From: Pat Fallon (pfallon@ptd.net)
Date: Mon Sep 30 2002 - 08:26:19 MDT
> For sure we would need to do some digging to understand exactly
> what has gone on over the last decade. For example, I ran across
> a small fact the other day that the U.S. and Britain have conducted
> ~50 bombing runs so far over Iraq this year. You don't hear much
> about that in the papers. You also don't hear much about whether
> or not Kuwait was horizontal drilling into Iraqi oil fields and
> that is what got Sadaam annoyed enough to invade Kuwait in the
> first place.
Nor was there much comment at the time of the meeting on July 25, 1990,
eight days before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, between Saddam Hussein and
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie at the Presidential Palace in Baghdad,
when she said:
"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."
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."
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."
Pat Fallon
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