Mr. President,
The other evening I was talking to a Nigerian friend who asked me why Saddam Hussein was so defiant in the face of American military superiority. It was pride! Saddam had survived two wars that had been quite cruel: the one against Iran and the one against Kuwait. He survived the war against Kuwait because of the generosity of your father, “Papa Bush,” who did not want to annihilate him. A person who has fully lived one experience cannot be moved too much by a similar experience. Saddam Hussein thought that he could survive a third war. As the Fula of Guinea say, “The tree that has already been touched by lightning is not afraid of a darkening sky.”