On the anniversary of the invasion of Kuwait .. Did Saddam Hussein deceive Mubarak?

CAIRO -

At 4 a.m. on the second day of August 1990, Mustafa al-Fiqi, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's information secretary at the time, woke up to a phone call from the Egyptian ambassador to Kuwait, Saeed Refaat, informing him that Iraqi forces had occupied the Rumaila field and were now advancing toward Kuwait. .

After that, Al-Fiqi received another call from the Kuwaiti ambassador in Cairo, Abdel Razek Al-Kandari, asking him to wake Mubarak immediately, because the Iraqis are now in the heart of Kuwait.

Al-Faqi woke Mubarak, and began to convey to him the information he had received;

Mubarak asked him, astonished: Are they operations?

Is the border?

Al-Fiqi replied that they were operations in depth, and that the Iraqi forces had occupied the Emir's Palace, the Crown Prince's Palace, and the Ministries of Defense and Interior.

Closed meeting with Saddam

The summer of 1990 in the Arab Gulf region was not just another hot summer, but it increased in flames with information about the Iraqi army's build-up on the Kuwaiti border, and questions arose whether the dispute between Baghdad and Kuwait might lead to a military intervention.

On July 17, 1990, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein gave a new speech accusing Kuwait of being involved in what he described as an "oil conspiracy" against Iraq. Kuwait denied these accusations and demanded that Iraq repay billions of dollars in debt it lent to it during its war with Iran.

On July 24, President Mubarak decided to intervene to stop a war that everyone feared would break out. At Cairo airport, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal met an envoy of King Fahd bin Abdulaziz, for an hour, before heading to Baghdad to meet Saddam Hussein.

In Baghdad, Mubarak met Saddam, and most of the meeting was an Iraqi complaint from Kuwait, but Mubarak called on Saddam to solve the problems through dialogue, according to television statements that the late Egyptian president repeated more than once.

Mubarak says that he spoke with Saddam and asked him frank questions: Do you intend to attack?

Saddam said, "No," but he asked not to inform Kuwait, and Mubarak stayed with him for hours, then went to Kuwait.

However, Mubarak was surprised on the way by the statement of the Iraqi Foreign Minister at the time, Tariq Aziz, that Mubarak addressed the bilateral relations between Egypt and Iraq, and that he did not address the Gulf crisis.

In Kuwait, Mubarak met its emir, Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, and told him that Saddam would not attack, so when the attack occurred, Mubarak did not believe, and said that he did not believe that an Arab country was entering to occupy another Arab country.

In the book "The Gulf War, Illusions of Power and Victory" by the late writer Muhammad Hassanein Heikal, Heikal tells, quoting from the memorandum of the Presidency of the Republic, that the late King of Jordan, Hussein bin Talal, asked Mubarak after the attack if he had contacted Saddam, and Mubarak told him that he had not contacted anyone in Baghdad "Because they will lie to us again."

Mubarak added that he does not know what to say to people in the world, as these people will either think that he deceived them for Saddam's benefit, or that he himself was a victim of deception by Saddam, and both things are bad.

Arab differences

A meeting of foreign ministers of Islamic countries happened in Cairo, so an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers was held, but the meeting revolved around itself, and it became clear that the crisis is greater than foreign ministers, and that it is necessary to invite Arab kings and presidents.

On the eighth of August, while US President George HW Bush was calling for an immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of all Iraqi forces from Kuwait, Mubarak was addressing a speech to the Arab world saying that "the picture is black and frightening, and unless we remedy the situation immediately, war is inevitable." He added that no one knows the dangers of war as well as he knows them, and according to his military experience, a possible war would be a terrible and terrible thing.

Heikal analyzes that Mubarak had the opportunity to see the American plan for the war the day before, and he hoped that a miracle would be possible if Iraq left Kuwait immediately without conditions.

An urgent Arab summit was called in Cairo, amid a tense atmosphere, and Iraq participated in a high-level delegation, headed by Saddam's deputy - Taha Yassin Ramadan - and Mubarak met with Ramadan in a long discussion. Ramadan said at the end that the annexation of Kuwait to Iraq is a final and irreversible measure. about him.

In his speech at the opening of the Arab summit, Mubarak warned against effective Arab action or foreign interference, and the Arab leaders spoke so that tension would prevail more and differences in viewpoints would erupt.

Desert Storm

While the US threats to strike Iraq were escalating, the UN Security Council granted Iraq the opportunity to withdraw from Kuwait without conditions, and issued Resolution No. 678 on November 29, 1990 to set January 15, 1991 as a deadline for Iraq to withdraw its forces from Kuwait, otherwise the forces of The international coalition will use all necessary means to liberate Kuwait, but Saddam did not respond and the deadline expired and the world waited for a new war in the Persian Gulf.

The Americans led an international coalition of 34 countries, and Egypt sent about 35,000 soldiers within the international forces to be the fourth largest participating armies after the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom, in a war that Washington called “Desert Storm.”

After a six-week air campaign followed by four days of ground combat, Bush issued a halt to operations on February 27 declaring that the Iraqi army had been defeated, ending the first televised war watched by millions around the world.

economic gains

While the United States proved itself to be the first super military power in the world, the coalition countries were reaping their profits from the battle, including Egypt, which benefited economically from the Second Gulf War, as many of its debts were forgiven and it received a number of grants from the Gulf states and Europe.

Egyptian diplomat Mustafa El-Feki said - in a television interview - that the Gulf War transferred Mubarak from an Egyptian president to an Arab leader, as the Arab Gulf greatly appreciated him, and Mubarak was phoning members of Congress one by one to drop Egypt's debts.