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Iraq Kuwait war:
Introduction
This case is important due to the fact that the Gulf War that took place between 1990 and 1991 qualifies to be one of the biggest wars in which America military was involved since Vietnam and became the turning point of the international politics taking place in the Middle East (Carlisle & Bowman 58). This war was confirmation that the United States in conjunction with other major economic powers were not ready to let the oil found in the Persian Gulf to be controlled by one regional leader whether it is directly or indirectly.
The Gulf war especially the participation of Iraq begs the theoretical questions why leaders decide to go to war and why they stick to their war fighting strategies. It raise the question of why Saddam Hussein who was leading a country that was already rich in oil would decide to invade Kuwait even though they were just recovering from a long war they had with Iran.
According to Hamdi, (1999), Saddam Hussein’s enigmatic personality had a role to play in the decisions he made. However, it is insufficient to place the initiation of crisis and its effect on a single person because there are other factors that came in to play. As early as the 1970’s from the time that Saddam dominated the Iraqi government up to the late 1980’s, there were many chances that Iraq had of invading Kuwait (Carlisle & Bowman, 78). There were particular circumstances that drove Saddam Hussein to make his invasion in August 1990 (O’Shea 15). This paper looks at the Gulf War scenario from both perspectives.
History of Iraq and the Kuwait Invasion
Knowing about the history of Iraq and how Saddam Hussein came to power and how he ruled is essential in shedding light in the reasons for their invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. Many of the Eastern مساعدة التعيين – خدمة كتابة المقالات من قبل كبار الكتاب العرب, Arab world countries were formed from territories that were originally of the defunct Ottoman Empire which was after World War I and this case applies to Iraq too (Schaffer, 2004). Britain was in charge of administering Iraq in readiness for colonization and it appointed a new king by the name Faysal ibn Hussein (Schaffer 93). It was difficult for Faysal to hold the country together especially without an established bureaucracy and so he greatly depended on the British administrators and forces. In 1932, Iraq officially gained its independence although Britain was still dominant in the politics of Iraq for some time afterwards. There was a military coup in 1958 that led to the killing of several pro-British political elite and overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy because Faysal’s grandson was ruling at the time. This is when British influenced ended in Iraq. There were many military governments that ruled Iraq from 1958 to 1968 when another military coup was carried out and Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr who was an army general took power (Miller 151). He was part of the Ba’th Party in Iraq which was a Pan مساعدة التعيين – خدمة كتابة المقالات من قبل كبار الكتاب العرب, Arab political group that was said to support the مساعدة التعيين – خدمة كتابة المقالات من قبل كبار الكتاب العرب, Arab unity. He didn’t last long and by around mid-1970’s Saddam Hussein who was then a civilian party official and in charge of internal security affairs was seen as the real power of that regime. Al Bakr finally resigned as president in 1979 because his health had been failing for quite some time and then Saddam succeeded him (Miller 12). He started his regime by executing 22 of the high ranking officials belonging to the Ba’th Party on claims that they were plotting against him.
Saddam came to be president at a delicate time when the Middle East politics was facing an upheaval. During that time, Egypt that was the biggest مساعدة التعيين – خدمة كتابة المقالات من قبل كبار الكتاب العرب, Arab state and was leading the مساعدة التعيين – خدمة كتابة المقالات من قبل كبار الكتاب العرب, Arab world managed to come to peace terms with Israel and the treaty was signed and supported by the rest of the مساعدة التعيين – خدمة كتابة المقالات من قبل كبار الكتاب العرب, Arab states. Iran on the other hand had given Shiite Muslim clerics power after overthrowing the pro-Western monarchial regime (Miller 33). Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini was then the leader was in the process of creating an “Islamic republic” in the middle of all the revolutionary chaos. This was the right time for Saddam Hussein who was then ambitious and a leader of a country will great wealth from oil to take a step towards regional leadership. He did this by invading Iran in September 1980. In 1980, there were attempted assassinations on Ba’thist officials which the Iraqi government blamed on the Iranians and sent a high ranking Iraqi Shiite ayatollah for execution in addition to driving away tens of thousands of Iranians who were staying in Najaf and Karbala (Allen, Berry & Polmar 29). This was the end of restraints and full war was declared between the two states that lasted for eight years and ended in August 1988.
Both sides lost a lot in terms of damages, revenue and many lives in addition to hundreds of thousands of casualties. The late military successes achieved by Iraq and the fact that they succeeding in resisting earlier Iranian offensives gave Saddam Hussein’s regime victory but it was a hollow one because Iraq never gained any new territory. The war which had lasted for many years had led to economic disruptions which left Iraq in great debt. Iraq needed financial help to demobilize part of the army and also find work for the people returning home from the war which was a total of $ 80 billion of which $40 was from the gulf states and was not to be refunded (this later became an issue of controversy with some leaders saying it was meant to be paid back) and $40 was from various governments and private creditors (Allen, Berry & Polmar 47).
Reasons why Iraq invaded Kuwait
There were a lot of factors that came in to play from the time the war ended leading to the Iraq invasion of Kuwait. Kuwait was among the مساعدة التعيين – خدمة كتابة المقالات من قبل كبار الكتاب العرب, Arab countries which had loaned Iraq money for fuelling the war and it wanted its money back. Saddam was to later say that the money was not a loan and the term “loan” was just used for formality and to hide the truth from Iraq that the countries giving out the money were supporting Iraq (Friedman 211). Iraq used the money given to obtained high tech weapons which made Iraq to be feared because its army was among the largest and strongest in the world. This large army made the possibility of defeating Kuwait which had a smaller army seems easy and so Saddam Hussein considered it (Mason 65).
Kuwait had become among the richest countries worldwide due to the oil they produced and they occupied about 1/10 of the total world’s known petroleum reserves (Friedman 170). With regard to the amount of national income per person, Kuwait is still among the world’s wealthiest nations. Education (both primary and secondary), health services and social services were free in Kuwait and there were no income tax therefore this country appeared very attractive to Saddam Hussein and he contemplated benefitting from all these. They managed to have 20% of these known oil reserves worldwide (Friedman 177).
Iraq claims to historically have rights over Kuwait. The two islands known as Warbah and Bubiya formed part of Mesopotamia that was conquered by the Ottoman Turks. During the World War 1, the Ottoman Empire suffered defeat and the land was divided by the British which led to the division of ancient boundaries which the مساعدة التعيين – خدمة كتابة المقالات من قبل كبار الكتاب العرب, Arab communities had recognized for ages. During this division, a larger part of Mesopotamia became Iraq while some parts of it became Kuwait. However, Iraq didn’t like the fact that the two islands were under Kuwait because they were important deep water needed for shipping port (King 48).
According to the Iraqi government, Kuwait had stolen about 2.5 billion worth of oils with the help of drills which they slid in Iraqi oil pipelines (King 130). This was allegedly carried out from the Rumaila oil fields. In addition to that, Iraq accused Kuwait of dropping the oil price to far through going beyond the oil production regulated by OPEC making the price to go from $20 to $13 for a barrel within a period of the initial six months in 1990 (Khadduri, Majid & Ghareeb 300) Whenever the price of a barrel of oil drops by one dollar, Iraq losses one billion dollars. Saddam promised to make them stop the aggressive action because they were cutting Iraqi means of living and he did this by invading Kuwait.
It is not exactly clear the time when Saddam Hussein made the decision to invade Kuwait. However, sources claimed that the meetings to this effect began in mid-June 1990 where the plan was formulated. There were two plans presented where one involved occupying the border and the two islands mentioned earlier one while the other plan was about completely occupying the entire Kuwait. Saddam chose the latter plan on July 29, 1990 (Khadduri, Majid & Ghareeb 315).
Events of the Invasion of Kuwait by Iraq
On August 2, 1990, the Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait at about 2.a.m of the local time (Stevens 74). The defense forces of Kuwait couldn’t match that of Iraq and so they were rapidly overwhelmed. The ones who survived escaped to Saudi مساعدة التعيين – خدمة كتابة المقالات من قبل كبار الكتاب العرب, Arabia. Among them were the emir of Kuwait together with his family and various government leaders. It only took the Iraq forces six hours to reach the capital which they captured and established a provincial government. Iraq annexed Kuwait which made them control 20% of the oil reserves worldwide and this included a significant coastline on the Persian Gulf (Friedman 62). United Nations Security demanded Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait at once on the same day that the invasion took place.
A worldwide ban was placed on trade with Iraq on August 6, by the Security Council when Iraq didn’t comply. The U.S forces rushed to the Persian Gulf on August 9 to try and stop the invasion. By this time, Saddam had an army of about 300,000 troops all in Kuwait (Clyde 180). When it reached November 29, Iraq was given up to January 15, 1991 by the U.N. Security Council to get out of Kuwait or else force would be used on them (Clyde 194). During this period, Saddam considered Kuwait to be a province of Iraq and so he still refused to withdraw and so about 700,000 allied troops were gathered in the Middle East waiting for the deadline given in order to enforce it (Long & Jerry 70). These were primarily Americans. On January 16, 1991, fighter aircrafts were launched from Saudi مساعدة التعيين – خدمة كتابة المقالات من قبل كبار الكتاب العرب, Arabia into the Persian Gulf which was led by the U.S under the “Operation Desert Storm” (Clyde 196). The six weeks that followed were characterized by a rigorous air war aimed at Iraq’s military and civil infrastructure. There was little resistance on the side of the Iraqi air defenses or air force. At this stage, the Iraqi ground forces couldn’t match the U.S troops and the only way Saddam could retaliate was by launching SCUD missile attacks aimed at Saudi مساعدة التعيين – خدمة كتابة المقالات من قبل كبار الكتاب العرب, Arabia and Israel (Long & Jerry 55). He did this hoping to provoke Israel in to joining the war and therefore dissolving مساعدة التعيين – خدمة كتابة المقالات من قبل كبار الكتاب العرب, Arab support. However, Israel was requested to keep out of the war by the United States and they obliged (Dudley, William & Stacey 43)
February 24th saw the beginning of a great coalition ground of which Iraqi armed forces were overwhelmed due to the fact that their forces were outdated and poorly supplied in comparison to their adversaries (Khadduri, Majid & Ghareeb 330). When the day ended, the Iraqi army was defeated, had 10,000 of its troops, taken prisoners and the U.S had established their airbase deep inside Iraq (Long & Jerry, 2004). Kuwait was liberated in less than four days after that and most of Iraq’s armed forces by then either surrendered, were destroyed or went back to Iraq. President of the United States at the time, George Bush confirmed an end of the war and the Security Council on April 3 passed Resolution 687 which specified the conditions for the end of the conflict formally (Clyde 100). This resolution stated that Bush’s declaration of cease-fire was to be made official; various sanctions were to be lifted although there would still be a ban on Iraqi oil sales. This was to go on until Iraqi accepted to be supervised by the U.N while destroying their weapons of mass destruction. Iraq agreed to this on April 6th and the Security Council ordered this to take place on April 11th (Khadduri, Majid & Ghareeb 340). The decade that followed saw Saddam Hussein violate the peace terms agreement severally which led to more U.N sanctions and allied air strikes.
Many troops were killed and wounded in the Persian Gulf War. The number of American soldiers killed was 148 while the wounded were 457 and the various allied nations had a total of about 100 deaths during Operation Desert Storm (Freedman & Robert 85). Although official figures of the Iraqi casualties are not available, there is a belief that the number of soldiers who died was more than 25,000 and the wounded were more than 75,000 (Freedman & Robert 61). This turned it to be among the most one sided conflicts throughout history. The Persian Gulf led to problems such as inadequate food, medical supplies and water which led to the death of about 100,000 Iraqi civilians (Freedman & Robert 90). The U.N sanctions put in place led to the death of at least a million Iraqi civilians in the years that followed.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Persian Gulf War was an indication that modern form of colonization and occupation could not tolerated. Although America and the western powers were trying to prevent occupation of Kuwait, the war put a strain on the relationship between both sides. This worsened leading to the ouster of Saddam Hussein later on in the twenty-first century. (Khadduri, Majid, & Ghareeb, 2001) gives the best insight to the war, the causes as Well as the strained diplomatic relations that followed. The source steers very clear of making any conclusions about the events but focuses of giving a balanced view from all perspectives. This allows the leader to read independently and formulate one’s opinion. Additionally, the source also gives the story from Iraqi and the US side and discusses the strained diplomatic relationship that followed.
Works Cited
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Khadduri, Majid, and Edmund Ghareeb. War in the Gulf, 1990-91: The Iraq-Kuwait Conflict and Its Implications. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Internet resource.
