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Is the US State Department still keeping April
Glaspie under wraps?
By Kaleem Omar
12/25/05 "Jang"
-- -- It is now more than fifteen years since that
fateful meeting on July 25, 1990 between then-US Ambassador to Iraq
April Glaspie and President Saddam Hussein that the Iraqi leader
interpreted as a green light from Washington for his invasion of
Kuwait eight days later.
The US State Department, which is said to have placed a gag order on
Glaspie in August 1990 prohibiting her from talking to the media
about what had transpired at that meeting, is apparently still
keeping her under wraps despite the fact that she retired from the
American Foreign Service in 2002. .
In all the years since her meeting with Saddam Hussein, Glaspie has
never spoken about it to the media, never appeared as a guest on a
TV talk show, never written an article or a book about her time as
the US’s top diplomat in Baghdad. The question is: why? What has she
got to hide?
April Catherine Glaspie was born in Vancouver, Canada, on April 26,
1942 and graduated from Mills College in Oakland, California in 1963
and from Johns Hopkins University in 1965. In 1966 she entered the
United States diplomatic service, where she became an expert on the
Middle East. After postings in Kuwait, Syria and Egypt, Glaspie was
appointed Ambassador to Iraq in 1989.
Glaspie’s appointment followed a period from 1980 to 1988 during
which the United States had given substantial covert support to Iraq
during its war with Iran.
Before 1918 Kuwait had been part of the Ottoman province of Basra,
and thus in a sense part of Iraq, but Iraq had recognised its
independence in 1961. After the end of the Iran-Iraq War (during the
course of which Kuwait lent Iraq $ 14 billion), Iraq and Kuwait had
a dispute over the exact demarcation of its border, access to
waterways, the price at which Kuwaiti oil was being sold, and
oil-drilling in border areas.
It was in this context that Glaspie had her first meeting with
Saddam Hussein on July 25, 1990. Glaspie herself had requested the
meeting, saying she had an urgent message for the Iraqi president
from US President George H. W. Bush (Bush Senior). In her two years
as Ambassador to Iraq, it was Glaspie’s first private audience with
Saddam Hussein. It was also to be her last. A partial transcript of
the meeting is as follows:
US Ambassador Glaspie:
"I have direct instructions from President Bush to improve our
relations with Iraq. We have considerable sympathy for your quest
for higher oil prices, the immediate cause of your confrontation
with Kuwait. (pause) As you know, I have lived here for years and
admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country (after the
Iran-Iraq war). We know you need funds. We understand that, and our
opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your
country. (pause) We can see that you have deployed massive numbers
of troops in the south. Normally that would be none of our business,
but when this happens in the context of your other threats against
Kuwait, then it would be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this
reason, I have received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of
friendship - not confrontation - regarding your intentions. Why are
your troops massed so very close to Kuwait’s borders?"
President Saddam Hussein:
"As you know, for years now I have made every effort to reach a
settlement on our dispute with Kuwait. There is to be a meeting in
two days; I am prepared to give negotiations only one more brief
chance. (pause) When we (the Iraqis) meet (with the Kuwaitis) and we
see there is hope, then nothing will happen. But if we are unable to
find a solution, then it will be natural that Iraq will not accept
death."
US Ambassador Glaspie:
"What solution would be acceptable?"
President Saddam Hussein:
"If we could keep the whole of the Shatt al Arab - our strategic
goal in our war with Iran - we will make concessions (to the
Kuwaitis). But if we are forced to choose between keeping half of
the Shatt and the whole of Iraq (which, in Iraq’s view, includes
Kuwait), then we will give up all of the Shatt to defend our claims
on Kuwait to keep the whole of Iraq in the shape we wish it to be.
(pause) What is the United States’ opinion on this?"
US Ambassador Glaspie:
"We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your
dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed
me to emphasise the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960s,
that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America."
(Saddam smiles)
At a Washington press conference called the next day (July 26,
1990), US State Department spokesperson Margaret Tutweiler was asked
by journalists:
"Has the United States sent any type of diplomatic message to the
Iraqis about putting 30,000 troops on the border with Kuwait? Has
there been any type of protest communicated from the United States
government?"
To which Tutweiler responded
"I’m entirely unaware of any such protest."
On July 31, 1990, two days before the Iraqi invasion, John Kelly,
Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, testified to
Congress that the
"United States has no commitment to defend Kuwait and the US has no
intention of defending Kuwait if it is attacked by Iraq."
The trap had been baited very cleverly by Glaspie, reinforced by
Tutweiler’s and Kelly’s supporting comments. And Saddam Hussein
walked right into it, believing that the US would do nothing if his
troops invaded Kuwait. On August 2, 1990, eight days after Glaspie’s
meeting with the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein’s massed troops
invaded Kuwait.
One month later in Baghdad, British journalists obtained the tape
and transcript of the Saddam Hussein-April Glaspie meeting on July
25, 1990. In order to verify this astounding information, they
attempted to confront Ms Glaspie as she was leaving the US embassy
in Baghdad.
Journalist 1:
"Are the transcripts (holding them up) correct, Madam Ambassador?"
(Ambassador Glaspie does not respond)
Journalist 2:
"You knew Saddam was going to invade (Kuwait), but you didn’t warn
him not to. You didn’t tell him America would defend Kuwait. You
told him the opposite - that America was not associated with
Kuwait."
Journalist 1:
"You encouraged this aggression - his invasion. What were you
thinking?"
US Ambassador Glaspie:
"Obviously, I didn’t think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis
were going to take all of Kuwait."
Journalist 1:
"You thought he was just going to take SOME of it? But how COULD
YOU?! Saddam told you that, if negotiations failed, he would give up
his Iran (Shatt al Arab Waterway) goal for the ‘WHOLE of Iraq, in
the shape we wish it to be.’ You KNOW that includes Kuwait, which
the Iraqis have always viewed as a historic part of their country!"
(Ambassador Glaspie says nothing, pushing past the two journalists
to leave)
"America green-lighted the invasion. At a minimum, you admit
signalling Saddam that some aggression was okay - that the US would
not oppose a grab of the al-Rumalya oil field, the disputed border
strip and the Gulf Islands (including Bubiyan) - territories claimed
by Iraq?"
(Again, Ambassador Glaspie says nothing as a limousine door closes
behind her and the car drives off.)
Two years later, during the American television network NBC News
Decision ‘92s third round of the Presidential Debate, 1992
presidential candidate Ross Perot was quoted as saying:
"...we told him (Saddam) he could take the northern part of Kuwait;
and when he took the whole thing we went nuts. And if we didn’t tell
him that, why won’t we even let the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee see the written
instructions for Ambassador Glaspie?"
At this point he (Perot) was interrupted by then President George
Bush Senior who yelled:
"I’ve got to reply to that. That gets to national honour!...That is
absolutely absurd!"
Absurd or not, the fact of the matter is that after April Glaspie
left Baghdad in late August 1990 and returned to Washington, she was
kept under wraps by the State Department for eight months, not
allowed to talk to the media, and did not surface until just before
the official end of the Gulf war (April 11, 1991), when she was
called to testify informally before the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee about her meeting with Saddam Hussein.
She said she was the victim of "deliberate deception on a major
scale" and denounced the transcript of the meeting as "a
fabrication" that distorted her position, though she admitted that
it contained "a great deal" that was accurate.
The veteran diplomat awaited her next assignment, later taking a
low-profile job at the United Nations in New York. She was later
shunted off to Cape Town, South Africa, as US Consul General.
Nothing has been heard of her since her retirement from the
diplomatic service in 2002. It’s almost as if she has become a
non-person.
Copyright: The News International, Pakistan
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