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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (14207)	11/29/2004 10:52:21 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20773

>> However, we both know that Saddam would have invaded SA eventually anyway. This is far from certain. >> His intentions to annex the entire region's oil reserves are not in doubt. Intention is too strong a word. He would have liked to have it all, but frankly so do I. However, it is what people do that matters most rather than what they say they will do or think they will do or may wish to do or would do if the right conditions ever allowed them to do it.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (14207)	11/29/2004 11:07:20 PM
From: Michael Watkins	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20773

> However, we both know that Saddam would have invaded SA eventually anyway. His intentions to annex the entire region's oil reserves are not in doubt. < Actually they are plenty of reasons to doubt that. What is acknowledged is that Saddam wanted higher oil prices to help rebuild his countries treasury. Some in OPEC where happy to see him struggle. I challenge you to find any credible military source that believed Saudi Arabia was in any danger at all of being annexed by Iraq. One abandoned town was on the front line for a couple of days -- other than US military bases being targets for the odd SCUD (no surprise there), Saudi Arabia had nothing to fear. Scenes of SCUD attacks it made for excellent propaganda; much better than admitting the truth about the failed Patriot Missile Battery. Iraq had long made it known to its US supporters about its issues with Kuwait. The US administration didn't object to these issues, nor was it surprised that one option for Husayn was military. What really ticked Bush I off was that Saddam went after all of Kuwait, not just part of it. There's at least as much reason to believe that Bush I and Co. planned on allowing Saddam his grand ideas because they a) wanted to have some fun destroying him (Powell 1990 said as much), and b) saw higher oil prices as a reasonable outcome for a time, as Ambassador Glaspie (July 25 1990) commented to Husayn "We have many Americans who would like to see the price go above $25 because they come from oil-producing states." This isn't a far fetched scenario at all: Saddam Husayn also wanted oil up to 25$ a barrel - that was one of his goals in fact.