>>It is fairly clear that Saddam's
>>original plan was not to stop at the borders of
>>Kuwait but to keep going on down the coast
>>of the Persian Gulf to get the really big pools of
>>oil such as al-Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, then under
>>the control of a reactionary power in cahoots
>>with the United States.
and I asked:
>If this was the case, why didn't Saddam keep going and take all of Saudi
>Arabia? And anything else in the region he wanted (other than Iran)?There
>was nothing in the way of the Iraqi army until 6 months after the initial
>invasion of Kuwait.
to which he answered:
>>It was clear very early on that there was going to
>>be a response from the US and others. He went
>>into a defensive mode.
But he didn't go "into a defensive mode" at all -- he left his army as sitting ducks in Kuwait and Iraq, they weren't able to defend anything at all. Had Saddam gone on and taken Saudi Arabia the US would have had no land platform from which to launch a ground campaign against Saddam's army and an air campaign alone based on carriers or distant land bases would have been useless.
I don't think that "invading Kuwait was a progressive wonderful thing to do" and said nothing that could have led you to think that I felt that way. But you haven't said anything believable in support of your assertion about Saddam's original intent.
K. Mickey