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,
Republic of Kuwait decided to appeal to kinsfolk in Iraq, led by the knight of Arabs and the leader of their march, President Field Marshal Saddam Hussein, to agree that their sons should return to their large family, that Kuwait should return to the great Iraq—the mother homeland—and to achieve complete merger unity between Kuwait and Iraq." Hussein Ali was then made Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq while Ali Hassan al-Majid was proclaimed Governor. The Turkish daily "Milliyet" reported Hussein in September 1990 saying to Bülent Ecevit that, "Kuwait is now ours, but we might have refrained from taking such a decision if