During Iraq's overtures before the war, Gen. Colin L. Powell, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned that: So Saddam would do what the US had just done in Panama.
Seriously? This is ridiculous. Are you really saying that you support countries being able to launch wars, and the rest of the world accepting peace terms where they get to keep the choice bit or territory and the other sorts of demands Saddam had in the "peace" offers you linked? Have you started supporting invasions now? While most international exchanges are highly complex, this one is pretty clear cut. There wasn't even anything tricky or complex about what Saddam had to do to avoid war or make peace. The terms the UN laid down were quite simple, after months of failed diplomacy to get Saddam to leave Kuwait, the UN gave him about a month and a half to leave or war against him would be authorized. Instead of leaving and having peace Saddam though he could pull off a win somehow.
Saddam wanted a gaurantee that his forces wouldnt be attacked by US troops in Saudi Arabia as they withdrew from Kuwait and he never got it. He dropped all his demands except for restarting the peace process in which the UN planned to do anyways. Read what I showed again. Here. Ill reinforce it: What shows bad faith on the part of the administration is that they werent even willing to discuss a withdraw with Iraq. They wanted war.
What Iraq did in Kuwait was naked aggression as you rightly point out but for some reason I seriously doubt you dont support aggression when it's done by your government over and over and over and over and over and over and over. What about international terrorism? Im sure you're strongly opposed to that too except when its done by your government. Nah, you probably still dont support it. You just turn a blind eye to it when someone brings it to your attention.
I actually went back and read it, and realized that you've completely misread that article. Saddam didn't even offer that at all. That was something put forward by the French and some others that they hoped Saddam would accept. In the report you linked, on the second page I suspect you might have missed, Saddam was talking to the Secretary General of the UN even at that late date. The Secretary General said of his meeting that "No, he didn't express any desire to withdraw from Kuwait" In any case, except perhaps in the very last minutes before time ran out such that troops couldn't have driven out in time, Saddam wouldn't have needed any such assurances as he wasn't under attack. Any other day he could simply have ordered the withdrawl and there would have been peace. In the second article it's Arafat talking not Hussein, and in any case a number of meetings after that were held. Edit: You posted again there. You've got a whole lot of threads out. This is your thread on the first gulf war, lets stay on topic.
Ok, so you're saying here he didnt offer that at all even though that's what it says in the second quote box. Right there. No. Not the third or first one. The second one. And then the last one: The administration wouldnt even discuss it with them. Saddam defied the Godfather so they had to make an example out of him to maintain "credibility". It's interesting that the banning of all WMD's in the region would be on the table. This should be done anyways, independant of the dictator's request.
You ever heard of General Suharto? Long story short, he was another Saddam Hussein (US client) except he had a higher body count and he invaded East Timor in 1975 with the full support of the United States - political, military, economic - and this support continued untill 1999 which resulted in near genocide of the Timorese. The US did everything from training his death squads to providing arms and equipment to protection at the United Nations. All this happenned and virtually noone in the United States knows about it. Why do you think that is?
I'll proceed in good faith as if you just got a little vexed. But it's like your trying to deliberately misunderstand the conversation. Anyway, My comment: Was in response to: That obviously couldn't apply to the second quote box, if you're referring to the OP, because in that one he has a bunch of other demands. Only the third one matches your quote there, which is the one I looked at again. You mention some "hinting" from Arafat and unnamed Iraqi officials, however neither of those speak for Saddam. And Arafat was only referring to one of Saddam's demands. He didn't indicate that Saddam was willing to simply withdraw. Indeed, no negotiations would be needed for that. If Saddam wanted peace, all he had to do was withdraw. At the date of Arafat's comments Saddam still had plenty of time to move his forces out safely. Simple as that. Also there were meetings after that between the UN secretary General and Saddam, as well as a meeting between the US secretary of state and the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq. Both meetings indicating that Saddam was willing to fight if he didn't get some benifits for his aggression. Again, there were discussions. Though, again, it doesn't seem like there should have even been a real need for any prior to the start up to the war. Regarding Timor, could you quit trying to derail your own thread. It's like the one thing you don't want to discuss is your OP. I wouldn't be surprised to find that you already have two or three threads on Timor on this forum.
That's a huge stretch. You should already know that Iraqi officials didnt speak for Saddam unless he authorized them to do so. Anything they said was from his lips. And you think Arafat would've said that about Saddam if it werent true? Really?
So they were specifically authorized to hint that Saddam might consider something? I suppose that isn't entirely out of the question. I suppose Arafat might even have been right that, out of all the demands Saddam had made, completely resolving the Palestinian situation to his satisfaction was one Saddam could be persuaded to let go of. But the bottom line is that when when his actual negotiator sat down with the US after that, and when Saddam sat down with the secretary general of the UN, he wasn't interested in peace without getting himself some spoils of some kind or other and felt ready for war. As you said what Iraq did was naked aggression. And I quite doubt you support the idea that someone or a nation should be explicitly rewarded via concessions and spoils for such actions. And again, he didn't even have to negotiate peace, he just had to leave Kuwait to avoid war. But he wasn't interested in doing so.
Im kinda bored with this issue. I didnt strongly oppose the first Gulf War. I wouldnt have lost any sleep over it. Still though, I do believe the war could have been avoided. You are right that aggression should never be rewarded but his requests for making the Palestinian issue a higher priority and banning all WMDs in the region should be done anyways and they should have been done, independantly of his requests. The problem is, the US opposes these initiatives because it would require a 2 state solution and disarming Israel and India of nuclear weapons.
