Interview with National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft

Scowcroft: We were not preoccupied with Saddam Hussein. What we hoped was to continue the policy of the Reagan Administration, which was first of all a balance between Iran and Iraq and then hoping to perhaps make Saddam Hussein a minimally usefully member of the international community. After the Iran/Iraq war, Iraq had enormous reconstruction, issues and it was our hope that American business would be able to participate in that since Iraq is fundamentally a wealthy nation.

We had no illusions about the character of this man, at all, but we did not see him necessarily as having serious unrequited aggressive aims.

Q: How would you sum up the policy?

Scowcroft: That we thought it was useful to try a modest carrot and show him we bore him no particular ill will and we were prepared to have normal kind of relations with him that would be at least commercially advantageous to both sides.

Q: Roundabout ... 20th, 23rd of July, the CIA, DIA start to see a military buildup ... what were you telling the President about this?

Scowcroft: Well, we were aware that there a buildup and, indeed, it looked like a part of a policy of bluster in connection with the border and other disputes that he was having with Kuwait. At that time we were being told by our friends like President Mubarak, like King Hussein, "Oh, no, don't pay any attention to it! This is, this is the way, this is the way that these negotiations are going ..."

So,yes we remarked on it and were aware that, you know, that some were saying, you know, this is serious, but I'll be honest we tended to put more stock in Mubarak and Hussein's appraisal than our own.

To sum up, the position we took was that since we didn't know the internal situation in Iraq nor Saddam Hussein, that our best bet was to take counsel from the people who did know him and who did deal with him.

Mubarak had been there recently, I think King Hussein had been there not too long before. And that that was probably as close as we could get to reality, so we put great stock in that.

Q: And the day after Mubarak met Saddam Hussein the CIA and DIA actually stepped up their warnings because the buildup was just going on and on and that very same day April Glaspie was summoned in and she sent back a cable again saying "Back off! Back off! Don't say anything that would annoy him." Do you recall that day ... ?

Scowcroft: I'll be honest, I don't recall whether I ever saw April Glaspie's cable. I think perhaps, Jim Baker may have said something about it, but we wouldn't ordinarily see a reporting cable ... and I don't remember whether we did not. But we may have because it was a report of a meeting with Saddam Hussein, so we might have.

Q: Why ... do you think Saddam Hussein did it?

Scowcroft: That's a mystery.

It is really not clear, and in retrospect it's not clear whether he thought that it was a pushover and that in itself would establish him as a power in the region, because he was somewhat tarnished as a result of the Iran/Iraq war. He had not been able to take back the parts of Iran that he wanted.

Or whether this was a prelude to try to seize most of the oil resources of the Gulf ... and whether he had actually had intended to go straight down the Gulf to the Saudi oilfields.

But figuring out Saddam Hussein was one our greatest mysteries. He marched to his own drummer and frequently as this unfolded he made decisions which were sometimes inexplicable to us and sometimes didn't look very smart.

Q: Did you think the invasion of Kuwait mattered? If so, why?

Scowcroft: Yes, I thought it mattered, a lot.

Principally because there was a struggle and had been a struggle going on within OPEC over, if you will, control of OPEC and it was struggle basically between Saudi Arabia and the radicals, over keeping production flowing and keeping prices reasonable or trying to squeeze, if you will, the industrialised world.

And the notion of Iraq, which was an oil powerhouse in itself, acquiring the Kuwaiti resources and thus perhaps of being able to dominate, OPEC was a tremendous danger to the United States and to the industrialised world.

I thought it made a lot of difference, aside from the issue of flat naked aggression in and of itself.

Q: ... At the heart of this ... was oil ...

Scowcroft: No, at the heart was naked aggression against an unoffending country, that was the firm and legal position, but what gave enormous urgency to it was the issue of oil. Yes that transformed it.

Q: Do you remember that night, you were up all night sorting out ... UN resolutions ... do you remember talking to the President that night, what was his attitude to ... ?

Scowcroft: He was very, very calm about it, simply asked what was going on and, and to keep him posted and if there was anything happened, that he ought to know about not to worry about calling him during the night.

As it was I let him go to bed and I went up to his bedroom at 4.30 in the morning ...

Q: And that was to ...

Scowcroft: That was--. as we ended, in the Deputies' meeting, we looked at where our forces, just what the disposition was, and then what kinds of things might have to be done right away, and one of the things which was important, we thought, was to freeze all of the Kuwaiti assets, right away, so that the Iraqis could not draw those assets, out and make use of them.

So what I did at 4.30 the next morning was to go up and get the President to sign an Executive Order freezing the Kuwaiti assets.