Ex-Envoy Details Hussein Meeting
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 3, 2008; A15
Nearly two decades ago, April C. Glaspie was the face of American incompetence in Iraq.
The career foreign service officer, who was U.S. ambassador to Baghdad when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, was blamed for failing to forcefully warn Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that the United States would oppose such aggression just days before it occurred.
But others argued that the widely respected diplomat -- the first female U.S. ambassador in the Middle East -- was mainly a scapegoat for the failings of the secretary of state at the time, James A. Baker III.
After nearly 17 years of silence, Glaspie has emerged to tell her story. She granted a lengthy interview, in English, to Randa Takieddine of the Lebanese newspaper Dar al-Hayat, which has posted the full transcript on the English-language version of its Web site.
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During the run-up to the war, the Iraqi government released a transcript of Glaspie's meeting with Hussein on July 25, 1990, which suggested that she gave tacit approval for an invasion. Glaspie managed to convince lawmakers that the transcript was inaccurate and that she had forcefully warned Hussein not to invade. But her credibility eroded after the leak of her classified cable to the State Department about the meeting, which suggested a more conciliatory conversation with Hussein.
<snip>
Asked what she thought of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Glaspie noted that the British Empire nearly 100 years ago had failed to control the country.
"You know, past is past; either we learn from it or we don't," Glaspie said. "The British, with extraordinary technology of their time, tried very hard, spoke more Arabic than the current coalition forces, were working within their old former mandate, they had all the maps, they knew every place in Iraq from north to south, and they could not do it. I think that the reasons that they could not do it are there for anybody to read."
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/02/AR2008040203485.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/iraq
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