- Quotation from Negotiating for Dummies by M and M Donaldson
(1996), pages 195-6:
-
- "The Gulf War ('Operation Desert Storm') may well
have been avoided if the diplomats had been clearer in the days just before
the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. President Saddam Hussein wanted to destroy
Kuwait for a number of reasons all of which were good and valid to
him. He was not prepared to take on the US, let alone the entire world.
Therefore, he met for several hours with the US Ambassador, April Glaspie.
-
- The Ambassador said to Hussein:
-
- 'We have no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts, like your
border with Kuwait.'
-
- Astonishing.
-
- The Ambassador insists that there was more to the discussion
than was printed in the transcript, but she does not deny these comments..
-
- Even Hussein's telling of the tale indicates some lack
of clarity regarding his intentions toward Kuwait. He never said his intention
was to eliminate Kuwait from the face of the earth. On the other hand,
the US never even hinted at the kind of response that was ultimately invoked..
Documents show that within the month before the invasion, the US communicated
directly to Saddam Hussein in a way that caused him to think Iraq could
cross the border into Kuwait without repercussions. Please think for a
moment of the men and women who died in the Gulf War and their families
who still miss them.."
-
- http://www.jang.com.pk
- http://www.jang-group.com
-
- The News International, Pakistan Sunday December
25, 2005
-
-
- Is the US State Department still keeping April
Glaspie under wraps?
-
- By Kaleem Omar
-
-
- It is now more than fifteen years since that fateful
meeting on July 25, 1990 between then-US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie
and President Saddam Hussein that the Iraqi leader interpreted as a green
light from Washington for his invasion of Kuwait eight days later.
-
- The US State Department, which is said to have placed
a gag order on Glaspie in August 1990 prohibiting her from talking to the
media about what had transpired at that meeting, is apparently still keeping
her under wraps despite the fact that she retired from the American Foreign
Service in 2002. .
-
- In all the years since her meeting with Saddam Hussein,
Glaspie has never spoken about it to the media, never appeared as a guest
on a TV talk show, never written an article or a book about her time as
the US's top diplomat in Baghdad. The question is: why? What has she got
to hide?
-
- April Catherine Glaspie was born in Vancouver, Canada,
on April 26, 1942 and graduated from Mills College in Oakland, California
in 1963 and from Johns Hopkins University 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.
-
- Glaspie's appointment followed a period from 1980 to
1988 during which the United States had given substantial covert support
to Iraq during its war with Iran.
-
- 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 $ 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.
-
- It was in this context that Glaspie had her first meeting
with Saddam Hussein on July 25, 1990. Glaspie herself had requested the
meeting, saying she had an urgent message for the Iraqi president from
US President George H. W. Bush (Bush Senior). In her two years as Ambassador
to Iraq, it was Glaspie's first private audience with Saddam Hussein. It
was also to be her last. A partial transcript of the meeting is as follows:
-
- US 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 (after the Iran-Iraq
war). 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?"
-
- President 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 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."
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- US Ambassador Glaspie:
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- "What solution would be acceptable?"
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- President Saddam Hussein:
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- "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 Iraq'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?"
-
- US 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 emphasise the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960s,
that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America."
-
- (Saddam smiles)
-
- At a Washington press conference called the next day
(July 26, 1990), US 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 Tutweiler responded
-
- "I'm entirely unaware of any such protest."
-
- On July 31, 1990, 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 US has no intention of defending Kuwait if it is attacked by Iraq."
-
- The trap had been baited very cleverly by Glaspie, reinforced
by Tutweiler's and Kelly's supporting comments. And Saddam Hussein walked
right into it, believing that the US would do nothing if his troops invaded
Kuwait. On August 2, 1990, eight days after Glaspie's meeting with the
Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein's massed troops invaded Kuwait.
-
- One month later in Baghdad, British journalists obtained
the tape and transcript of the Saddam Hussein-April Glaspie meeting on
July 25, 1990. In order to verify this astounding information, they attempted
to confront Ms Glaspie as she was leaving the US embassy in Baghdad.
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- 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 opposite - that America was not associated with Kuwait."
-
- Journalist 1:
-
- "You encouraged this aggression - his invasion.
What were you thinking?"
-
- US 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 a 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 US
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.)
-
- Two years later, during the American television network
NBC News Decision '92s third round of the Presidential Debate, 1992 presidential
candidate Ross Perot was quoted as saying:
-
- "...we told him (Saddam) 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 (Perot) was interrupted by then President
George Bush Senior who yelled:
-
- "I've got to reply to that. That gets to national
honour!...That is absolutely absurd!"
-
- Absurd or not, the fact of the matter is that after April
Glaspie left Baghdad in late August 1990 and returned to Washington, she
was kept under wraps by the State Department for eight months, not allowed
to talk to the media, and did not surface until just before the official
end of the Gulf war (April 11, 1991), when she was called to testify informally
before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about her meeting with Saddam
Hussein.
-
- She said she was the victim of "deliberate deception
on a major scale" and denounced the transcript of the meeting as "a
fabrication" that distorted her position, though she admitted that
it contained "a great deal" that was accurate.
-
- The veteran diplomat awaited her next assignment, later
taking a low-profile job at the United Nations in New York. She was later
shunted off to Cape Town, South Africa, as US Consul General. Nothing has
been heard of her since her retirement from the diplomatic service in 2002.
It's almost as if she has become a non-person.
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