saddam would endanger the
>establishment of a joint Iraq/US "interpretive center" in Baghdad, she thought it
>would be better to be nice to him.  She received permission to inform S. Hussein
>that the US "[had] no official position on Iraq's border dispute with Kuwait". 
>Apparently, Saddam took this as official permission from Bush to invade Kuwait. 
>A few days later, Iraqi tanks reached the Saudi border.


Every once in a while, someone posts this same line to the net.  That
Bush and co. gave Saddam permission to invade.  As a Kuwaiti-American,
I followed events immediately prior to the invasion on August 2 very
closely.  I have a very different recollection.  I seem to recall 
the U.S. moving battleships into the Gulf and carrying out military 
exercises with the U.A.E. in response to Iraqi threats against those
"tools of the west", Kuwait and the U.A.E..  Newpaper articles from
this period, note the dates:

Author       Gordon, Michael R
Title        U.S. Deploys Air and Sea Forces after Iraq Threatens 2 Neighbors
Source       New York Times,  Jul 25, 1990,  A, 1:1
Features     Map
Abstract     The US sent two aerial refueling planes to the UNITED ARAB EMIRATES and deployed 
             combat ships into the Persian Gulf after threats of military force by Iraq 
             against the EMIRATES and Kuwait.
Subjects     International relations; Armed forces


Author       Shenon, Philip
Title        U.S. Weighs Sanctions on Iraq over Baghdad's Oil-Dispute Tactics
Source       New York Times,  Jul 27, 1990,  A, 2:1
Abstract     The US has started a wide-ranging review of foreign policy toward Iraq and will 
             consider new economic sanctions and export controls as a result of Iraq's 
             threats against its neighbors, Kuwait and the UNITED ARAB EMIRATES.  There is 
             also concern over Iraqi efforts to develop chemical weapons.
Subjects     Biological & chemical weapons; Foreign policy; International relations-US; 
             Sanctions; International trade


>
>Anders Hove


-- 
Anwar Mohammed                FREE       Graduate Student
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