Governmental positions on the Iraq War prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq resolutions 1284 (1999) and 1409 (2002), was the only appropriate model for resolving the conflict between Iraq and the UN. In August 2002 he told the Washington Post that an attempt to invade Iraq would be a "tremendous mistake" and that it could "throw the whole area into turmoil". The Arab League unanimously condemned the war, with the exception of Kuwait. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud publicly claimed that the U.S. military would not be authorized to use Saudi Arabia's soil in any way to attack Iraq. However, this was later revealed to have been a front, as Saudi Arabia,
CIA activities in Iraq [against Hussein's regime]. At the center was Shahwani, a Sunni from Mosul and a charismatic commander who made his reputation in 1984 with a helicopter assault on Iranian troops atop a mountain in Iraqi Kurdistan. His popularity made him dangerous to Saddam Hussein, and he was arrested and interrogated in 1989. He fled the country in May 1990, just before Iraq invaded Kuwait." In 1991, Shahwani began efforts to organize a military coup utilizing former members of the special forces, which Hussein had disbanded. After the Gulf War, CIA took steps to correct the shortcomings identified during the Gulf War