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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (138449)	6/30/2004 12:54:42 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Unfortunately we telegraphed back the cryptic reply that we weren't interested in the Kuwait/Iraq tensions X, that's silly. First, by that time Saddam had already started the Iran-Iraq war and gassed the Kurds and driven millions of refugees out of the country. Second, we telegraphed back that we didn't really care about minor border disputes and Saddam took it to mean that we wouldn't care if he conquered Kuwait and rolled his tanks right up to the Saudi border. Saddam was wily and fairly astute as a politician So, you consider bringing Gulf Wars I and II down on his head "astute"? Saddam knew, in a brutal but shrewd manner, how to arrange himself inside Iraqi politics, and appeal to Arabs. But he was totally clueless about the West, and in the habit of taking suicidal risks. Like most dictators, he was surrounded by yes-men and had very unrealistic ideas of his position. Then, there were those models of stability, Qusay and Uday, to follow.