"I am not taking sides." --Baker on Iraq's use of chem weapons vs Kuwait

[Lori Price CLG]

"I am not taking sides." --Secretary of State James Baker offering an apparent rationalization for Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Kuwait.

...Iraq invaded Kuwait and George Bush readied for combat once again. He spewed a slew of tenuous rationales for the massive U.S. buildup, but as can be expected when George Bush is involved, there was more to the story than presented for public consumption. The earliest clues appeared on October 21, 1990, two and half months into the "Gulf Crisis," when the London Observer featured a special investigative report suggesting that Bush encouraged Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to attack Kuwait.

Earlier in the year, according to the Observer, Bush sent a secret envoy to meet with one of Saddam's top officials. The envoy told the dictator's confidant "that Iraq should engineer higher oil prices to get it out of its dire economic fix," wrote the English paper. The story appeared nowhere that I ever saw in the American media.

Saddam took the envoy's advice, moving his troops to the border of Kuwait. U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad April Glaspie told Saddam, "We don't have an opinion on inter-Arab border disputes such as your border dispute with Kuwait."

"The evidence suggests that U.S. complicity with Saddam went far beyond miscalculation of the Iraqi leader's inventions," wrote Observer reporter Helga Graham. The leaked documents on which she based her piece "have built up a picture of active support for the U.S. president."

Jonathan Vankin, Conspiracies, Cover-Ups and Crimes --From JFK to the Terrorist Connection (1992)

More here.

Lori Price
http://www.legitgov.org/