Mr. Gorbachev’s diplomatic efforts were undermined on Feb. 22 when the Kuwaiti oil well fires that Mr. Hussein had ordered set — and which he saw as a defensive measure — were described by Mr. Bush in his conversation with the Soviet leader as a “scorched-earth policy” and a reason to not delay military action. Mr. Bush said it should take the Iraqis no more than seven days to pull out of Kuwait, and he issued them an ultimatum to take action before noon the following day.

On Feb. 23, just minutes before the noon deadline, Mr. Bush and the Soviet leader spoke by telephone. Mr. Gorbachev argued that joint American-Soviet action through the United Nations would establish a model for dealing with other crises.

“George, let’s keep cool,” Mr. Gorbachev said. “Saddam wants to stall, but we are not simpletons.”

But Mr. Bush’s patience had been exhausted. “Mikhail,” he said, “I appreciate that spirit, but I don’t want to leave a false impression there is any more time.” If the Iraqis intended to comply with the withdrawal demand, he said, it would need to happen “in the next few minutes.”

In Baghdad the next morning, Mr. Hussein waited anxiously for word from his foreign minister, who had left Moscow. “When will Comrade Tariq arrive?” the Iraqi leader asked. Told that Mr. Aziz had yet to return to Baghdad, Mr. Hussein demanded: “What do you mean he has not arrived?” He read aloud a headline: “Tariq Aziz Arrives in Baghdad.”

As he waited for the minister to show up, Mr. Hussein instructed his subordinates to read a letter he had sent to Mr. Gorbachev the night before, asking the Soviet president why he was not doing more to oppose Mr. Bush’s decision to start the ground war. “We trusted you,” Mr. Hussein wrote.

The conspiracy-minded Iraqi leader seemed both baffled and angry.

“In typical fashion, he suspected that Iraq had been stabbed in the back, this time by disingenuous Soviet mediation efforts,” said David Palkki, the deputy director of the research center that houses the declassified Hussein archives.

Mr. Gorbachev’s reply was not reassuring. He wrote that Mr. Bush did not agree with the Soviet proposal, and that if Mr. Hussein wanted to avoid a ground war, he should immediately issue a statement saying that Iraq would withdraw its forces within 9 to 10 days, which was close to Mr. Bush’s seven-day timeline.