On Mon, 4 Nov 2002, Bradford DeLong wrote:
> 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 is actually very interesting, and might go some way towards answering the question of mixed signals.
Slant drilling by Kuwait in the Iraqi Rumullah oil field was a very small part of Iraq's complaint. It was tacked on at the very end, along with the claim that Kuwait was building tiny towns on disputed Iraqi territory and annexing it. Both claims were seemingly tacked on in a bid to bolster Iraq's claim that the economic war that it alleged Kuwait was waging on it was the equivalent of military war, and could reasonably be answered by same. Because although both were small in amount, they were both about violating territorial boundaries.
But Iraq's claims were much bigger and wouldn't at all have been satisifed even if Kuwait entirely ceased slant drilling and paid back the full (and I assume exaggerated) amount Iraq estimated Kuwait had stolen, which was $2.4 billion dollars. Iraq wanted much more than that. It wanted Kuwait to forgive the 10 billion dollars it had loaned during the Iran/Iraq war on the grounds that Iraq was defending the entire Arab world. Iraq thought Kuwait should be grateful that it had only had to pay money where she had paid in blood. Furthermore, Iraq said repeatedly at meetings of the Arab League that not only should all war loans be forgiven her, but she needed an immediate influx of 30 billion dollars because she was devasted. And, just as importantly, she needed the price of oil to be raised to $25 a barrel, which she assumed was entirely without OPEC's gift. And lastly, that oil price hike had to be accomplished by other countries cutting back their production to their stated quotas so that Iraq could increase production to pre-war levels at a price of $25 a barrel.
Saudi Arabia immediately forgave the loans and gave more money and kept to quota. Kuwait, on the other hand, opposed it on all counts and then some. It refused to forgive the 10 billion loan and it refused to give it the 10 billion dollars it now demanded as a payment of gratitude for having defended it against Iran. And even more provokingly, it seemed to think Iraq should be grateful to *it* for loaning it the money. And then worst of all, it seemed to see its present weakness as an opportunity to screw more out of it. Because Kuwait (as well as the UAE) not only didn't abide by OPEC guidelines, it was actively flooding the market with oil, intentionally it seems meaning to bring Iraq to her knees to get her to promise to resolve the border and island disputes and to pay back the loan.
Furthermore, this behavior had been going on to a lesser but still considerable extent all during the Iran/Iraq war. For the whole second half of the 80s the price of oil was depressed in large part because of excess Kuwaiti production to the outrage of both participants. This came to a head when Iran, who paid for its war expenses out of pocket rather than out of loans, attacked Kuwaiti ships, and the US and Britain put them under our flags. And Kuwait had continually tried to force Iraq to sign away border rights and rights to the two islands in return for loaning it money and was continually outraged that Iraq never moderated its claims.
So the $2.4 billion was nothing in this scheme of things. Iraq wanted a power of ten more money, felt it needed all that money and that Kuwait owed it all that money. And on top of that it felt this was a crime of honor, in the truculent Arab sense. And not only Saddam felt like this. Iraqis felt like that too. They also identified with (what they considered, with some justification) the radical Kuwaiti opposition against what (they considered, with some justification) the reactionary al-Sabah dynasty. (Remember the original invasion was nominally supporting a domestic group that had overthrown the al-Sabahs. Saddam threw away that figleaf so fast that's sometimes forgotten -- probably one of his biggest mistakes.)
Now then, if April Glaspe was presented with the same list of grievances that Iraq presented at the last Arab League meeting, and answered, in substance, "We in America understand about the Rumullah field, that's really going too far," I can perfectly see how Saddam might reasonably take that as a diplomatic green light for invasion, since he considered thought that the Rumullah oil field issue so clearly a pretext and not the main issue that no one could not know that. But I can see how Glaspie might mean exactly the opposite, that she meant to be specific, that she meant to okay that he could specifically do something about the slant drilling, becaus that was the only claim she thought was serious. And this could be because she (and the US) just didn't take the rest of the list of demands seriously, even though they'd been made for the last six months, because they didn't take Arab League discussions seriously. They thought by nature that all huge claims were bluster, that only this small specifically itemized items was really at issue.
Out of curiousity, do you have any cites for Glaspie's exchange? I was under the impression that her refusal to the discuss the subject was absolute.
Michael