What made Poppy turn on Saddam, anyways?

[Recursion]

Saddam was Poppy's Man in the Middle East for a decade or so; why did he turn on him? And who in fact turned on whom? Poppy tricked him into invading Kuwait in mid-1990 so I figure the fix had to be in by '89; maybe the second Poppy took office. What happened? Was S. trying to move towards Chindia or Russia? Did the end of the Iran/Iraq war mean he was no longer useful? Or had Poppy just been waiting for 8 years until *he* could finally be the decider and took him out immediately?

But Poppy strikes me as the cautious member of the Crime Syndicate. I figure he wouldn't have gone into something with as uncertain an outcome as war without a damn good reason. This time we can point to Saddam switching to a euro-based bourse; did anything similar happen in '89 or '90?

[yurbud]

1. timing and opportunity. it wasn't as much that we liked Saddam in 80s, he was just useful

for beating up Iran.

We had a long term goal of getting the oil he nationalized, and Kuwait provided the pretext.

[CJCRANE]

2. Maybe he was just ripe for the picking.

Build 'em up, knock 'em down - that's the BFEE MO.

[PCIntern]

3. Remember April Glaspie?

There was that whole business with interpretation of diplomatic language...it seems like a lifetime ago.

[Warren DeMontague]

16. "Sure! Go ahead! Invade Kuwait! We won't mind"

It was something like that, if I recall.

[leftofthedial]

4. the neocon plans for Iraq began with the end of the cold war

they needed a boogeyman

and they LOVE oil.

[noise]

5. Did Hussein truly believe he would get away with it

It seems Ambassador Gillespie (obviously on orders from the White House) did bait Hussein.

The question is why did Hussein take the bait?

The reasons he invaded Kuwait:

1) Kuwait's slant drilling.

2) He thought Kuwait was overproducing oil to keep the price low. Since Iraq was broke, that made Hussein very upset.

3) $14 billion in loans from Kuwait. Hussein thought they should forgive the loan since he did them a favor by taking on Iran.

4) Historical claim to Kuwait.

Did he truly expect to get away with it? Did he underestimate the Bush administration?

[leftofthedial]

6. he had "legitimate" disputes with Kuwait

he had a long history of wink-wink "partnership-with-the-bush-repukes" attacks on his neighbors and ethnic enclaves (Iran, Kurds. Marsh Arabs)

why would he doubt his strongest friends?

[newyawker99]

14. Hi noise!!

Welcome to DU!!

[Recursion]

23. Hi noise!

Thanks for your thought-provoking answers and welcome to DU!

[Odin2005]

7. Poppy wanted to scare the Saudis into letting us have bases in Saudi Arabia.

[Kellyiswise]

8. So, 9/11 can be laid at poppy's feet?

[Odin2005]

9. In a way, yes.

[Cha]

11. And the neoshouldbeconvicts.

[Cha]

10. Fucking poll numbers..that's

my best guess.

[TangoCharlie]

12. Maybe it's not smart to be Poppy's friend

Just ask Noriega.

Maybe GHWB is just a little more dangerous and vindictive than his outward appearance.

[roamer65]

13. Saddam was very much like Noriega.

Both of them wanted to start their own "business". The old phrase applies, "Once CIA, ALWAYS CIA". If you don't go along, they get you.

[Warren DeMontague]

15. Communism had the bad taste to begin to collapse around that time.

I'm sure the call came in the minute anyone in the Military-Industrial Complex heard the dreaded words "peace dividend":

QUICK! FIND A FUCKING ENEMY!

[TahitiNut]

17. I think that's a huge part of it, quite frankly.

I recall the buried-on-page-14 publicized discussions at that time regarding the "new" role of the CIA - essentially industrial espionage in 'service' to US commerical interests. I found that quite frightening - the 'privatization' of foreign intelligence and covert ops. The first move was to cherry-pick regions that were at the edge of the Soviet "sphere of influence." Iraq was an arms client of the Soviets, along with Syria. That's one of the reasons, I believe, Reagan/Bush were obsessed with Iran/Contra.

[bobbolink]

22. You certainly have been attuned to all this for a long time.

No wonder you're a tad....nutz.

So, you saw the link with Iran/Contra at that time?

How do you keep living with the immense frustration?

I knew some, and I thought a lot, but certainly didn't know it to that extent. Iran/Contra was so dirty, but I didn't see the deeper links.

[BikeWriter]

18. Saddam was stupid for falling for April Glaspie's lies. I look at it...

...this way, the bush crime family are crooks. If you deal with them long enough they will betray you.

[Octafish]

19. Saddam nationalized oil reserves.

The guy actually thought the black gold belonged to Iraq!

http://www.greens.org/s-r/30/30-03.html

[Initech]

20. It all goes back to oil.

[Greeby]

21. Because the Democratic Congress of 1990 was making big military cuts

With the Cold War ending, the Congress of that day were drawing up massive cuts to the bloated military. So the Military Industrial Complex, and it's pointman George needed a new boogeyman to keep the "defense" money coming