Anyone hear people claim that Iraq started the first Gulf War?

[Product of Evolution]

What a crock of shit.

We just invaded one Middle-Eastern dictatorship to save another...

[MercutioATC]

1. Well, Iraq DID invade the soveriegn territory of one of our allies....

I think that constitutes "starting" a war...

[Cocoa]

7. how was Kuwait our ally?

did we have a treaty with them?

[Wonk]

14. Harken Oil

Bahrain

Hill & Knowlton (April Glaspie)

Slant Drilling into Iraq

Google
(I'm kinda busy right now)

[Abe Linkman]

9. Poppy goaded SH into invading Kuwait

THAT constitutes an ally (Iraq) protecting its interests - with the approval of the United States. Hardly the same thing as what Bunnypants did last year. And the year before. And prior to that, what Poppy did to Iraq. And since then, what Clinton did to Iraq.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

12. Didn't SH contact Bush 1 and ask if the US were going to intervene?

And Bush said "no". But Bush 1 was so rocked by the global response that he had no choice but to go along with what pretty much the rest of the world wanted.
I could be wrong, though...

[unblock]

10. um, after we gave them the green light ...

kuwait had been slant drilling into iraqi oilfields, which arguably is an act of war. cross border theft, anyway.

iraq approached the u.s. and april glaspie, our envoy, under specific instructions from james 'mr. fixer' baker, told them the the united states would let them resolve their dispute with kuwait however they wished. she didn't greenlight a conquest, but she certainly greenlighted military action to resolve the 'border dispute'.

whether this was incompetence on baker's part, or a trap, we may never know for sure, but given the reich's obsession with iraq, saddam, and their oil, i certainly have my opinion....


as for kuwait being our ally, let's just be clear: iraq asked for, and got, permission from us to take military action. again, incompetence and/or trap, you be the judge.


btw, my criticism of bush the elder in no way sanctions iraq or saddam's actions. but, had saddam merely conquered the slant drilling areas, we would have been in a major political pickle.

[alcuno]

11. Was Kuwait an ally?

Did we have a treaty with them providing for mutual defense? I'm not sure. I'm just asking.

[rman]

16. Saddam had anounced he'd invade Kuwait, US said they didn't mind

several times in fact.

[Dookus]

2. Not only have I heard it said...

I say it myself. Iraq shouldn't have invaded another sovereign country.

[bobbieinok]

3. but US representative Alice ? told Saddam US didn't care

what he did about Kuwait

[alcuno]

5. April

Glaspie.

[KamaAina]

8. That'd be April Glaspie

We wanted a pretext to go in, and Saddam took the bait.

Saddam's pretext for invading Kuwait? Seems the Kuwaitis were using directional drilling techniques to drill under the border into Iraqi oil fields, hence my very own anti-Gulf War I chant: 'Stop the war! Stop the killing! We won't die for directional drilling!"

[alcuno]

4. Slant drilling.

Kuwait was likely slant drilling into Iraqi oil. US sent signals to Iraq that we did not get involved in territorial disputes. Iraq invades Kuwait. Bush I administration uses a PR firm to advance the "babies thrown from incubators" (Victoria Clark who later becomes the Pentagon spokewoman) lie. US says Iraq amassing troops on the border of Saudi Arabia (satellite photos later prove that completely false). US forms a coalition and invades. Sound familiar?

[mike1963]

13. Good on ya. I neglected to mention the bogus "troops on the border" thing

just like the purported "pictures" of WMD that Colon Bowel showed at the UN.

[mike1963]

6. Technically, they did, with the incursion into Kuwait, BUT that was after

our ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam "we have no opinion about your border dispute with Kuwait."

So essentially it was done with the tacit approval of the U.S. government, and I can't imagine the lady told them that without encouragement from Bush 41's admin.

[9215]

15. Ok, I did some research on this awhile ago.

In fact. I wasn't interested in much else after I found out:

In about 1995 or so Jimmy Carter stated on a David Frost interview that Kuwait was "angle drilling" into Iraqi oil fields and this is what provoked Iraq to attack. It is found that 2.5 billion in oil was stolen and this oil was dumped on the international market costing Iraq 89 billion dollars in lost revenue due to the decrease in prices.

The big prize oil field was Rumailiah, considered to be the largest in the world with 17 billion barrels. There was no dispute that 95% was in Iraq.

This has multiple corroborations. Halliburton is the "angle drilling king of the world" and this information was pulled from their website after I started citing it on the Internet.

Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie, a few weeks before Iraq attacked, told Saddam after he had inquired about the US views on taking Kuwait: "We have no opinion on Arab border disputes"

Undersecretary of Defense John Kelly told a Congressional inquiry a few days before the attacks that "we have no treaty committments with Kuwait".

After the war the US moved the border between Iraq and Kuwait over so that the Rumailiah was now 50% in Kuwait.

Rumailiah is not only the largest but one of the cheapest oil fields in terms of cost of production due to the high pressure in the field.


IMHO The first Gulf War was about getting the US committed to the region to keep the BFEE oil pigs in power; the second war was about securing the oil fields and turning Iraq into a US colony. That is what Iraq will become, or it will become a Vietnam, where we pull out and leave the place to solve its own problems.

What the BFEE is trying to do is maintain oil and other fossil fuels as the main source of energy and the way to do that is to make producing fields predictable in terms of supply, and the way to do that is to keep the US military plastered on top of the oil fields.

Lots of kids will die as well as AAAArabs and camels, but, what the fuck! we get to put around and be wild and free in our SUVs.

The solution to this mess is to start a massive alternative energy development plan to secure a sustainable energy future. We can do it now or we can wait until it is too late.

[nomatrix]

17. War Crimes Tribunal

or everything you wanted to know in a reader's digest version.

http://www.deoxy.org/wc/wc-index.htm

All the links have information worth reading but for what you are looking for....

Go to U.S. Conspiracy to Initiate War Against Iraq.
http://www.deoxy.org/wc/wc-consp.htm


"On September 11, 1990, Bush also told a joint session of Congress that "following negotiations and promises by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein not to use force, a powerful army invaded its trusting and much weaker neighbor, Kuwait. Within three days, 120,000 troops with 850 tanks had poured into Kuwait and moved south to threaten Saudi Arabia. It was then I decided to act to check that aggression." However, according to Jean Heller of the St. Petersburg Times (of Florida), the facts just weren't as Bush claimed. Satellite photographs taken by the Soviet Union on the precise day Bush addressed Congress failed to show any evidence of Iraqi troops in Kuwait or massing along the Kuwait-Saudi Arabian border."