Later on in the debate, President Bill Clinton
stated:
"...Several government
departments, several, had information that he was converting our aid to
military purposes and trying to develop weapons of mass destruction, but
in late '89 the President signed a secret policy saying we were going to
continue to try to improve relations with him, and we sent him some sort
of communication on the eve of his invasion of Kuwait that we still wanted
better relations..."
On August 23rd, Iraq offered to withdraw in return for the lifting of economic sanctions, guaranteed access to the Gulf, and full control of the Rumalyah oil field. The proposal was not accepted. In late February, the Soviets negotiated a peace proposal involving a three-week withdrawal period on the part of the Iraqis, in exchange for removal of the sanctions. George Bush did not accept.
It soon became reported
in American newspapers, magazines, and television media that the Iraqis
had the world's fourth-largest army with estimates of up to a million soldiers,
including the battle-hardened elite republican guard. Later, it was estimates
were reduced to 2-3 hundred thousand Iraqi soldiers. By the end of the
war, this number was further reduced to a hundred-thousand untrained troops,
most of whom were forced to maintain their positions. This is ironic, considering
that in the fall of 1990, after the start of the war, Canadian military
analyst Gwynne Dyer remarked that "Saddam Hussein was not a problem that
kept anybody awake in
July." Three successive American administrations
did nothing from 1980 to 1988, when Saddam Hussein was responsible for
killing over 150,000 Iranians
and 13,000 of his own civilians including
approximately 4,000 unarmed Kurds.