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The Persian Gulf War-The Feat Of The Western Countries

On
August 2nd, 1990 Iraqi military forces invaded and occupied the small Arab
state of Kuwait. The order was given by Iraqi dictatorial president Saddam
Hussein. His aim was apparently to take control Kuwait's oil reserves (despite
its small size Kuwait is a huge oil producer; it has about 10 per cent of the
world's oil reserves ). Iraq accused Kuwait, and also the United Arab Emirates,
of breaking agreements that limit oil production in the Middle East. According
to Saddam Hussein, this brought down world oil prices severely and caused financial
loss of billions of dollars in Iraq's annual revenue.
Saddam Hussein had
the nearly hopeless task of justifying the invasion. He plead the fact that
Kuwait had been part of the Ottoman province of Basra, a city in the south
of Iraq. However, the Ottoman province collapsed after World War I and today's
Iraqi borders were not created until then. There was also a further and more
obvious blunder in a bid to justify this illegal invasion. Baghdad, the capital
of Iraq, had namely recognized Kuwaiti independence in 1963. Furthermore,
Hussein claimed that Kuwait had illegally pumped oil from the Iraqi oil field
of Rumaila and otherwise conspired to reduce Iraq's essential oil income.

By invading Kuwait, Iraq succeeded in surprising the entire world. The
USA ended her policy of accommodating Saddam Hussein, which had existed since
the Iran-Iraq war. Negative attitude toward Iraq was soon a worldwide phenomenon.
The United Nations Security Council passed 12 resolutions condemning the invasion.
The ultimate decision was to use military force if Iraq did not withdraw unconditionally
by January 15, 1991. Then, when the deadline was set, it was time to start
preparing for the worst-the war.
President George Bush confronted little
difficulty in winning Americans' support for the potential war against Iraq.
However, the government found it difficult to decide upon and state one...