April Glaspie
Encyclopedia
April Catherine Glaspie (born April 26, 1942) is a former American
diplomat
, best known for her role in the events leading up to the Persian Gulf War
of 1991.
in Oakland, California
in 1963, and from Johns Hopkins University
's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
in 1965.
In 1966 Glaspie entered the United States foreign service
, where she became an expert on the Middle East
. After postings in Kuwait
, Syria
, and Egypt
, Glaspie was appointed ambassador
to Iraq
in 1989. She was the first woman to be appointed an American ambassador to an Arab country. She had a reputation as a respected Arabist
, and her instructions were to broaden cultural and commercial contacts with the Iraqi regime.
Subsequently, Glaspie was posted to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations
in New York
. She was later posted to South Africa
as Consul general in Cape Town
. She held this post until her retirement in 2002.
Glaspie's appointment as U.S. ambassador to Iraq followed a period from 1980 to 1988 during which the United States had given covert support to Iraq during its war with Iran. Although the full extent of U.S. assistance to Iraq during the period remains unknown, it was purportedly substantial; the Soviet Union
and France
also supplied aid to Iraq.
It was in this context that Glaspie had her first meeting with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
and his Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz
, on July 25, 1990. In her telegram from July 25, 1990 to the Department of State, Glaspie summarized the meeting as follows:
At least two transcripts of the meeting have been published. The State Department
has not confirmed the accuracy of these transcripts, but Glaspie's cable has been released at the Bush Library and placed online by the Margaret Thatcher
Foundation.
One version of the transcript has Glaspie saying:
Later the transcript has Glaspie saying:
Another version of the transcript (the one published in The New York Times
on 23 September 1990) has Glaspie saying:
When these purported transcripts were made public, Glaspie was accused of having given tacit approval for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which took place on August 2, 1990. It was argued that Glaspie's statements that "We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts" and that "the Kuwait issue is not associated with America" were interpreted by Saddam as giving free rein to handle his disputes with Kuwait as he saw fit. It was also argued that Saddam would not have invaded Kuwait had he been given an explicit warning that such an invasion would be met with force by the United States. Journalist Edward Mortimer
wrote in the New York Review of Books in November 1990:
In September 1990, a pair of British journalists confronted Glaspie with the transcript of her meeting with Saddam Hussein, to which she replied that "Obviously, I didn't think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take all of Kuwait.".
In April 1991 Glaspie testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
. She said that at the July 25 meeting she had "repeatedly warned Iraqi President Saddam Hussein against using force to settle his dispute with Kuwait." She also said that Saddam had lied to her by denying he would invade Kuwait. Asked to explain how Saddam could have interpreted her comments as implying U.S. approval for the invasion of Kuwait, she replied: "We foolishly did not realize he [Saddam] was stupid." In July 1991 State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher
said at a press briefing:
The cables that Glaspie sent from Iraq about her meeting with Saddam are no longer classified. Glaspie's cable on her meeting with Saddam reports that President George H.W. Bush "had instructed her to broaden and deepen our relations with Iraq." Saddam, in turn, offered "warm greetings" to Bush and was "surely sincere" about not wanting war, the cable said.
Glaspie herself for years remained silent on the subject of her actions in Iraq. But in March 2008 she gave an interview to the Lebanese
newspaper Dar Al-Hayat. In the interview, she said she has no regrets. "It is over," Glaspie said. "Nobody wants to take the blame. I am quite happy to take the blame. Perhaps I was not able to make Saddam Hussein believe that we would do what we said we would do, but in all honesty, I don't think anybody in the world could have persuaded him."
In the interview, Glaspie recalled that her meeting with Saddam was interrupted when the Iraqi president received a phone call from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
. Saddam told her he had assured Mubarak that he would try to settle the dispute, she said. Her cable backs up this version of events; the Iraqi transcript, prepared by Saddam's official English language translator, Sadoun al-Zubaydi
, records Saddam saying that Mubarak called before he met with Glaspie.
published a new account of the Glaspie-Saddam meeting by Andrew Kilgore, a former U.S. ambassador to Qatar
. Kilgore summarized the meeting as follows:
The points referenced in the second and third paragraphs do not appear in the purported transcripts of the Glaspie-Saddam meeting that were released by Iraq, and on which most of the subsequent criticism of Glaspie is based. If there is a full transcript of the meeting in existence, or if the State Department declassifies Glaspie's cables about the meeting, a different assessment might be reached on her performance.
James Akins, the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia
at the time, offered a somewhat different perspective in a 2000 interview on PBS
:
Joseph C. Wilson
, Glaspie's Deputy Chief of Mission
in Baghdad, referred to her meeting with Saddam Hussein in a May 14, 2004 interview on Democracy Now!
: an "Iraqi participant in the meeting [...] said to me very clearly that Saddam did not misunderstand, did not think he was getting a green or yellow light."
Wilson's and Akins' views on this question are in line with those of former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz
, who stated in a 1996 interview with Frontline that, prior to the invasion of Kuwait
, Iraq "had no illusions" about the likelihood of U.S. military intervention. Similarly, in a 2000 Frontline interview, Aziz declared, "There were no mixed signals", and further elaborated:
Kenneth Pollack
of the Brookings Institution
, writing in the New York Times on February 21, 2003, disagreed with the views (previously cited) of observers like Edward Mortimer
:
Professors John Mearsheimer
and Stephen Walt
write in the January/February 2003 edition of Foreign Policy
that Saddam approached the U.S. to find out how it would react to an invasion into Kuwait. Along with Glaspie's comment that "'[W]e have no opinion on the Arab–Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.' The U.S. State Department had earlier told Saddam that Washington had 'no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait.' The United States may not have intended to give Iraq a green light, but that is effectively what it did."
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
diplomat
Diplomacy
Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states...
, best known for her role in the events leading up to the Persian Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
of 1991.
Early life and career
Glaspie was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, and graduated from Mills CollegeMills College
Mills College is an independent liberal arts women's college founded in 1852 that offers bachelor's degrees to women and graduate degrees and certificates to women and men. Located in Oakland, California, Mills was the first women's college west of the Rockies. The institution was initially founded...
in Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
in 1963, and from Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies , a division of Johns Hopkins University based in Washington, D.C., is one of the world's leading and most prestigious graduate schools devoted to the study of international affairs, economics, diplomacy, and policy research and...
in 1965.
In 1966 Glaspie entered the United States foreign service
Diplomatic service
Diplomatic service is the body of diplomats and foreign policy officers maintained by the government of a country to communicate with the governments of other countries. Diplomatic personnel enjoy diplomatic immunity when they are accredited to other countries...
, where she became an expert on the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
. After postings in Kuwait
Kuwait
The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...
, Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, and Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, Glaspie was appointed ambassador
Ambassador
An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....
to Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
in 1989. She was the first woman to be appointed an American ambassador to an Arab country. She had a reputation as a respected Arabist
Arabist
This is an article about the western scholars known as Arabists, not the political movement Pan-Arabism.An Arabist is someone normally from outside the Arab World who specialises in the study of the Arabic language and Arab culture, and often Arabic literature.-Origins:Arabists began in medieval...
, and her instructions were to broaden cultural and commercial contacts with the Iraqi regime.
Subsequently, Glaspie was posted to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
in New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. She was later posted to South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
as Consul general in Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
. She held this post until her retirement in 2002.
Meetings with Saddam Hussein
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
also supplied aid to Iraq.
It was in this context that Glaspie had her first meeting with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
and his Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz
Tariq Aziz
Tariq Aziz and Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq and a close advisor of former President Saddam Hussein. Their association began in the 1950s when both were activists for the then-banned Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party...
, on July 25, 1990. In her telegram from July 25, 1990 to the Department of State, Glaspie summarized the meeting as follows:
- Saddam told the ambassador July 25 that Mubarak has arranged for Kuwaiti and Iraqi delegations to meet in Riyadh, and then on July 28, 29 or 30, the Kuwaiti crown prince will come to Baghdad for serious negotiations. "Nothing serious will happen" before then, Saddam had promised Mubarak.
At least two transcripts of the meeting have been published. The State Department
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
has not confirmed the accuracy of these transcripts, but Glaspie's cable has been released at the Bush Library and placed online by the Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
Foundation.
One version of the transcript has Glaspie saying:
Later the transcript has Glaspie saying:
Another version of the transcript (the one published in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
on 23 September 1990) has Glaspie saying:
When these purported transcripts were made public, Glaspie was accused of having given tacit approval for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which took place on August 2, 1990. It was argued that Glaspie's statements that "We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts" and that "the Kuwait issue is not associated with America" were interpreted by Saddam as giving free rein to handle his disputes with Kuwait as he saw fit. It was also argued that Saddam would not have invaded Kuwait had he been given an explicit warning that such an invasion would be met with force by the United States. Journalist Edward Mortimer
Edward Mortimer
Edward Mortimer CMG was until January 2007 the Director of Communications in the Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary-General...
wrote in the New York Review of Books in November 1990:
In September 1990, a pair of British journalists confronted Glaspie with the transcript of her meeting with Saddam Hussein, to which she replied that "Obviously, I didn't think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take all of Kuwait.".
In April 1991 Glaspie testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
The United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is a standing committee of the United States Senate. It is charged with leading foreign-policy legislation and debate in the Senate. The Foreign Relations Committee is generally responsible for overseeing and funding foreign aid programs as...
. She said that at the July 25 meeting she had "repeatedly warned Iraqi President Saddam Hussein against using force to settle his dispute with Kuwait." She also said that Saddam had lied to her by denying he would invade Kuwait. Asked to explain how Saddam could have interpreted her comments as implying U.S. approval for the invasion of Kuwait, she replied: "We foolishly did not realize he [Saddam] was stupid." In July 1991 State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher
Richard Boucher
Richard A. Boucher is Deputy Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development . He took up post on 5 November 2009. Prior to joining OECD, he was the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, a post he took up on February 21, 2006...
said at a press briefing:
The cables that Glaspie sent from Iraq about her meeting with Saddam are no longer classified. Glaspie's cable on her meeting with Saddam reports that President George H.W. Bush "had instructed her to broaden and deepen our relations with Iraq." Saddam, in turn, offered "warm greetings" to Bush and was "surely sincere" about not wanting war, the cable said.
Glaspie herself for years remained silent on the subject of her actions in Iraq. But in March 2008 she gave an interview to the Lebanese
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
newspaper Dar Al-Hayat. In the interview, she said she has no regrets. "It is over," Glaspie said. "Nobody wants to take the blame. I am quite happy to take the blame. Perhaps I was not able to make Saddam Hussein believe that we would do what we said we would do, but in all honesty, I don't think anybody in the world could have persuaded him."
In the interview, Glaspie recalled that her meeting with Saddam was interrupted when the Iraqi president received a phone call from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
Hosni Mubarak
Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak is a former Egyptian politician and military commander. He served as the fourth President of Egypt from 1981 to 2011....
. Saddam told her he had assured Mubarak that he would try to settle the dispute, she said. Her cable backs up this version of events; the Iraqi transcript, prepared by Saddam's official English language translator, Sadoun al-Zubaydi
Sadoun al-Zubaydi
Sadoun al-Zubaydi was a British-educated English literature professor at the University of Baghdad, best known for his role as the official English language translator to former President Saddam Hussein of Iraq...
, records Saddam saying that Mubarak called before he met with Glaspie.
Retrospective views
In 2002, the Washington Report on Middle East AffairsWashington Report on Middle East Affairs
The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs magazine, published nine times per year in Washington, D.C., focuses on "news and analysis from and about the Middle East and U.S...
published a new account of the Glaspie-Saddam meeting by Andrew Kilgore, a former U.S. ambassador to Qatar
Qatar
Qatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...
. Kilgore summarized the meeting as follows:
The points referenced in the second and third paragraphs do not appear in the purported transcripts of the Glaspie-Saddam meeting that were released by Iraq, and on which most of the subsequent criticism of Glaspie is based. If there is a full transcript of the meeting in existence, or if the State Department declassifies Glaspie's cables about the meeting, a different assessment might be reached on her performance.
James Akins, the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
at the time, offered a somewhat different perspective in a 2000 interview on PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
:
Joseph C. Wilson
Joseph C. Wilson
Joseph Charles Wilson IV is a former United States diplomat best known for his 2002 trip to Niger to investigate allegations that Saddam Hussein was attempting to purchase yellowcake uranium; his New York Times op-ed piece, "What I Didn't Find in Africa"; and the subsequent "outing" of his wife...
, Glaspie's Deputy Chief of Mission
Deputy Chief of Mission
A Deputy Chief of Mission , is the number-two diplomat assigned to an embassy or other diplomatic mission. He or she is usually considered the second-in-command or top lieutenant to the Head of Mission...
in Baghdad, referred to her meeting with Saddam Hussein in a May 14, 2004 interview on Democracy Now!
Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...
: an "Iraqi participant in the meeting [...] said to me very clearly that Saddam did not misunderstand, did not think he was getting a green or yellow light."
Wilson's and Akins' views on this question are in line with those of former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz
Tariq Aziz
Tariq Aziz and Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq and a close advisor of former President Saddam Hussein. Their association began in the 1950s when both were activists for the then-banned Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party...
, who stated in a 1996 interview with Frontline that, prior to the invasion of Kuwait
Invasion of Kuwait
The Invasion of Kuwait, also known as the Iraq-Kuwait War, was a major conflict between the Republic of Iraq and the State of Kuwait, which resulted in the seven-month long Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, which subsequently led to direct military intervention by United States-led forces in the Gulf...
, Iraq "had no illusions" about the likelihood of U.S. military intervention. Similarly, in a 2000 Frontline interview, Aziz declared, "There were no mixed signals", and further elaborated:
Kenneth Pollack
Kenneth Pollack
Kenneth Michael Pollack, PhD , is a noted former CIA intelligence analyst and expert on Middle East politics and military affairs. He has served on the National Security Council staff and has written several articles and books on international relations.Pollack obtained a BA from Yale University,...
of the Brookings Institution
Brookings Institution
The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C., in the United States. One of Washington's oldest think tanks, Brookings conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, and...
, writing in the New York Times on February 21, 2003, disagreed with the views (previously cited) of observers like Edward Mortimer
Edward Mortimer
Edward Mortimer CMG was until January 2007 the Director of Communications in the Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary-General...
:
Professors John Mearsheimer
John Mearsheimer
John J. Mearsheimer is an American professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He is an international relations theorist. Known for his book on offensive realism, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, more recently Mearsheimer has attracted attention for co-authoring and publishing...
and Stephen Walt
Stephen Walt
Stephen Martin Walt is a professor of international affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Among his most prominent works are and . He coauthored The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy with John Mearsheimer.-Education and career:In 1983, he received a Ph.D. in...
write in the January/February 2003 edition of Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy is a bimonthly American magazine founded in 1970 by Samuel P. Huntington and Warren Demian Manshel.Originally, the magazine was a quarterly...
that Saddam approached the U.S. to find out how it would react to an invasion into Kuwait. Along with Glaspie's comment that "'[W]e have no opinion on the Arab–Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.' The U.S. State Department had earlier told Saddam that Washington had 'no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait.' The United States may not have intended to give Iraq a green light, but that is effectively what it did."