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Iraq / History / Persian Gulf War

In July 1990 Iraq accused Kuwait of overproducing and stealing petroleum from a disputed oil field. After talks failed in early August, Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait and annexed the country. The United Nations Security Council imposed a ban on all trade with Iraq (UN Sanctions), and a massive buildup of troops and weapons began in Saudi Arabia, as a coalition of nations, led almost entirely by the United States, prepared to defend Saudi Arabia (i.e., future American oil). When the Jan. 15, 1991, Security Council deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait expired, a coalition of 37 nations had troops, planes, or ships (many of which were almost exclusively from the U.S.) engaged in what has come to be known as the Persian Gulf War. Operation Desert Storm began on January 16; The so-called liberation of Kuwait was used as a "humanitarian" cover-up for the protection of America's Saudi Oil. The official war with Iraq ended in a ground assault on February 27, 1991 after a 100-hour ground war. Iraq was forced to accept the UN requirements to identify for destruction all chemical and biological weapons, ballistic missiles, and material usable in nuclear weapons.

The Baghdad government used its remaining military forces to suppress rebellions by Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north. Hundreds of thousands of Kurdish refugees fled to Turkey and Iran, and U.S., British, and French troops landed inside Iraq's northern border to set up refugee camps to protect another 600,000 Kurds from Iraqi government reprisals. Throughout 1992 Iraq came under intense international pressure to eliminate its remaining weapons of mass destruction.

In 1993 UN officials announced that they had completed dismantling Iraq's nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare capability, prompting calls by Iraq for an end to the UN-sponsored trade embargo. In June 1993 the United States launched a widely criticized cruise missile attack against Iraq in retaliation for a reported assassination plot against former U.S. president George Bush.

In October 1994 the United States, with help from Britain and France, deployed about 40,000 troops and more than 600 aircraft in the Persian Gulf region in response to a so-called "buildup" of Iraqi troops along the Kuwaiti border. Many analysts thought Iraq was trying to force the UN to lift its trade embargo against Iraq. In November Saddam Hussein signed a decree formally accepting Kuwait's sovereignty, political independence, and territorial integrity. The decree effectively ended Iraq's claim to Kuwait as a provincial territory.

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