The Gulf War (NY Times Article One)

8/13/2019 The Gulf War (NY Times Article One)

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New York TimesSeptember 23, 1990CONFRONTATION IN THE GULF

CONFRONTATION IN THE GULF;

U.S. Gave Iraq Little Reason Not toMount Kuwait Assault

By ELAINE SCIOLINO with MICHAEL R. GORDON, Special to The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Sept. 22In the two weeks before Iraq'sseizure of Kuwait, the Bush Administration on the advice of Arableaders gave President Saddam Hussein little reason to fear aforceful American response if his troops invaded the country.

The Administration's message to Baghdad, articulated in publicstatements in Washington by senior policy makers and delivereddirectly to Mr. Hussein by the United States Ambassador, AprilC. Glaspie, was this: The United States was concerned aboutIraq's military buildup on its border with Kuwait, but did notintend to take sides in what it perceived as a no-win borderdispute between Arab neighbors.

In a meeting with Mr. Hussein in Baghdad on July 25, eight days

before the invasion, Ms. Glaspie urged the Iraqi leader to settlehis differences with Kuwait peacefully but added, ''We have noopinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your borderdisagreement with Kuwait,'' according to an Iraqi documentdescribed as a transcript of their conversation.

Details of U.S. Diplomacy

Portions of the document, prepared in Arabic by the Iraqi

Government, were translated and broadcast by ABC News onSept. 11 and were the basis of accounts by The Washington Postand The Guardian of London. The State Department declined toconfirm the accuracy of the document, but officials did notdispute Ms. Glaspie's essential message.

As those and other details of the Administration's diplomacy


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have unfolded in recent weeks, its handling of Iraq before theinvasion has begun to draw strong criticism in Congress, evenamong those who generally support the Administration's militaryaction in the Persian Gulf. Some lawmakers have asserted that

the Administration conveyed a sense of indifference to Baghdad'sthreats.

Interviews with dozens of Administration officials, lawmakersand independent experts and a review of public statements andthe Iraqi document show that instead of sending Mr. Hussein

blunt messages through public and private statements that aninvasion would be unacceptable, the State Department preparedequivocal statements for the Administration about American

commitments to Kuwait.

Arab Assurances on Invasion

The American strategy, carried out primarily by the StateDepartment but approved by the White House, was based on theassumption that Iraq would not invade and occupy Kuwait.President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and King Fahd of Saudi

Arabia, who assured the Bush Administration that Mr. Husseinwould not invade, argued that the best way to resolve an inter-Arab squabble was for the United States to avoid inflammatorywords and actions.

Some senior Administration officials said the strategy was alsorooted in the view that Washington - and most of the Arab world- probably could live with a limited invasion of Kuwait, in whichIraqi forces seized bits of Kuwaiti territory to gain concessions.

''We were reluctant to draw a line in the sand,'' a senior

Administration official said. ''I can't see the American publicsupporting the deployment of troops over a dispute over 20 milesof desert territory and it is not clear that the local countries

would have supported that kind of commitment. The basicprinciple is not to make threats you can't deliver on. That wasone reason there was a certain degree of hedging on what was


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said.''

Effect of a Harder Line

Even in the days before the invasion, there was a consensusinside the Administration and among outside experts that Mr.Hussein would not invade despite largely correct intelligenceassessments of the military buildup on the ground.

''There would have been a lot of fluttering if there had been apartial invasion,'' said an Administration official. ''The crucialfactor in determining the American response was not the reality

but the extent of the invasion.''

It is not clear that taking a harder line would have made adifference in Baghdad's decision to take Kuwait, and some

Administration officials argue that if they had they would now beaccused of pushing Mr. Hussein toward extreme actions.

As the Administration's policy toward Iraq before the invasionhas come under criticism in Congress, the President's ForeignIntelligence Advisory Board, a group of experts who report toPresident Bush on intelligence issues, has also begun a post-

mortem on the handling of the crisis.

Flawed Policy on Baghdad

The Administration was following what President Bushacknowledged last week was a flawed policy toward Iraq, a policy

built on the premise that the best way to handle Mr. Hussein andmoderate his behavior was through improving relations withBaghdad. That assessment presumed that Iran and Iraq, both

exhausted by their eight-year border war, would focus ondomestic reconstruction, not foreign adventurism.

As a result, the Bush Administration failed to calibrate its policyto take into account a string of belligerent statements and actions

by Mr. Hussein in recent months, including the execution of a


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British journalist and a threat to use chemical weapons againstIsrael.

''We were essentially operating without a policy,'' said a senior

Administration official. ''The crisis came in a bit of a vaccum, at atime when everyone was focusing on German reunification.''

In the days before the invasion, Administration officials sentmixed signals about the American commitment to Kuwait'sdefense.

Speaking With One Voice

Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, for example, was quoted astelling journalists at a press breakfast on July 19 that the

American commitment made during the Iran-Iraq War to cometo Kuwait's defense if it were attacked was still valid. The samepoint was also made by Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary ofDefense for Policy, at a private luncheon with Arab ambassadors.But Pete Williams, Mr. Cheney's chief spokesman, later tried tosteer journalists away from the Secretary's remarks, adding thatMr. Cheney had been quoted with ''some degree of liberty.''

From that moment on, there was an orchestrated Administrationcampaign to speak with one voice, and speak quietly.

On July 24, when Margaret D. Tutwiler, the State Departmentspokeswoman, was asked whether the United States had anycommitment to defend Kuwait, she said, ''We do not have anydefense treaties with Kuwait, and there are no special defense orsecurity commitments to Kuwait.''

Asked whether the United States would help Kuwait if it wereattacked, she replied, ''We also remain strongly committed tosupporting the individual and collective self-defense of ourfriends in the gulf with whom we have a deep and longstandingties,'' a statement that some Kuwaiti officials said privately wastoo weak.


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Bush's Forceful Tone

Two days before the invasion, John H. Kelly, Assistant Secretaryof State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, essentially

repeated the same message in Congressional testimony.

Even after the invasion, there was unease in some quarters in theState Department over Mr. Bush's tough public stance. On Aug.6, when President Bush clearly committed the United States toroll back Iraq's conquest of Kuwait, Secretary of State James A.Baker 3d expressed reservations about the wisdom of the forcefultone of Mr. Bush remarks, according to Administration officials.

On Tuesday, at a hearing before a House Foreign Affairssubcommittee, Representative Lee H. Hamilton sharply chidedMr. Kelly for not taking a tougher stance against Iraq in histestimony before the invasion.

''You left the impression that it was the policy of the UnitedStates not to come to the defense of Kuwait,'' said Mr. Hamilton,an Indiana Democrat. ''I asked you if there was a U.S.commitment to come to Kuwait's defense if it was attacked. Yourresponse over and over again was we have no defense-treatyrelationship with any gulf country.''

Policy Guidelines Followed

Bush Administration officials assert that Kuwait never asked forAmerican troops or sought to join in joint military exercises withAmerican forces.

Mr. Cheney told a breakfast group on Capitol Hill on Thursday

that ''the fact was, there was literally nothing we could do untilwe could get access to that part of the world, and the attitude ofSaudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states has been consistentlythat they didn't want U.S. forces on the ground over there.''

On July 25, a week before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Ms.


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Glaspie was quickly summoned to Mr. Hussein's office inBaghdad, and she faithfully followed conciliatory policyguidelines sent to her from the State Department.

In their conversation, Mr. Hussein described an Americanconspiracy against him since the end of his war with Iraq, andwarned the United States not to oppose his goal of gettingeconomic concessions from Kuwait and the United ArabEmirates, according to the document described as the officialIraqi transcript, which ABC News made available to the New

York Times. Miss Tutwiler said Friday that the State Departmentwould not reveal the contents of a diplomatic exchange.

'We Too Can Harm You'According to the Iraqi document, Mr. Hussein also suggestedthat he would use terrorism to curb any effort by the UnitedStates to try to stop him from achieving his goals.

''We too can harm you,'' he said according to the document,adding, ''We cannot come all the way to the United States butindividual Arabs may reach you.''

But at another point in the document, he characterized the feudwith his neighbors as an inter-Arab dispute, adding that thesolution ''must be found within an Arab framework and throughdirect bilateral negotiations.''

Ambassador Glaspie stuck to the State Department line thatPresident Bush wanted good relations with Iraq. Citing concernabout Iraq's large troop buildup on the border and threateningremarks by Mr. Hussein in a number of his statements, she said

that she had received instructions from Washington ''to ask you,in the spirit of friendship - not in the spirit of confrontation -regarding your intentions.''

In a long reply, Mr. Hussein said he and the Kuwaiti leadershiphad agreed to negotiate their differences. ''But if we are unable to


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find a solution,'' he said, ''then it will be natural that Iraq will notaccept death.''

Some officials say they are convinced that Iraq had already made

a decision to invade when President Hussein met the AmericanAmbassador and that Mr. Hussein's talk of a possible peacefulresolution was an effort to deceive Washington.

''To suggest that we are to blame for all of this and we lulled theminto thinking they could have Kuwait is really terrible,'' a seniorofficial said. ''But we should have had a stiffer tone. It is unlikelyto have made a difference, but it might have made a difference.''

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Documents

The Gulf War (NY Times Article One)