What did King Hussein say to Saddam after he entered Kuwait and threatened Israel?

Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper published the memoirs of Prince Zeid Bin Shaker «From arms to openness» written by his widow Mrs. Nozad Al-Sati, which will be issued next month by the Arab Foundation for Studies and Publishing, Beirut - Amman. 
In one episode, she discusses the second Gulf War after the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait and the insistence of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on his position in the war against the US-led international coalition. 
Despite King Hussein's efforts to persuade Saddam to withdraw because the world is against him, the Iraqi president stuck to his position and the war took place. The following is the text of the last episode.
While we were engaged in our internal situation, the Arab region was entering an era whose events would change the fate of their countries and generations for a long time. Hussein's relationship with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been strengthened in recent years. Mudar Badran's government has forged strong ties with Baghdad, based on a package of mutual economic interests. The visits of Hussein, Zaid and Prime Minister Badran to Baghdad were a routine event. 
After each visit, Hussein was increasingly impressed by the Iraqi experience, the personality of Saddam Hussein and his Arab stances. Zaid and many other figures in the Hussein state shared his assessment of Saddam's character. 
Iraq and Kuwait have had disputes over border areas with an oil field. In addition, Kuwait was demanding Iraq to pay large sums of money granted to Baghdad during its war with Iran, while Baghdad was demanding Kuwait to pay two and a half billion dollars to compensate for Iraq's share in the oil field Rumaila disputed.
The Iraqi leadership, for its part, also accused Kuwait of manipulating oil prices, which was affecting Iraq's revenues from it, at a time when the need for funds to complete the reconstruction process after the war with Iran. 
At the same time, Saddam Hussein was continuing his verbal threats to Israel. 
In early April 1990, Saddam Hussein delivered a speech in which he said: We will burn Israel if it tries to take action against us. Yitzhak Rabin, who was chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee only a few weeks earlier as Israel's defense minister, responded by saying: "We have ten times the capacity of Saddam to respond to his threats." 
Days after Saddam's speech, Hussein lined up with Saddam, saying that "Saddam's speech should be seen as an Arab position based on the legitimate right of this nation to respond to any aggression against it."
When the harbingers of the crisis between Iraq and Kuwait began, Hussein strongly entered the line of diplomatic efforts to contain it and settle it amicably. He made a series of visits to Baghdad and Kuwait, mostly accompanied by Zaid. 
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was also involved in efforts to contain the crisis. Six days before Iraq invaded Kuwait, specifically on July 26, 1990, Mubarak declared that the Kuwaiti-Iraqi dispute was contained. "The Iraqi president has no intention of attacking Kuwait," he said. None of us expected that Saddam Hussein would actually carry out his threats to invade Kuwait. But the morning of August 2 brought other news. Iraqi forces invaded and occupied Kuwait within hours. 
Hussein's view was that if such an event were not addressed in the Arab context, the fate of the entire nation would be in the wind.
Hussein fought a fierce diplomatic war to prevent foreign interference in the crisis, while at the same time, personally, as stated by Prime Minister Mudar Badran, his categorical rejection of the principle of occupying the territory of others by force, and called on Saddam to withdraw his troops from Kuwait immediately. 
Events went differently, and an emergency Arab summit in Cairo adopted resolutions condemning the Iraqi invasion and opening doors for foreign intervention in the region. Jordan, along with Yemen, Algeria, Libya and the Palestine Liberation Organization, abstained from voting on these resolutions. This was the beginning of a deep Arab divide that paralyzed the Arab world for a long time. 
Despite Hussein's position rejecting the invasion of Kuwait and his emphasis on the Arab solution, the positions he took at the summit and its aftermath put Jordan in the trench of Saddam Hussein, from the point of view of the Gulf States and the United States. This situation had serious economic and political consequences for Jordan.
The government, represented by its President Mudar Badran, was emphasizing the Arab solution to the conflict. The overwhelming majority of parliament (both houses of parliament and deputies) supported the government in its positions. 
The doors of Washington were still open to Hussein and the relationship has not yet reached the stage of estrangement, and tried to use the small window open to persuade the US administration diplomatic solution to the crisis, but to no avail. Hussein's advice to the West at the time was to keep Saddam Hussein a way out of retreating from invading Kuwait, rather than besieging it, which meant escalation. Hussein continued his visits to Baghdad until late in an attempt to prevent a war in the region.
Saddam Hussein did not care about US threats, and he continued to defy everyone. On October 22, he delivered a speech: "Bush is challenging us, and we are determined to break the teeth of his troops." On the 29th of the same month, he delivered a second speech in which he said: “Some American officials are influenced by Rambo's films. Rambo's films appear in cinema, but they do not apply to Iraqi territory. ” 
On January 14, 1991, he said in a public address in Baghdad: "If the war falls, we will walk on their bodies and step on their heads." 
After a while, Hussein and Zaid were worried about the future of Iraq, after Washington was assured of the seriousness of its threats. From his military experience and knowledge of the sophistication of weapons used by the US military, Zaid knew from the outset that Iraq had no chance of surviving the war.
Zaid did not hesitate to state his views to all those he met with Iraqi leaders in Amman or Baghdad. He was urging them to tell the truth to Saddam Hussein. But they would not have dared to utter a speech in front of Saddam Hussein that contradicted his convictions. On many occasions, they hoped Zeid would be honest with his views. 
Saddam Hussein had a special respect for Zaid. He expressed this in more than one meeting, and also in the presence of Hussein. "If I were an American officer and mandated to choose where the Iraqi army should be deployed, I would not have chosen better than where you are now," Zaid told him before the war. "This gives the Americans and Western countries an advantage in effectively using their air force that will harm Iraq." .
On the last visit of Zaid to Baghdad with Hussein before the American attack began, Hussein told Saddam: «Brother Abu Uday, the whole world is a mass against you, and must be out of Kuwait. I am my opinion and my advice to you as a brother, to maintain the gains you have achieved in Iraq and what you have developed for your country, to make a decision to withdraw from Kuwait; 
Saddam's answer was: "It is true that the world is against me, but God is with me and I will win." Hussein said to him: «If this is your point of view is no longer necessary to come again». From that day on, Zaid realized that Iraq was going into an inevitable confrontation that no one would be able to prevent.

Jordan believed that international pressure on Iraq to implement the UN Security Council resolution to withdraw from Kuwait was an opportunity to exert parallel pressure on Israel to acquiesce in similar UN Security Council resolutions to withdraw from the 1967 occupied Palestinian territories. After a tense meeting with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in London on September 1, 1990, Hussein told reporters after the meeting: "We want to implement all Security Council resolutions like the decision to withdraw Iraqi forces from Kuwait." Al-Hussein reiterated his position after a meeting in Amman with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat on December 16, 1990, warning against "accepting any international solution to the Kuwait crisis without linking it to the solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict."

On January 11, 1991, Saddam told a crowd of supporters at the Islamic Popular Congress in Baghdad: "Let your hearts be assured of victory. We will face them with a million soldiers (immersed) in the land ». Moreover, Saddam said: "Iraqi aircraft can fight them day and night without having to call the headquarters!"

On the morning of the US attack on Iraqi forces in Kuwait on January 17, 1991, Hussein presided over a meeting of senior state officials, during which he asserted that the Gulf crisis would have been politically solvable in the early days if it were to remain within its Arab framework. the opportunity.

Saddam Hussein's promises of victory over America, and the rockets he fired toward Israel and his threats to wipe them out, inflamed the public in Jordan and much of the Arab world. No one would doubt for a moment the ability of Saddam Hussein's army to defeat US forces. This can be explained by the lack of transparency of regimes.

The emotional stakes of the masses looked like the days of the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Just as the 1967 defeat was a shocking and disastrous event for the Arab people eager for victory, the defeat of Iraqi forces was, in record time, a major disappointment.

Zaid knew the outcome of the war before it began, and it was not surprising to him what happened to Saddam Hussein's forces.

Jordan emerged from this confrontation almost completely politically isolated, suffering from an economic blockade imposed on the port of Aqaba, and a complete cutoff in US and Gulf aid.

Saddam Hussein 's brother - in - law crisis

The anniversary of the Royal Feast Day came on August 11, 1996, a weekend. Zaid was exhausted from work and told me that he would like to take a three-day vacation on Sardinia.

We traveled on the 11th of the month. During the trip, Zaid told me that Saddam's brother-in-law and their wives had come to Jordan to seek political asylum. He asked me not to inform anyone; the news has not been announced. "We want to plan how to invest the event and how to deal with them," he said. "I'm very worried," he continued with a brief statement. The next day, as I watched CNN and Zaid in the next room, the news was broadcast.

On our way back to Amman, on August 14, Zaid told me that Saddam's two sons-in-law will hold a press conference today at the site of a military battalion, adding: "We would like to test their intentions to find out their goal of seeking refuge in Jordan."

At 6 pm, he was visiting us from Lebanon, family friend Ghassan Shaker. Saddam's magazines appeared in the garden of the palace of the symposium behind a podium bearing the emblem of the royal palace as they prepared for the press conference.

I knew what Zaid wanted, and I understood that what happened was contrary to his opinion. I turned to Ghassan Shaker and told him: «Remember my words, this is the first dispute between our master and Zaid».

In fact, Hussein wanted to give the event political and media significance, while Zeid wanted to keep it on a small scale, and that Jordan did not appear to be supportive or officially adopted. Lieutenant General Hussein al-Majali, who was Hussein's military companion at the time, has no doubt about his assessment that Zaid was reluctant to host Saddam's two sons-in-law and gave them such media attention.

Zaid always wanted balanced relations with Iraq. At a time when Hussein and Saddam were very close, Zaid advised to ease the rush to Saddam, not to drift behind his plans, and to maintain a reasonable distance between the two countries' policies. While Hussein began to change direction with Iraq, Zeid considered it inappropriate to go too far in the policy of estrangement and to keep the lines of relations open with the regime of Saddam Hussein, given the size of the economic interests linking Jordan to Iraq, especially the preferential Iraqi oil prices. .

Hussein had chosen a different course and decided to restore the bridges of the relationship with Washington, even at the expense of his relationship with the Saddam Hussein regime. "The king succeeded in marketing the defection of Hussein Kamel, Saddam's most prominent brother-in-law and military official, to America and proved to them that Jordan has already changed its position on Saddam's regime."

Saddam Hussein tried to retrieve the two fleeing smiles and their families, and to that end sent his eldest son Uday to Amman, where he met Hussein. His speech carried a threatening tone, but Hussein absorbed it and apologized for not fulfilling his request.

Hussein Kamel had a sharp and unstable mood. Over time, he began to feel indifferent. In the meantime, the regime of Saddam Hussein opened lines of communication with him through an Iraqi merchant who used to visit Amman, who later arranged a meeting with Hussein Kamel with the Iraqi ambassador in Amman, Sabah Yassin. The two were able to convince Hussein Kamel to return to Iraq, and assured him that the Iraqi president will forgive him, and rehabilitated him.

At that time, Hussein Kamel interviewed a weekly newspaper in which he launched a violent attack on the Iraqi president. When the idea of ​​a return came to his head, he asked the interviewer not to publish it. But the latter rejected the request, initiated by Hussein Kamel with a barrage of insults; prompting the journalist to file a judicial complaint against him.

Hussein Kamel believed that official bodies were behind the complaint. He was visited at his residence by Prince Talal bin Mohammed, and the General Intelligence official, Samih al-Battikhi. But Hussein Kamel insisted on his position, and the complaint served as an additional incentive for the option of returning to Iraq.

Some Jordanian officials tried to dissuade him from the idea of ​​return and warned him of a black fate. His younger brother, Saddam Kamel, refused to match his brother's idea of ​​returning to Baghdad. However, at gunpoint by his brother Hussein, he bowed to his will.

For a team of CIA interrogators who met Hussein Kamel several times in Amman, the latter's decision to return to Saddam Hussein's lap was not surprising. Seven of them then returned home and were executed there. They said the psychological symptoms they observed on Hussein Kamel were similar to those of Soviet dissidents. Indeed, Hussein Kamel and his brother took the car with their families and went to Baghdad to meet the fate that Jordan warned them.

The exit to Jordan turned the page of Saddam's two brother-in-law, but it gave evidence that we are in the process of changing a broad trend in the country, which required a completely different political team from the current one in the government, the Royal Court and the General Intelligence Department.