That was the other reason I posted that anti-Cheney article a couple of days ago -- the author claimed that Cheney personally persuaded a reluctant George HW Bush to throw Saddam out of Kuwait, and it struck me as odd because I had just read the New Yorker piece on Brent Scowcroft, where Scowcroft claimed that it was he who persuaded a reluctant George HW Bush.
After spending a few hours reading Judy Miller stories on Lexis-Nexis last night, my guess is that the Saudis were the ones who really were behind it. They were allies of the Kuwaitis, and they underwrote the war and pushed, pulled, nagged and chivvied the other Arab nations into joining the coalition. Also, the Saudis were, in their minds, co-equal with the US when it came to fighting and winning the war.
It was quite a change from the usual behind-the-scenes way the Saudis usually do anything, and, you might find this interesting, it pissed off people like Bin Laden, who was on the scene at the time as a critic of Saudi policies and bankroller of terrorism.
Miller had an early article about how the US was focussed on state sponsors of terrorism but the real money was coming from rich individuals like Bin Laden. |
