Re: [A-List] Fw: The 'April Glaspie' tapes

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Saddam Hussein factor
In January 1990, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had 24% and 9% of OPEC's total
production. Iraq and Iran had 13% and 12% respectively. Iraq was
involved at this time in a territorial dispute with Kuwait. Negotiations
between the two Arab countries failed to produce any solution. In a
meeting on July 25, 1990, between Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and US
ambassador April Glaspie, Saddam was assured that the US would not
become involved in the Arab-to-Arab political dispute. It was a major
factor in Iraq's decision to reincorporate Kuwait by force. A week
later, on August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded and occupied Kuwait, giving it
control of 22% of OPEC production.

The United States, belatedly realizing that political consolidation of
Arab oil was against its long-standing policy of divide and rule,
reversed itself on the basis of defending the principle of state
sovereignty, and became the major force in restoring Kuwait's
questionable sovereignty and de facto oil ownership early in 1991. At
this point, the US-engineered embargo prevented the export of Iraqi oil,
and Kuwait's oilfields had been destroyed by war. Iraq and Kuwait had
virtually no production and the slack was taken up by other OPEC
members, primarily Saudi Arabia. In February 1991, Saudi Arabia's
production accounted for more than 35% of OPEC output. The Saudis had
increased production sufficiently to compensate for the loss of Kuwait's
production as well as some of that of Iraq. The Saudis were forced by US
pressure to pay for the cost of the Gulf War and by Arab pressure to
provide financial aid to defeated Iraq under the table, all from the
windfall revenue. Not much was changed in the oil economics of the
region except in the political accounting.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GE26Dj02.html

It has been suggested that the US deliberately lured Saddam into Kuwait
in order to attack an increasingly intransigent Iraq. Saddam's meeting
with US ambassador April Glaspie is usually cited as evidence. The
records of that meeting indicate that Glaspie did not discourage Saddam,
let alone warn him about his highly visible massing of troops along the
Kuwait border. But the real purpose was not related to Iraqi aggression
or intransigence. It was to exploit the contradiction between Arab
regionalism and pan-Arabism to strengthen US control of the region.
Saddam told the US that he expected just reward for Iraq's role in
helping the US contain a hostile and extremist Iran, in a war that had
cost 60,000 Iraqi lives in one single battle, a price Saddam claimed the
US would be unable to shoulder itself, given the nature of US society.
Iraq was left with a foreign debt of more than  $40 billion after the
Iraq-Iran War, and needed higher oil prices of around $40 per barrel to
help pay this debt. Kuwait was deliberately keeping oil prices low to
destroy Iraq's economy. Glaspie responded that there were people from
oil states within the US who would also want to see higher oil prices.

A transcript excerpt of the meeting between Saddam and Glaspie, on July
25, 1990 (eight days before the August 2, 1990, Iraqi invasion of
Kuwait), released by British journalists, reads as follows:

   July 25, 1990 - Presidential Palace - Baghdad.
   Ambassador Glaspie: I have direct instructions from President Bush
   [Sr] 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 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 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.

   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 [ie, in Saddam's view,
   including 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?

   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 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America.
   (Saddam smiles)

While pledging US neutrality on Arab-Arab conflicts, thus not
discouraging Iraq from moving against Kuwait, the US at the same time
gave Kuwait, through then defense secretary Dick Cheney, assurances that
it would defend it against an attack from Iraq, emboldening Kuwait to
refuse to negotiate.

The US goes to war in the Gulf
On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded and occupied Kuwait. Four days later, on
August 6, the United Nations imposed heavy sanctions on Iraq, on request
from the US. Simultaneously, after consulting with US secretary of
defense Cheney, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, the head of the Arab
regionalist snake, invited US troops on to Saudi soil. The unhappy fate
of Kuwait had led the Saudi king to seek protection from the US against
the march of pan-Arabism. Iraq's transgression was not so much to
repossess Kuwait as an integral part of Iraq, but that it claimed Kuwait
as the first step on the march toward pan-Arabism. If Iraq were to be
allowed to keep Kuwait on the basis of pan-Arabism, the survival of the
Arab regionalist states will be directly threatened.

President George H W Bush quickly announced that the US would launch a
"wholly defensive" mission to prevent Iraq from invading Saudi Arabia,
and US troops moved into Saudi Arabia on August 7, 1990. Those who
thought simplistically that the US moved troops into Saudi Arabia to
protect Saudi oil were missing the point. At the time, Iraq was selling
a higher percentage of its oil to the US than Saudi Arabia, and there
was no reason to expect Iraq to change its oil export strategy. The
Iraqi purpose in repossessing Kuwait oil was to sell it, not to hoard
it. Yet the idea of a war to protect oil supply enjoyed wide automatic
support in US politics, more than obscure geopolitical calculations,
especially when greed and power have been celebrated in US society as
moral positives since the 1970s. Under the cover of protection of oil
supply, the US moved troops into Saudi Arabia to stop the march of
pan-Arabism. It was a fateful development, as the al-Qaeda pretext for
the attacks on US soil on September 11, 2001, 11 years later was
centered on demands for the removal of US troops from Saudi Arabia. The
unintended consequences of geopolitical stratagem was being expressed
through the iron law of terrorism of what goes around, comes around,
known generally as the blowback effect, a term coined by the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA).

On September 25, the UN imposed an interdiction on air traffic to and
from Iraq. On November 29, the US got its UN war resolution. John Pilger
reported in The Guardian that this was achieved through a campaign of
bribery, blackmail and threats. In 1990, Egypt was the most indebted
country in Africa. Secretary of state James Baker bribed president Hosni
Mubarak with $14 billion in "debt forgiveness" in exchange for Egypt
withholding opposition to the pending war on Iraq. Washington gave
President Hafez al-Assad the green light to wipe out all opposition to
Syrian rule in Lebanon, plus a billion dollars' worth of arms. Iran was
bribed with a US promise to drop its opposition to World Bank loans.
Bribing the Soviet Union was especially urgent, as Moscow was close to
pulling off a deal that would allow Saddam to extricate himself from
Kuwait peacefully. However, with its wrecked economy, the Soviet Union
was easy prey. Bush sent the Saudi foreign minister to Moscow to offer a
billion dollars before the Russian winter set in to compensate for
Soviet investment in Iraq. Mikhail Gorbachev, with life-threatening
political problems of his own at home, quickly agreed to the war
resolution, and another $3 billion from other Gulf oil states was wired
to the Soviet government to secure outstanding Iraqi debts to the USSR.

The votes of the non-permanent members of the Security Council were
crucial. Zaire, occupying the rotating chair, was offered undisclosed
"debt forgiveness" and military equipment in return for silencing
Security Council members during the attack. Only Cuba and Yemen held
out. Minutes after Yemen voted against the resolution to attack Iraq, a
senior US diplomat characterized the vote to the Yemeni ambassador as
the most expensive "no" vote he ever cast. Within three days, a US aid
program of $70 million to one of the world's poorest countries was
suspended. Yemen suddenly had problems with the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund; and 800,000 Yemeni workers were abruptly
expelled from Saudi Arabia.

On January 16, 1991, the United States led an international coalition
from US bases in Saudi Arabia to invade occupied Kuwait and Iraq. The US
established a broad-based international coalition to confront Iraq
militarily and diplomatically to defend the international principle of
non-aggression. The coalition consisted of Afghanistan*, Argentina,
Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh*, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia*,
Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany*, Greece, Hungary, Honduras*, Israel,
Italy, Kuwait, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger*, Norway,
Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania*, Saudi Arabia,
Senegal, South Korea*, Spain, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates,
the United Kingdom and the United States (countries marked with * were
non-combatants.) The coalition included all Arab regionalist states,
such as Syria, Bahrain, Egypt, the UAE, Morocco, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and
above all, Saudi Arabia. To crush pan-Arabism by exploiting its conflict
with Arab regionalism was the geopolitical purpose for the US attack on
Iraq. The war was financed by countries which were unable to send
troops. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, the rich regionalists, were the main
financial donors. More than $53 billion was pledged and received.

Exhaustive remote-controlled precision bombings were followed by
blitzkrieg movements of ground troops. Tens of thousands of Iraqis
troops were killed by smart-bomb air strikes, never having even come
within sight of the enemy, and most of the military infrastructure was
destroyed together with much of the civilian infrastructure. On March 3,
a ceasefire was reached between US-led coalition forces and Iraq. By
April, Iraq suppressed rebellions in the south by Shi'ites, and in the
north by Kurds. Millions of Kurds fled to Turkey and Iran. US, British
and French troops moved into northern Iraq to set up refugee camps and
to protect the Kurds. In May, Iraq was presented with an international
claim for compensation of $100 billion, which dwarfed the $23 billion
reparation imposed on Germany after World War I that was considered
incredibly excessive and as contributing to the rise of Nazism in the
defeated nation. But the government of Saddam survived, while the Iraqi
population suffered a decade of sanctions that caused the death of 2
million people, 800,000 of whom were children. While pan-Arabism was
dealt a setback, the suffering of the Arab people in Iraq boosted Arab
solidarity in the region.

Bush Sr and his national security adviser explained their decision on
"Why we didn't remove Saddam" in an interview with Time (March 2, 1998):

   While we hoped that popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam,
   neither the US nor the countries of the region wished to see the
   breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term
   balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate
   Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would
   have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in
   midstream, engaging in "mission creep", and would have incurred
   incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was
   probably impossible. We had been unable to find [Manuel] Noriega in
   Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to
   occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would
   instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other
   allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore,
   we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling
   aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq,
   thus unilaterally exceeding the UN's mandate, would have destroyed
   the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to
   establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the US could conceivably
   still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would
   have been a dramatically different - and perhaps barren - outcome."

Essentially the same argument was repeated in their book, A World
Transformed.

And off to war again ...
Yet a decade later, in response to terrorist attacks of September 11,
the second Bush administration launched a regime-changing invasion of
Iraq, on a number of drummed-up pretexts that in hindsight proved to be
unsubstantiated, ranging from preemptive strike against weapons of mass
destruction to spread of democracy, to humanitarian intervention. It is
a misnomer to characterize current US policy as preemptive defense. It
is more accurate to call it presumptive defense. A legitimate government
far away from the US with no credible threat capability against the US
was toppled by military force not because it actually possessed weapons
of mass destruction that could be used against the US, but that it was
presumed to have possessed or at least would seek to possess them in
character with its alleged evil constitution as defined by US short-term
geopolitical consideration.

Secretary of State Colin Powell, the administration dove who spoke of
"regime change" in Iraq for at least 18 months prior to actual beginning
of the second war on Iraq, said as the war drew near that the US might
not seek to remove Saddam if he would abandoned his weapons of mass
destruction. It was the latest in a series of comments by Powell that
seemed to back away from the White House goal of deposing the Iraqi
president, which remained as steadfast Bush administration policy. "We
think the Iraqi people would be a lot better off with a different
leader, a different regime," Powell told the UN Security Council. "But
the principal offence here is weapons of mass destruction, and that's
what this resolution is working on. The major issue before us is
disarmament. All we are interested in is getting rid of those weapons of
mass destruction." But George W Bush said on October 7 that he was "not
willing to stake one American life on trusting Saddam Hussein". Earlier
he had told the public: "This man tried to kill my daddy!"

The record shows that Powell, the good cop as opposed to Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld the bad cop, was also an early proponent of
the regime-change policy. He told the House International Relations
Committee on March 7, 2001, that the administration was considering such
a policy. In February, he told the same committee that "regime change"
was policy, and the US "might have to do it alone". He began backing
away in an October 2 interview with USA Today's editorial board. Should
Iraq be fully disarmed, he said, "Then, in effect, you have a different
kind of regime no matter who's in Baghdad." On ABC, Powell put it this
way: "Either Iraq cooperates, and we get this disarmament done through
peaceful means; or they do not cooperate, and we will use other means to
get the job done."

The US asserted that Iraq had biological and chemical weapons and could
be close to making nuclear arms. Congress had given Bush authority to
use military force, after coordinating with the UN to see whether
inspections could be made to work. The Security Council maneuver that
the US had expected to be smooth sailing turned into a five-week
round-robin of talks and a pitched battle of wills with France. The
fracas gave rise to criticism by many countries that the US had pressed
its case against Iraq too hard, not only straining international law but
also causing anxiety about how Washington would play its role as the
lone superpower, now faced with the new threat of global terrorism.

President Jacques Chirac of France, traveling in the Middle East,
demanded postponing authorizing war against Iraq until after UN weapons
inspectors had completed their work. The US was not eager to compromise,
but both Washington and Paris recognized that a rift between them could
be very damaging and that there were important advantages to widening
support for any American action taken against Iraq.

Bush administration officials characterized the protracted talks as an
example of UN vacillation. Bush raised question on the UN's relevance.
Powell told NBC that he expected the UN Security Council to enact a
resolution setting strong guidelines for inspection teams to be sent
back into Iraq. But, he added, "The issue right now is not even how
tough an inspection regime is or isn't. The question is will Saddam and
the Iraqi regime cooperate - really, really cooperate - and let the
inspections do their job. All we are interested in is getting rid of
those weapons of mass destruction." Rumsfeld began talking about the
"New Europe" of former Soviet satellites as against the irrelevant "Old
Europe" of France and Germany in the new world order.

On February 5, 2003, Powell presented "proof" to the United Nations
Security Council that Iraq still produced and held weapons for mass
destruction. Western non-affiliated inspectors to Iraq later declared
Powell's proof on mass destruction to be a "lie", while the US
officially attributed the untruths to intelligence failure.

Investigative journalist Bob Woodward of Watergate fame provided in his
sensational book, Plan of Attack, the first detailed, behind-the-scenes
account of how and why the president decided to wage war in Iraq based
on conversations with 75 of the key decision-makers, including Bush
himself. The president permitted Woodward to quote him directly. Others
spoke on the condition that Woodward not identify them as sources.
Woodward reports that just five days after September 11, Bush indicated
to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice that while he had to do
Afghanistan first, he was also determined to do something about Saddam.
"There's some pressure to go after Saddam Hussein," Woodward quoted
Rumsfeld as hearing the president saying: "This is an opportunity to
take out Saddam Hussein, perhaps. We should consider it." And Woodward
quoted the president saying to Condi Rice head-to-head: "We won't do
Iraq now. But it is a question we're gonna have to return to."

Woodward wrote that "there's this low boil on Iraq until the day before
Thanksgiving, November 21, 2001. This is 72 days after 9/11." This is
part of this secret history. Bush, after a National Security Council
meeting, took Rumsfeld aside, "collared him physically, and took him
into a little cubbyhole room and closed the door and said: 'What have
you got in terms of plans for Iraq? What is the status of the war plan?
I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret'." Woodward wrote
immediately after that, Rumsfeld told General Tommy Franks to develop a
war plan to invade Iraq and remove Saddam - and that Rumsfeld gave
Franks a blank check. Woodward detailed when and how the decision to
invade Iraq was made, but he shed no light on why.

Now what's the plan?
The Bush administration went into Iraq with enormous illusions about how
easy the postwar situation would be: it thought the reconstruction would
be self-financing, that US forces could draw on a lasting well of
gratitude for liberating Iraq from tyranny, and that the US could occupy
the country with a small force structure and even draw US forces down
significantly within a few months. This illusion is reflected in US
policy on force structure. After the Cold War, because of defense budget
reduction and popular opposition in the host countries, the US was
forced to gradually reduce its troops stationed overseas. US troops
abroad had shrunk to 247,000 people before the second Iraq War in April
2002. In 1968, during the height of the Vietnam War, army strength
reached 1,570,000; navy 723,600; marine 307,300; and air force 904,900.
In 2002, army strength had dropped to 486,500, navy 385,000, marine
173,700 and air force 368,300. The air force, together with navy
carrier-based planes, has become the dominant arm of the US military.

At the conclusion of offensive military operations in Iraq, the US Army
announced its plan to set up four military bases in occupied territory.
Up to now it still has more than 140,000 troops stationed in Iraq and it
is expected to keep a considerable scale of forces there for a long time
to come. The US occupation authority repeatedly singled out inadequate
troop numbers as the main difficulty in carrying out its mission. The US
force structure is designed to win short limited wars with smart
weapons, but is clearly inadequate for extended occupation of the long
list of countries in which US foreign policy aims to effectuate regime
changes.

Bush has adopted the "transformationalist" agenda embraced by Rice, who
in August 2003 set out US ambitions to remake the Middle East along
neo-conservative lines by using US military power to impose democracy
and free markets on an Islamic tribal culture. It is a policy for
political transformation of Arab countries deemed vital to victory in
the "war on terrorism". Yet this policy is at odds with the force
structure of the US military, which has been designed to prevail in
short intense conflicts, not long drawn-out occupations.

Since the events of September 11, the US has looked on Islamic terrorism
and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction as the greatest
threats to its national security, thinking the main threat to be coming
from the "unstable arc-shaped region" encompassing the coastal areas of
the Caribbean Sea, Africa, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Middle East,
South Asia and the Korean Peninsula. The US Defense Department has
drastically adjusted the disposition of its overseas troops around this
"unstable arc-shaped region" in an attempt to cope effectively with a
global "preventive" war.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FI17Ak01.html

Henry C.K. Liu

tony black wrote:

> ....A friend of mine sent me this response from Wikipedia re the
> Glaspie transcripts...which essentially attempts to de-fang the
> 'set-up' interpretation of the transcripts intent.
>
>  What is  missing from the account below, however, is the immediate
> historical context surronding the tapes. A context which includes the
> fact that the US and international community had a) repeatedly,
> seemingly with malice aforethought, rebuffed Iraq's attempts to obtain
> justice re Kuwaits' slant drilling into (i.e. theft of) Iraq's portion
> of the al-Rumaillah oil fields, and b) specifically encouraged Kuwait
> to immediately call in outstanding loans that Iraq had incurred
> following the (US inspired) Iraq / Iran War. Loans which threatened to
> bankrupt Iraq.
>
>  It also ignores the context of the end of the Cold War when it became
> clear to old US 'Cold Warriors' that, to offset the threat of the
> 'peace dividend' (following the demise of the Soviets) they needed -
> and quickly set about producing - a new 'bogeyman'...In this case, one
> old ally, Saddam Hussein.
>
> The evidence, then, of the deliberate provocation / entrapment of Iraq
> / Hussein by the US is thus not dependent merely on these transcripts.
>
> Tony
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Sonia and Rick <mailto:srizzato@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: Tony Black <mailto:tal@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2006 1:45 PM
> Subject: Re: The 'April Glaspie' tapes
>
> April Glaspie
> From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
>
> April Catherine Glaspie (born April 26, 1942), American diplomat, is
> best-known for her role in the events leading up to the Gulf War of
> 1991. Glaspie was born in Vancouver, Canada, and graduated from Mills
> College in Oakland, California in 1963 and from Johns Hopkins
> University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in
> 1965. In 1966 she entered the United States diplomatic service, where
> she became an expert on the Middle East.
>
> After postings in Kuwait, Syria and Egypt Glaspie was appointed
> Ambassador to Iraq in 1989. She was the first woman to be appointed an
> American Ambassador to an Arab country. She had a reputation as a
> respected Arabist, and her instructions were to broaden cultural and
> commercial contacts with the Iraqi regime in hopes of "civilizing" it.
>
> Glaspie's appointment followed a period from 1980 to 1988 during which
> the United States had given covert support to Iraq during its war with
> Iran (see Iran-Iraq War). Although the extent of U.S. assistance to
> Iraq during the period is often exaggerated (the Soviet Union was
> always Iraq's chief ally and arms supplier, followed by France), it
> was substantial. Its motivation was the belief that the Islamic
> revolution in Iran posed a greater threat to Western interests than
> did Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime. Some have speculated that
> Saddam assumed that U.S. support for his regime would continue once
> the war had ended.
>
> Before 1918 Kuwait had been part of the Ottoman province of Basra, and
> thus in a sense part of Iraq, but Iraq had recognised its independence
> in 1961. After the end of the Iran-Iraq War (during the course of
> which Kuwait lent Iraq US$14 billion), Iraq and Kuwait had a dispute
> over the exact demarcation of its border, access to waterways, the
> price at which Kuwaiti oil was being sold, and oil-drilling in border
> areas.
>
>
> Meetings with Saddam Hussein
>
> It was in this context that Glaspie had her first meeting with Iraqi
> President Saddam Hussein and his Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz on
> July 25, 1990. What was said at that meeting has been the subject of
> much speculation. At least two transcripts of the meeting have been
> published. The State Department has not confirmed the accuracy of
> these transcripts.
> One version of the transcript has Glaspie saying: "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 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 Hussien meeting Ambassador April Glaspie
> Later the transcript has Glaspie saying: "We have no opinion on your
> Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary Baker
> has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in
> the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America."
> Another version of the transcript (the one published in the New York
> Times on 23 September 1990) has Glaspie saying: "But we have no
> opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with
> Kuwait. I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late '60s.
> The instruction we had during this period was that we should express
> no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with
> America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize
> this instruction. We hope you can solve this problem using any
> suitable methods via Klibi [Chadli Klibi, Secretary General of the
> Arab League ] or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that these
> issues are solved quickly."
>
> When these purported transcripts were made public, Glaspie was accused
> of having given approval for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which took
> place on August 2, 1990. The transcript, however, does not show any
> explicit statement of approval of, acceptance of, or foreknowledge of
> the invasion. Indeed Glaspie's opening question ("Why are your troops
> massed so very close to Kuwait's borders?") would suggest that Glaspie
> (and presumably therefore also the State Department) were unsure of
> the purpose of the troop concentrations and was concerned about them.
>
> The transcript also shows clearly that when Glaspie expressed the hope
> that the Iraq-Kuwait dispute would be "solved quickly," she meant
> "solved by diplomatic means." The references to solving this problem
> "using any suitable methods via Klibi or via Mubarak" make this clear.
> Many have argued that Glaspie's statements that "We have no opinion on
> your Arab - Arab conflicts" and that "the Kuwait issue is not
> associated with America" were interpreted by Saddam as giving tacit
> acquiescence to his annexation of Kuwait, while others say that
> nothing Glaspie says in the published versions of the transcript can
> be fairly interpreted as implying U.S. approval of an Iraqi invasion
> of Kuwait.
>
> Given that the Iraqi regime sought to arouse international sympathy in
> order to weaken support for the economic sanctions that had been
> imposed by the United Nations after the invasion of Kuwait, it is
> somewhat surprising that Iraqi spokespersons did not attempt to
> exploit the controversy further, other than by releasing the
> transcripts. Indeed Tariq Aziz in a 2000 interview for PBS claimed
> that "There were no mixed signals. We should not forget that the whole
> period before August 2 witnessed a negative American policy towards
> Iraq. So it would be quite foolish to think that, if we go to Kuwait,
> then America would like that." He characterized the meeting with
> Glaspie as "nothing extraordinary" and said that Saddam "wanted her to
> carry a message to George Bush--not to receive a message through her
> from Washington."
> Some have argued that Saddam would not likely have invaded Kuwait had
> he been given an explicit warning that such an invasion would be met
> with force by the United States. Some argue that Glaspie could only be
> criticised for not giving such a warning if it can be established that
> she knew that Saddam was planning an invasion. Glaspie later testified
> that she had given Saddam such a warning, but no mention of this
> appears in the published transcripts. This is hardly surprising since
> these transcripts were released to further Iraq's ends. However,
> neither has the State Department offered a credible, comprehensive
> differing account that could convincingly refute Iraq's claims.
>
> Edward Mortimer wrote in the New York Review of Books in November
> 1990: "It seems far more likely that Saddam Hussein went ahead with
> the invasion because he believed the US would not react with anything
> more than verbal condemnation. That was an inference he could well
> have drawn from his meeting with US Ambassador April Glaspie on July
> 25, and from statements by State Department officials in Washington at
> the same time publicly disavowing any US security commitments to
> Kuwait, but also from the success of both the Reagan and the Bush
> administrations in heading off attempts by the US Senate to impose
> sanctions on Iraq for previous breaches of international law."
>
> Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution, writing in the New York
> Times on September 21, 2003, disagrees with this analysis: "In fact,
> all the evidence indicates the opposite: Saddam Hussein believed it
> was highly likely that the United States would try to liberate Kuwait,
> but convinced himself that we would send only lightly armed, rapidly
> deployable forces that would be quickly destroyed by his 120,000-man
> Republican Guard. After this, he assumed, Washington would acquiesce
> to his conquest." Consistent with this line of thought, Tariq Aziz
> claimed in a 1996 PBS interview that Iraq "had no illusions" prior to
> the invasion of Kuwait about the likelihood of U.S. military intervention.
>
> James Akins, the American Saudi Ambassador at the time, offered a
> slightly different perspective, in a 2000 PBS interview: "[Glaspie]
> took the straight American line, which is we do not take positions on
> border disputes between friendly countries. That's standard. That's
> what you always say. You would not have said, "Mr. President, if you
> really are considering invading Kuwait, by God, we'll bring down the
> wrath of God on your palaces, and on your country, and you'll all be
> destroyed." She wouldn't say that, nor would I. Neither would any
> diplomat."
>
> In April 1991 Glaspie testified before the Foreign Relations Committee
> of the United States Senate. She said that at the July 25 meeting she
> had "repeatedly warned Iraqi President Saddam Hussein against using
> force to settle his dispute with Kuwait." She also said that Saddam
> had lied to her by denying he would invade Kuwait. Asked to explain
> how Saddam could have interpreted her comments as implying U.S.
> approval for the invasion of Kuwait, she replied: "We foolishly did
> not realize he [Saddam] was stupid."
> In July 1991 the State Department's spokesperson Rick Boucher said at
> a press briefing: "We have faith in Ambassador Glaspie's reporting.
> She sent us cables on her meetings based on notes that were made after
> the meeting. She also provided five hours or more of testimony in
> front of the Committee about the series of meetings that she had,
> including this meeting with Saddam Hussein." The cables that Glaspie
> sent from Iraq about her meeting with Saddam are apparently still
> classified.
>
> Subsequently Glaspie was posted to the U.S. Mission to the United
> Nations in New York. She was later posted to South Africa as
> Consul-General in Cape Town - a perfectly respectable posting but one
> that must be seen as a "sidelining" for a diplomat who had made her
> career in the Middle East. She held this post until her retirement in
> 2002.
>
> Glaspie has remained silent on the subject of her actions in Iraq,
> apparently allowing herself to be made a scapegoat for the supposed
> failure of the Bush administration to forsee or prevent the Iraqi
> invasion of Kuwait.
>
> In August 2002 the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs published
> a new account of the Glaspie-Saddam meeting. The author, Andrew I.
> Kilgore (a former U.S. ambassador to Qatar), summarised the meeting as
> follows:
> "At their meeting, the American ambassador explained to Saddam that
> the United States did not take a stand on Arab-Arab conflicts such as
> Iraq’s border disagreement with Kuwait. She made clear, however, that
> differences should be settled by peaceful means.
>
> "Glaspie’s concerns were greatly eased when Saddam told her that the
> forthcoming Iraq-Kuwait meeting in Jeddah was for protocol purposes,
> to be followed by substantive discussions to be held in Baghdad.
>
> "In response to the ambassador’s question, Saddam named a date when
> Kuwaiti Crown Prince Shaikh Sa’ad Abdallah would be arriving in
> Baghdad for those substantive discussions. (This appears in retrospect
> to have been Saddam’s real deception.)"
>
> The points contained in the second and third paragraphs do not appear
> in the purported transcripts of the Glaspie-Saddam meeting, which were
> released by Iraq, and on which most of the subsequent criticism of
> Glaspie is based. If there is a full transcript of the meeting in
> existence, or if the State Department declassified Glaspie's cables
> about the meeting, history might reach a different verdict on her
> performance.
>
> Kilgore concluded his account: "April [Glaspie] has recently retired
> from the State Department. She does not know these words are being
> written. But she needs someone to speak out for her. Her loyalty to
> the system is notable. She has never spoken a word against the
> Department of State or against Secretary of States James Baker, who
> might have said — but did not — "We all misjudged Saddam Hussein, and
> ‘we’ includes me."
>
> Joseph C. Wilson, Glaspie's successor as ambassador to Iraq, referred
> to her meeting with Saddam Hussein in a Democracy Now interview on May
> 14, 2004: an "Iraqi participant in the meeting [...] said to me very
> clearly that Saddam did not misunderstand, did not think he was
> getting a green or yellow light." However, he does cite a letter
> signed by President George H. W. Bush that was sent to Iraq a couple
> of days afterwards, that he describes as having a conciliatory tone.