Do you believe that US UK & Germany were covertly supplying Iraq to fight Iran ?

Yep, and there wasn't much covert about it. At the time Saddam was seen as a useful foil to Iran, which was making a lot of noise about exporting the revolution.

Do you believe that US Govt had a covert operation to counter supply Iran against Iraq ? (perhaps led by a Marine named Col North)

Not really. Iran-Contra was a specific deal, trading arms for hostages. But it doesn't appear to have been part of a wide spread policy. Most of the weapons bought as part of Iran-Contra where funneled back in Nicaragua, not sent to Iran.

Iran at the time was desperate for supplies and willing to deal with anybody because black market supplies where the only ones available. Iran actually bought supplies from Isreal during the war.

Do you believe that Kuwait was ever part of Iraq ?

Sure. And I fully agree that the methods used to seperate Kuwait from Iran where both dirty and purely political. But I also think they had been seperate for too long for them to be easily rejoined, even if both countries wanted to.

Do you believe the Kuwaitis would ever stoop to slant drilling into Iraq oil ?

Would? Yes. Did? Harder to say. Kuwait has little reason to do so after all. It's not like they have a shortage of oil. And note that in the transcript below, Saddam doesn't actually complain about slant drilling but does complain about the price of oil.

Do you believe that west wanted to take away the very weapons they helped Saddam build, once the war had ended ?

Probably, it would have been the wise course of action considering that he had one of the largest armies in the world and had proved willing to use it.

Do you believe that the published letter from April Galaspie to the Iraqi Govt was forged, (the one she publicly admitted to writing) ?

I'm not sure what you are talking about here. But if you are talking about this [link|http://www.psych.upenn.edu/~fjgil/transcript.html|Transcript of meeting] then no I don't think it's forged. It reads rather like a poor attempt to judge Saddam's intentions then an attempt to send him a message.

If you were Hussien and had recieved that letter after asking US for its position on Iraq using military means to resolve the dispute, what might you conclude ?

If the message is the one I think it is, then I think Saddam would have taken it correctly. That the US would take no side in the border dispute but was concerned with Iraq's military movements.

I think the State Department sorely misjudged Saddam here, thinking he wouldn't start a new war so soon after the last one had ground into a statemate. Remember that the Iran/Iraq war didn't really end, negotiations over that where still going at the time.

For his part, I think Saddam got exactly the response he wanted. I think Saddam had already decided to go to war, and only the most dire of threats from the US envoy had a chance of stopping it. Instead he got a response that said the US considered his talk of retaking Kuwait was posturing and that the US expected him to continue negotiations through Egypt or some other middle eastern power.

Jay