Unanswered Questions

Brad Plumer reminds that one consequence of Saddam Hussein's death is that we won't get a chance to find out his take on the origins of the Gulf War. There are persistent and plausible indications that America's ambassador to Iraq before the war, April Glaspie, told Saddam that "We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait," which Saddam understood as an implicit green light to deal with the Kuwait situation however he saw fit, including via invasion. US officials, naturally, deny that this is what happened, since if it is it was a pretty embarrassing screw-up. Still, it's normally the case that if you take a good hard look at a war you're going to find that it wouldn't have happened absent some screw-ups. The Truman administration, famously, did something similar, appearing to leave South Korea outside the realm of American defense commitments and then going to war to preserve South Korean independence.

Comments

Regarding Glaspie and the Gulf War, Joe Wilson gave this explanation in an interview from a couple of years ago. Of course, she was his boss at the time, so he would probably be inclined to defend her. In any event, here's what he said (interviewer's questions in italics, Wilson's responses in normal font):

In your book, you discuss two very important meetings, and I would like to talk to you about those. One is the meeting of Ambassador Glaspie with Saddam Hussein, and the history books have not been clear yet about whether she gave him the wrong signal before the invasion that led him to think that he would get away with it, and that we would acquiesce in the invasion. You're providing new information here, things that you have learned since that day from people on the Iraq side who were present. Tell us about that.

The first draft of the history of that meeting has not been very kind to April Glaspie, and has, in fact, suggested that perhaps by the way that she phrased her talking points, she may have inadvertently given Saddam Hussein a green light, or at least not a red light, for invading Kuwait -- either encouraging or at least not discouraging it.

Well, having spoken to one of the people who was at the meeting from the Iraqi side in New York last year, about two months before he passed away, I asked that very question, because I was not at the meeting. I know what April told me when she came out of the meeting, and I know how the cables she wrote read. He said, "No, absolutely not" -- that in fact, in that meeting what she said was exactly what the Iraqis expected her to say. It was a longstanding policy of the United States and of other global powers or regional powers that we do not take positions on the merits of a particular legal case between two Arab countries, other than to encourage them in the strongest possible terms to mediate their differences either through an internal court of justice or international mediation or bilateral diplomacy.

What did surprise this interlocutor, Nizar Hamdun, who had served as ambassador to Washington and as ambassador to the United Nations, as well as undersecretary for foreign affairs in Iraq, what had surprised him was the tenor of the letter subsequently sent to Saddam Hussein by then-President Bush.

Before the invasion?

Before the invasion -- which he found to be overly conciliatory. Now, in reporting that, I did not intend to be critical of what the administration did; it is simply a matter of putting it down for history's sake. At that time, we were being advised by neighboring countries not to do anything provocative, anything that Saddam might take as an excuse to invade Kuwait. So we were walking on eggshells.

I can understand in retrospect, as I understood at the time, the need to be conciliatory; but it was important to put down for the history books how this was perceived from the Iraqi perspective.

Posted by Haggai | January 4, 2007 9:58 AM

"We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait,"

It is impossible that this could ever be interpreted in any reasonable way as "go ahead and invade if you want".

No, is it possible that Saddam did in fact take such a statement as a green light? Sure. But it is unreasonable to hold someone to account for Saddam's unreasonable interpretation of that statement.

Posted by Al | January 4, 2007 10:20 AM

"It is impossible that this could ever be interpreted in any reasonable way as 'go ahead and invade if you want'".

It is with some trepidation that I disagree with Al, well-known as he is for reasonable interpretations of people's published statements, but OF COURSE a quite reasonable interpretation of such a statement is that the US would not react to an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

Posted by rea | January 4, 2007 10:36 AM

Well, Carter apparently gave Saddam a green light to invade Iran. And of course Reagan enthusiastically supported Saddam's efforts during the war. Glaspie's statement, and whatever Saddam's interpretation of it was, should be seen in that context.

Also interesting is Saddam's motivation for invading Kuwait. According to post-2003 reporting, one of his reasons was to give his military something to do so they wouldn't focus on overthrowing him.

Posted by Jon | January 4, 2007 10:41 AM

It is with some trepidation that I disagree with Al, well-known as he is for reasonable interpretations of people's published statements

'Tis so, 'tis so.

but OF COURSE a quite reasonable interpretation of such a statement is that the US would not react to an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait

Since when is the US's (non-)reaction equivalent to a go ahead? If the US says OK, then it's OK? THAT'S the principle involved here? I would think that liberals, of all people, would not think that.

Let's use another example. The US says it has no opinion on the dispute between Russia and Belarus over gas shipments -- oops, you mean we just gave Russia the go ahead to invade Belarus??? I don't think so.

I agree that the statement could be interpreted as saying the US would not have a reaction. That's not the same as a go ahead.

Posted by Al | January 4, 2007 10:48 AM

I agree that the statement could be interpreted as saying the US would not have a reaction. That's not the same as a go ahead.

Fair enough. Point being. If it's the case that you intend to respond to some Iraqi action by going to war with Iraq, it would be good for Iraq to be clearly aware that this will be your response.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | January 4, 2007 11:08 AM

If it's the case that you intend to respond to some Iraqi action by going to war with Iraq, it would be good for Iraq to be clearly aware that this will be your response.

I don't think that's always the case. See our Taiwan policy for the last 50 years. I would not believe Joe Wilson as far as I could kick him, but if what Haggai posts above is correct, he points out that, sometimes in the course of diplomacy, there can be reasons not to be crystal clear as to your intentions.

Posted by Al | January 4, 2007 11:15 AM

The April Glaspie statement -- whether a green light or simply open to interpretation -- is just one piece of information that the first Bush Administration's stated motives for going to war were somewhat disingenuous. Here's another -- the alleged Iraqi troop build-up along the Saudi border (which caused the Saudi's to request our assistance) turns out to have been as legit as Colin Powell's 2003 presentation to the UN on Iraq's WMD capabilities. (See http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030315-satellites01.htm -- "The St. Petersburg Times purchased Soviet commercial satellite photos of the border and had them examined in detail by two imaging specialists, including Zimmerman. They found no evidence of significant military buildups along the Saudi border. After the war, Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, now secretary of state, acknowledged that there could have been far fewer Iraqi troops in Kuwait than originally believed.")
And another -- Saddam was actually retreating all through the fall of 1990 -- he released the "human shields", pulled the invading troops out, and so on.
In other words, it seemed at the time that GHWBush wanted the war; as with 2002-03, Saddam was deterrable, but the President didn't want deterrence or diplomacy to succeed. As Plumer notes, it is now the CW that Desert Storm was a "good" war, which is attributable, at least in part, to the contrast with this latest abomination. But it wasn't. It was smarter, but it was also a war of choice that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Iraqis (let's not forget the "turkey shoot" on the road to Basra, either, that war's Haditha).

Posted by Adam | January 4, 2007 11:47 AM

"Fair enough. Point being. If it's the case that you intend to respond to some Iraqi action by going to war with Iraq, it would be good for Iraq to be clearly aware that this will be your response."

Was it the considered opinion of most of the diplomatic community at the time that Saddam was about to invade Kuwait? I thought the belief was that he was just being boisterous and making empty threats. (Why we would have believed that after Iran is a different question). If so, it is less reasonable to see "Have no opinion" as "Hey go ahead and invade".

Posted by Sebastian Holsclaw | January 4, 2007 11:58 AM

would Saddam's take on the war actually mean much?

It's been public information for quite sometime that the US did not give Saddam a green light to invade, not even Chomsky thinks this, but despite the evidence to the contrary there are those who still want to hold onto to this belief.

Given that Saddam was never one for straight talking it's hard to see why he would have prefered to speak the truth rather than lie in self interest. Anyway, there are still people around that were in Saddam's govt that would probably be more reliable. I don't really hold to this idea that there will be that many things Saddam took to his grave.

Posted by Neil Morrison | January 4, 2007 2:40 PM

"Let's use another example. The US says it has no opinion on the dispute between Russia and Belarus over gas shipments -- oops, you mean we just gave Russia the go ahead to invade Belarus??? I don't think so."

If the only thing stopping them from invading Belarus (which could use a good regime changing, it's true) was fear of our reaction and we tell 'em we're fresh out of reactions, I'd like to hear what the difference is between that and a "green light."

And who's this reasonable person who's interpreting things? We were dealing with Saddam at the time and knew it, didn't we?

I dunno. I can see Saddam seizing on this slightly ambigous statement after the fact to try and make the U.S. look bad or seizing on it at the time, thinking this was the U.S. government's view. He wasn't the most worldy of despots and stuff I've read suggested he didn't have that much of a non-fantasy picture of the outside world.

Posted by witless chum | January 4, 2007 3:42 PM

No one argues that we gave him an explicit go ahead. The issue is whether a diplomat screwed up in accidentally giving one of those hidden signals.

An analogous situation is our diplomacy in Latin America in the 1970's and 1980's. Of course publicly the US expressed its support for human rights. At the same time, Pinochet & co knew that they wouldn't be being invaded and executed for their mass graves because of dog whistle diplomacy. So they continued to.

In the same way Saddam probably felt that the US would release some statement condemning the invasion and then cheerfully look the other way, given the diplomat's failure.

And, though of course Saddam is hardly known for truth telling, Bush Administrations aren't either. The best we can do is get both their perspectives directly and then separate the chaff from the wheat. An avenue that, as Matt points out, is now lost to us.

Posted by Zephyrus | January 4, 2007 9:46 PM

A few different insiders from the Iraqi side circa 1991 have made statements that they were certain they were going to get a reaction from the United States other than a pat on the back or indifference. Probably not war, but they didn't imagine anyone was going to be thrilled with it.

Posted by Ed Marshall | January 4, 2007 10:01 PM

Saddam had a very deep misunderstanding of not only U.S. motives but of all nearly international politics when it came to understanding what made different countries do what.

He did however build quite an anti invasion coalition with Oil contracts before 2003.

Posted by Mark Eichenlaub | January 4, 2007 10:59 PM

Even after the Kuwait invasion, President Bush I himself wasn't sure we'd go to war with Iraq over it until Mrs. Thatcher gave him a bucking up in Aspen.

Posted by Steve Sailer | January 5, 2007 12:25 AM