Well, what Glaspie did was get dragged out of bed and transported to one of Saddam's palaces in the middle of the night and subjected to one of his endless rants, not for the first time. And while he was ranting about Kuwait, she said that the US wouldn't get involved in Iraq's personal affairs.
The thing was taped, as all of Saddam's things were taped, and after Saddam invaded Kuwait, he relied on the tape as proof that the US gave him the OK to invade Kuwait, because his position was that Kuwait was "Iraq's personal affair."
Last night I read a bunch of Judith Miller's writings during the time period -- I had completely forgotten a lot of stuff about the first Iraq war, like the fact that Saddam and several other Arab leaders (Jordan, Egypt) kept accusing the US of hypocrisy for not making Israel give back Gaza and the West Bank. I think somehow Saddam thought that would fly.
BTW -- what Glaspie said to Saddam really is on tape, so it's in the public domain, you don't have to wonder. I've read transcripts but the interesting thing about the transcript is that it's taken completely out of contect. She didn't mean it the way it was taken, that much is clear, and I doubt they took it the way they pretended to take it, it was just a "gotcha."
But she should have been more careful. |
