Two years later, during NBC News Decision '92's 3rd round of The Presidential Debate, 1992 presidential candidate Ross Perot was quoted as saying:




     "...we told him he could take the northern part of Kuwait; and when he took the whole thing we went nuts. And if we didn't tell him that, why won't we even let the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee see the written instructions for Ambassador Glaspie?"
At this point, he was interrupted by former president George Bush who yelled: 
     "I've got to reply on that. That gets to the National Honour!... That is absolutely absurd!"

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.