> When April Glaspie said that she understood that Saddam Hussein had
> to take some action to deal with Kuwaiti slant drilling, she did
> *not* mean that she understood that Saddam Hussein had to conquer and
> annex Kuwait. This "Glaspie gave a go-ahead nod for the annexation of
> Kuwait" seems to me likely to be completely false.
April Glaspie may not have OK'd the annexation of Kuwait, but don't you think that she was giving a green light for some kind of military action? I was of the impression that our (mistaken) understanding was that Iraq would only take regions where the Kuwaitis were doing diagonal drilling and pumping.
As you wrote earlier, containment works, and its been more than a decade since Gulf War version 1.0. Saddam Hussein might be vicious, but he'd have to be a blind fool to embark on another such adventure. -- Curtiss, with the inspect, not invade folks.