Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 21, 1991 TAG: 9103210377
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From The Associated Press/ and The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The U.S. mistake, Glaspie said, was that "we did not realize he was stupid" enough to go through with the attack.
Breaking an eight-month public silence with bluntly undiplomatic language, Glaspie told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that she had repeatedly warned the Iraqi government that its grievances against Kuwait would have to be settled peacefully.
And in a meeting with Saddam on July 25, he sounded conciliatory and asked her personally to deliver to President Bush the message that Iraq had no intention of invading its oil-rich neighbor, she said. A week later, Iraqi troops stormed into Kuwait.
"It was deliberate deception on a major scale," Glaspie told a packed hearing of the Senate committee. She added that Saddam had made "an extraordinary miscalculation."
Glaspie has been harshly criticized by many analysts and Democratic politicians for statements to Saddam that they say could have been seen as a green light to invade Kuwait. In particular, they have cited an Iraqi transcript in which she is quoted as saying the United States had "no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait."
But Glaspie disputed the accuracy of the transcript, saying it was selectively edited, and committee Democrats seemed to accept that. Chairman Claiborne Pell, D-R.I., asserted that by the time of their meeting, Saddam "had clearly made up his mind to go into Kuwait."
Glaspie said the United States may have been lulled by the prevalence of border disputes between Arab countries without major wars and by the knowledge that other Persian Gulf states were poised to make concessions to Iraq on the disputed Ramallah oil fields and on debts left over from the Iran-Iraq war.
And, too, she said, the United States was too ready to believe Saddam would be amenable to what it saw as reason and diplomacy.
"Our mistake was like that of every other government in the world: We did not realize that he was stupid," she testified. "He didn't realize that we would defend our vital interests."
Glaspie described for the first time the diplomatic scurrying in the weeks before the Aug. 2 invasion. Alarms already had been raised by Saddam's public threats against Israel. But on July 17, Saddam shifted his focus to Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, charging that they were producing too much oil and depressing prices.
Within hours, the United States issued a public statement reaffirming its commitment to "the individual and collective self-defense of our friends in the gulf," Glaspie said. It included an admonition that any disputes must be settled peacefully.
She hammered that message home in daily visits to the Foreign Ministry over the next week, Glaspie said.
To show its determination, the United States announced on July 24 joint military exercises with the United Arab Emirates, a move that got Baghdad's attention, she said. She was summoned to the Foreign Ministry at midnight for a meeting with Saddam - the first time he had met with a foreign ambassador in six years.
"It was clear to me that Saddam Hussein was enraged that we had taken this step. I believe he felt stymied," she said. It was then that Saddam asked her to tell Bush "that he would not solve his problems with Kuwait by violence," Glaspie said.
The next day anti-Kuwait rhetoric disappeared from Iraq's official media, and Arab ambassadors were congratulating the United States on its tactics, she said. She left Iraq to go to Washington just hours before the invasion, and has not been back since.
Glaspie's appearance was a departure from usual State Department practice. Normally, only higher-ranking officials are sent to answer policy questions. Ambassadors testify only when they come before the Senate for confirmation hearings.
"We are making an exception for her because she's become such a cause celebre," said one senior administration official. "We're doing this because people think were trying to hide something."
The official said Glaspie had not been given any limits on what to tell lawmakers. Efforts were being made to schedule a similar hearing for Glaspie today before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Senate committee members did ask her to supply them with copies of the diplomatic cables between the State Department and her embassy during those days.
Glaspie said she would ask her bosses, but she cautioned, "In my 25 years I do not recall any government - except Iraq - issuing a transcript of a confidential government exchange."
by CNB