On July 19, 1990, after Iraq had stationed troops on the Kuwaiti border, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney “offered a public warning to Saddam Hussein. ‘We take very seriously any threat that could risk U.S. interests or U.S. friends in the region,’ he told reporters. ‘That’s a part of the world you’ve got to be concerned about and where you have to take into account the possibility that at some future date U.S. forces could become involved in conflict.’ ”
– Stephen F. Hayes, Cheney, Page 225