Alaco@aol.com
Submitted for publication to the Star Banner on January 3, 2003
Many Americans have learned we must wait for as many as 25 years or more before vital facts about crucial events in our history surface. President Bush has denied public access to the presidential papers of President Reagan, who served 1981-1988, and Bush's father, who served 1989-1992.
Despite the president's protection of these documents, Vice-President Dick Cheney shed some light on how the United States helped ignite the Gulf War in 1991. In an article in TIME, DECEMBER 30, James Carney reports, "..during Cheney's tenure as Defense Secretary ... in the weeks before Iraq overran Kuwait, the U.S. sent mixed signals to Saddam Hussein about the consequences of an invasion. .. Cheney believes if the U.S. had been more forceful in threatening retaliation against Iraq, Saddam might have stood down and the Gulf War would have been avoided."
Prior to the start of the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein claimed a northern portion of Kuwait rightfully should be a part of Iraq. He made his feeling known to members of the Bush administration. Among the "mixed signals" reported at that time was a report that a U.S. representative told Hussein that he could do as he wanted to do with Kuwait, and the U.S. would not intervene.
Hussein invaded Kuwait. He was surprised when President Bush said forcing Hussein to retreat from Kuwait would be an example of how a military multi-nation coalition of forces could be mobilized to deal with an aggressor. Was the former President Bush so intent on doing this against Iraq that he purposefully sucked Hussein into invading Kuwait? Cheney believed if Hussein had been told how the U.S. would respond to an invasion of Kuwait, the Gulf War might have been avoided.
James M. O'Hara
James M. O'Hara