Ranjit Singh Kalha, former ambassador to Iraq, states in his book "The Ultimate Prize: Oil and Saddam's Iraq" that the US had prior knowledge about Saddam Hussein's attack on Kuwait in 1990.
Kalha quotes the US envoy in Baghdad, April Glaspie, as telling Saddam on July 25, 1990:
"We have no opinion on Arab-Arab conflict, like your border disagreement with Kuwait."
Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2nd 1990.
The US envoy also told Saddam:
"We hope you can solve this problem using any suitable methods... All that we hope is that these issues are solved quickly."
Kalha states that on July 27, 1990, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US was called to the Pentagon and told, "Iraq is going to invade Kuwait."
The day before the Iraqi attack on Kuwait began, Kuwaiti defence minister Sheikh Salem al-Sabah received a text from the US:
"We do not want to alarm you unnecessarily, but we think the contingency plan should be put into effect... under no circumstances should the Emir be allowed to spend the night in Kuwait city. He should cross into Saudi Arabia and go to Khafji, 20 kilometers south of the border."
The US government decided to punish Saddam because he had gone beyond the agreed script, and taken over all of Kuwait instead of a few islands and its main oilfield.
The seeds of the current conflict were sown in the conflict of 1990, which was brought about because of US ineptitude.
Given the above, does anyone really believe that the US has the capability (diplomatically and politically) to resolve the current troubles in Iraq?
