August 8, 1990, Associated Press (available on lexis.com)

President George Bush yesterday dispatched hundreds of U.S. warplanes and thousands of American soldiers to Saudi Arabia to counter what the White House called an "imminent threat" posed by Iraqi troops and tanks that conquered neighboring Kuwait six days ago. In what officials described as the largest single deployment of U.S. military air power since the Vietnam War, Bush dramatically increased the American presence in the tension-wracked Persian Gulf region, home of half the world's oil reserves.

Saudi Arabia has never before allowed U.S. ground forces to be stationed on its soil. But officials said Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, who was sent to the Middle East by Bush on Sunday, convinced Saudi leaders, with what sources said was a dramatic array of satellite photos and intelligence data, that the tens of thousands of Iraqi troops had massed near their border with Kuwait and were taking up positions for a possible invasion....Cheney also was conferring last night with officials in Morocco seeking to win a commitment of troops from that country for the international effort to thwart Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's aggression in the region that one U.S. analyst called "a tinder box."

....Hussein remained defiant, declaring in a nationwide speech he would never back down. "We would rather die than be humiliated," he said, "and we will pluck out the eyes of those who attack the Arab nation."

In Washington, presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater reported that in a tense, two-hour session Monday between Hussein and the highest-ranking American official in Iraq, Charge d'Affaires Joseph Wilson, the Iraqi president "indicated he had no intention of leaving Kuwait and had every indication of staying and claiming it as his own."

State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said that 28 Americans picked up Monday by Iraqi troops in Kuwait have turned up in a Baghdad hotel but "are not being allowed to leave . . . at this point." American officials, speaking on condition they would not be identified, said the United States is discussing with Iraq a plan to allow some of the estimated 500 Americans in that country to leave by road through Jordan within a day or two. A senior Iraqi official made similar comments.

The deployment of U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia is described by some sources as a "trip-wire" for Hussein if he decides to invade Saudi Arabia, as part of the ongoing tightening of the noose to get Iraq to pull out of Kuwait and as psychological warfare aimed at achieving the same goal. None of the defense sources said this was preparation for a joint U.S-Arab military invasion of Iraq.

August 19, 1990, Associated Press

....Iraqi President Saddam Hussein offered on Sunday to free all foreigners in Iraq and Kuwait if the United States promises to withdraw its forces from Saudi Arabia and guarantees that an international economic embargo will be lifted....CBS News reported from Baghdad on Sunday that 35 Americans, including four women and three children, have taken refuge at U.S. diplomatic "quarters" in the Iraqi capital. It did not specify what it meant by quarters.

The report quoted the officer in charge of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Joseph Wilson, as saying he and his staff were doing everything possible to prevent Americans from being rounded up by Iraqi authorities.

.....Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said on Sunday that Iraq has massed 200,000 troops and more than 1,000 tanks on the Saudi border. "Should Saddam Hussein be foolish enough to launch an attack on Saudi Arabia, we would be able to do a very effective job of making him pay a bit of a price for that," said Cheney, who visited U.S. soldiers in Saudi Arabia and seamen on the USS Eisenhower in the Red Sea. "Obviously, I'll be more comfortable once we've got more forces in the country."

By this time, analysts were openly calling the Americans detained in Iraq and Kuwait "hostages."

Defense Secretary Cheney and Joseph Wilson were working two sides of the same crisis. How could Cheney, micro-manager that he is, not only not have met Wilson, but not "know him."

Remember when Cheney said during a debate he had never met John Edwards and this picture showed him to be wrong? It seems like our Vice President has a very selective memory. So when he says he never saw anything about Wilson's trip until reading about it in the papers months later.....

[hat tip to Crooks and Liars who sent me an e-mail asking if I knew anything about Cheney formerly knowing Wilson. I didn't, but it started me on my search.]

Update: Earl at Daily Kos has more on this - he wrote about it last week.