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The Gulf War or Persian Gulf War (2 August 1990-28 February 1991)
Was a conflict between Iraq and a coalition force from 34 nations authorized by the United Nations (UN) and led primarily by the United
States in order to return Kuwait to the control of the Emir of Kuwait.
The conflict developed in the context of the Iran-Iraq War. The entry by
Iraqi troops in Kuwait was met with immediate economic sanctions by some
members of the UN Security Council against Iraq. The expulsion of Iraqi
troops from Kuwait began in January 1991 and was a decisive victory for
the coalition forces, which took over Kuwait and entered Iraqi territory.
Aerial and ground combat was confined to Iraq, Kuwait, and bordering areas
of Saudi Arabia. Iraq also launched missiles against targets in Saudi
Arabia and Israel in retaliation for their support of the invading forces
in Kuwait.
Since the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88 had been called the "Gulf War" or
"Persian Gulf War" by many news sources, the 1991 war has sometimes been
called the Second Gulf War, but more commonly, the 1991 war is styled
simply the Gulf War or the "First Gulf War", in distinction from the 2003
Invasion of Iraq. Operation Desert Storm was the U.S. name of the air
and land operations and is often used to refer to the conflict.
Seven days after Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, British Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher (soon to be succeeded by John Major, who
remained in that position for the rest of the war) pressured President
George H.W. Bush into intervening in Kuwait and then the United States
started to deploy Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force, and Coast Guard units to
Saudi Arabia (they called this Operation Desert Shield), while at the same
time urging other countries to send their own forces to the scene. UN
coalition-building efforts were so successful that by the time the
fighting (Operation Desert Storm) began on January 17, 1991, twelve
countries had sent naval forces, joining the regional states of Saudi
Arabia and the Persian Gulf states, as well as the huge array of the US
Navy, which deployed six aircraft-carrier battle groups; eight countries
had sent ground forces, joining the regional troops of Bahrain, Kuwait,
Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the
seventeen heavy and six light brigades of the US Army and nine Marine
regiments, with their large support and service forces; and four countries
had sent combat aircraft, joining the local air forces of Kuwait, Qatar,
and Saudi Arabia, as well as the US Air Force, US Navy, and U.S. Marine
aviation, for a grand total of 2,430 fixed-wing aircraft.
Against them, the Iraqis had only a few gunboats and small missile craft
to match the coalition's armada; but on the other hand, some 1.2 million
ground troops with about 5,800 tanks, 5,100 other armored vehicles, and
3,850 artillery pieces made for a lot more strength on the ground . Iraq
also had 750 fighters and bombers, 200 other aircraft, and elaborate
missile and gun defenses.
Origins
Further information: Iraq-gate (Gulf War)
To the U.S., Iran-Iraqi relations were stable, and Iraq had been chiefly
an ally of the Soviet Union. The US was concerned with Iraq’s focus on
Israel's Palestinian policies and its disapproval of moves toward peace
between Israel and Egypt. It also disliked Iraqi support for various Arab
and Palestinian militant groups such as Abu Nidal, which led to its
inclusion on the incipient U.S. list of state sponsors of international
terrorism on December 29, 1979. The US remained officially neutral during
the outbreak of hostilities in the Iran-Iraq War, although it assisted
Iraq covertly. In March 1982, however, Iran began a successful
counteroffensive (Operation Undeniable Victory). The US made a concerted
effort to prevent Israel from getting involved so as not to inflame Arab
countries angry with its policies. In a bid to open full diplomatic
relations with Iraq, the country was removed from the list of state
sponsors of terrorism. Ostensibly this was because of improvement in the
regime’s record, although former United States Assistant Secretary of
Defense Noel Koch later stated, "No one had any doubts about [the Iraqis']
continued involvement in terrorism... The real reason was to help them
succeed in the war against Iran. "With Iran's newfound success in the war
and its rebuff of a peace offer in July, arms sales to Iraq (which
included poison gas which was then used against Iranian troops) from other
states (most importantly the USSR, France, Egypt, and starting that year,
the People's Republic of China) reached a record spike in 1982, but an
obstacle remained to any potential US-Iraqi relationship — Abu Nidal
continued to operate with official support in Baghdad. When Saddam Hussein
expelled the group to Syria at the US' request in November 1983, the
Reagan administration then sent Donald Rumsfeld to Saddam Hussein as a
special envoy to cultivate ties.
Invasion of Kuwait
By the time the ceasefire with Iran was signed in August 1988, Iraq was
virtually bankrupt and heavily indebted to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Its
vulnerability was made worse because the following year, in open defiance
of OPEC quotas, Kuwait had increased its oil production by 40 percent. The
collapse in oil prices had a catastrophic impact on the Iraqi economy. The
Iraqi government described it as a form of economic warfare, which it
claimed was aggravated by Kuwait slant-drilling across the border into
Iraq's Rumaila oil field.
Kuwait had been part of the Ottoman province of Basra, and although its
ruling dynasty, the al-Sabah family, had concluded a protectorate
agreement in 1899 that assigned responsibility for its foreign affairs to
Britain, it did not make any attempt to secede from the Ottoman Empire.
For this reason, Iraqi governments had always refused to accept Kuwait's
separation, and its borders were never clearly defined or mutually
agreed. The British High Commissioner drew lines that
deliberately constricted Iraq's access to the ocean so that any future
Iraqi government would be in no position to threaten Britain's domination
of the Gulf.
In late July 1990, as negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait stalled, Iraq
massed troops on its border with the emirate and summoned US ambassador
April Glaspie to a meeting with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Two
transcripts of that meeting have been produced, both of them
controversial. In them, Saddam Hussein outlined his grievances against
Kuwait, while promising that he would not invade Kuwait before one more
round of negotiations. In the version published by The New York Times on
September 23, 1990, Glaspie expressed concern over the troop buildup to
Saddam Hussein:
"We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border
disagreement with Kuwait. I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during
the late ’60s. The instruction we had during this period was that we
should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not
associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen
to emphasize this instruction. We hope you can solve this problem using
any suitable methods via [Chadli] Klibi [then Arab League General
Secretary] or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that these issues
are solved quickly. With regard to all of this, can I ask you to see how
the issue appears to us?
"My assessment after 25 years' service in this area is that your objective
must have strong backing from your Arab brothers. I now speak of oil. But
you, Mr. President, have fought through a horrific and painful war.
Frankly, we can see only that you have deployed massive troops in the
south. Normally that would not be any of our business. But when this
happens in the context of what you said on your national day, then when we
read the details in the two letters of the Foreign Minister, then when we
see the Iraqi point of view that the measures taken by the U.A.E. and
Kuwait is, in the final analysis, parallel to military aggression against
Iraq, then it would be reasonable for me to be concerned. And for this
reason, I received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship
-- not in the spirit of confrontation -- regarding your intentions.
"I simply describe the position of my Government. And I do not mean that
the situation is a simple situation. But our concern is a simple one."
Some have interpreted portions of these statements, particularly the
language "We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border
disagreement with Kuwait", as signaling an American "green light" for the
invasion. Although the US State Department did not confirm (or deny) the
authenticity of these transcripts, US sources say that it handled
everything “by the book” (in accordance with the US' official neutrality
on the Iraq-Kuwait issue) and had not signaled to Saddam Hussein any
approval for defying the Arab League’s Jeddah crisis squad, which had
conducted the negotiations. Many believe that Saddam Hussein may have been
influenced by the perception that the US was not interested in the issue,
(as they had not minded when he ordered the invasion of Iran) for which
the Glaspie transcript is merely an example, and that he may have felt so
in part because of U.S. support for the reunification of Germany, another
act that he considered to be nothing more than the nullification of an
artificial, internal border. Others, such as Kenneth Pollack, believe he
had no such illusion, or that he simply underestimated the extent of a US
response.
In November 1989, CIA director William Webster met with the Kuwaiti head
of security, Brigadier Fahd Ahmed Al-Fahd. Subsequent to Iraq’s invasion
of Kuwait, Iraq claimed to have found a memorandum pertaining to their
conversation. The Washington Post reported that Kuwait’s foreign minister
fainted when confronted with this document at an Arab summit in August.
Later, Iraq cited this memorandum as evidence of a CIA - Kuwaiti plot to
destabilize Iraq economically and politically. The CIA and Kuwait have
described the meeting as routine and the memorandum as a forgery. The
purported document reads in part:
"We agreed with the American side that it was important to take advantage
of the deteriorating economic situation in Iraq in order to put pressure
on that country's government to delineate our common border. The Central
Intelligence Agency gave us its view of appropriate means of pressure,
saying that broad cooperation should be initiated between us on condition
that such activities be coordinated at a high level."
Saddam Hussein detained several Westerners, with video footage being shown
on state television.On 23 August 1990 Saddam Hussein appeared on state
television with Western hostages to whom he had refused exit visas. They
were seen as human shields, though Saddam Hussein denied the claim. In the
video he is seen ruffling the hair of a young boy named as Stuart Lockwood
and asks through the interpreter if he is "getting his milk". He went on
to say "We hope your presence as guests here will not be for too long.
Your presence here, and in other places, is meant to prevent the scourge
of war."
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