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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SecularBull who wrote (372640)	3/17/2003 3:51:51 PM
From: Rock_nj	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Well, perhaps if we had warned Saddam Huessein against invading Kuwait and sent troops there to back up our warning the Gulf War could have been avoided. I'm sure we had satelite pictures of his troop movements while he amassed troops along the border with Kuwait. We could have shown that to the Kuwaitis to convince them to let us defend their country. Also, Saddam was complaining about Kuwait stealing his oil. Iraq had threatened to invade Kuwait in the early 1960s and was thrawted when the British sent troops there to prevent him. So, U.S. and British military planners must have been aware of the ongoing threat of an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Especially with Saddam Huessein at the helm of Iraq.

To: SecularBull who wrote (372640)	3/17/2003 4:01:00 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Re: "How could the Gulf War have been avoided?" >>> Well, supposedly our American Ambassador to Iraq - in a meeting with Saddam prior to hostilities - answered a question from the Iraqis by saying that 'the US has no interest in Arab on Arab conflicts'. Presumably Iraq would not have launched the invasion if they hadn't thought we would stand aside. >>> Saddam's main beef with the Kuwaitis at the time was that they were pumping oil full-out (far above their OPEC-agreed production limits) and supposedly they were using 'slant drilling' to drill under the border and pump oil from the Iraqi side of the border. >>> This was putting a severe financial hurt on the Iraqi regime. >>> Intelligence suggests that Saddam never thought originally that he could get away with an invasion (up until that meeting with our Ambassador, anyway)... but he was trying to put pressure on Kuwait to end the slant drilling that was stealing Iraq's oil, and to lower their production. >>> He had big debts let over from that disasterous decade-long war with Iran... and oil at $10 a barrel was busting him up.