December 8, 2002 8:01 AM

Hello, my name is Saddam and I oppress people

Kuwait rejects Saddam's apology

If the first step to fixing a problem is to first admit that you have one, well, Saddam is off to a damn poor start. I'm still trying to figure out the point of his "apology" to Kuwait for the 1990 invasion? Is someone feeling lonely? Isolated? In need of a hug?

Of course, it was difficult to feel the love when Saddam couldn't even read his apology himself. Instead he trotted out the Information Minister, who looked as if could just as well have been reading the morning farm report. "Soybeans up one-quarter, pork bellies down an eighth...Kuwait, we feel badly for trashing your country in 1990. Are we good now??"

"We apologize to you," Saddam said in a statement read by Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhafa on Iraqi TV. "What we wish for you is what we wish for your brothers in Iraq -- to live free from foreign rule and intervention in your wealth and future."

He urged Kuwait "to remain free and faithful by not allying yourself with the aggressors," and warned Kuwaitis that the United States would "steal your wealth and turn you into slaves working for them and turn your leaders into local agents for American oil companies."

Ah, I see, we'll use the old "Well, United Fruit did it to Central America" argument, eh?? Somehow, I don't think the Kuwaitis will be buying whatever it is that Saddam is selling.

Kuwait's information minister, Sheik Ahmed al-Fahed al-Sabah, said the statement merely repeated Iraq's previous excuses for invading the emirate.

"We believe the apology should be addressed first to the Iraqi people, who are being repressed," he said.

Sure. "It was just an honest mistake. I told the Republican Guards to invade Qatar; they must have misunderstood me. Can't we all just get along?"

I wonder if anyone outside the Iraqi government actually took Saddam seriously? You'd think that, if he'd really wanted to be taken seriously, he would have made at least a minimal offer to repay some of the damage done by the invasion. You don't just steamroll a country, destroy a good part of it's infrastructure, and then, "Oops, my bad!", just pull out and expect to be forgiven. Clearly, this was not about sincerity, or even about being an apology. It's just another case of Saddam ham-handedly trying to lie and deceive his way out of a predicament. It's the same thing the UN has been willing to countenance for the past 12 years. Enough.

blog comments powered by Disqus

Technorati

Technorati search

» Blogs that link here

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on December 8, 2002 8:01 AM.

I suppose travelling really DOES broaden one's horizons was the previous entry in this blog.

The day the music died is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Contact Me

Powered by Movable Type 5.12