The Persian Gulf War

A more adjacent reason for Iraq's impingement of capital of capital of Kuwait was Iraq's financial situation at the end of the Iran-Iraq war. Iraq had prevailed against Iran generally because of financial assistance from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the separate disconnect emirates. According to Hiro, Iraq emerged from the war with foreign debts to non-Arab nations of about $50.5 one thousand thousand (three times its GDP), plus Gulf loans and credits of another(prenominal) $45 to $55 billion, including a debt to Kuwait of $14 billion . Iraq's ability to repay these debts was hampered by the declining world price of oil. At a series of meetings among the leaders of Arab countries in early 1990, ibn Talal ibn Talal Hussein Hussein demanded relief from this debt burden in form of start oil performance by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait which had exceeded their OPEC production quotas and tens of billions of dollars in cash payments from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the other Gulf states. At the final meeting between Iraq and Kuwait on July 31, 1990, Friedman said he demanded "$10 billion plus slightly territory and drilling rights." According to Friedman, the August 2, 1990 invasion was the tantamount(predicate) of "a debtor canceling his debt by robbing the bank."

Even though it had been faded by the long Iran-Iraq war, Iraq, with its 1.2 million man army, which was supported by substantial a

Atkinson, Rick. Crusade The much(prenominal) Story of the Persian Gulf warfare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993.

Hiro, Dilip. Desert carapace to Desert Storm The Second Gulf War. new York: Routledge, 1992.

Brzezinski, Zbigniew, brant goose Scowcroft, and Richard Murphy, "Dual Containment Is More a Slogan Than a Policy." overseas Affairs 76 (May/June 1997): 19-30.

Friedman, Norman. Desert Victory The War for Kuwait. capital of Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991.

The relative success of precision weapons and other high technology military applications, caused all nations to rethink the bring for modernization of their forces. Atkinson said "the war foretold . . . how men would kill each(prenominal) other in the twenty-first century.

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The United States indirectly contributed to Iraq's invasion by sending mixed signals which were misread by Hussein to indicate he could seize Kuwait with impunity. Once Iraq's prestige was committed, Hussein was unwilling to back down. By seizing Kuwait and posing a threat to Saudi Arabia, he grossly miscalculated American resolve. According to Hiro, the Gulf states, exclusive of Iran, contained 655.5 billion lay of the world's 1,012 billion proven reserves of crude oil . By seizing Kuwait, which had 10 percent of those reserves, Iraq doubled its

Smith, Jean Edward. George Bush's War. New York: Henry Holt, 1992.

The principal consequence of the war, therefore, was the restoration of Kuwaiti freedom and the neutering of Iraq as a formidable military spot in the region for years to come. UN Arms Control Inspectors largely completed the destruction of Iraq's chemical weapons and embryonic biological and atomic weapons programs despite considerable Iraqi cheating.

The ending of the Cold War greatly assisted the United States in marshalling and holding unitedly the coalition of nations it needed to fight (and to finance most of the cost of) the war under the auspices of the United Nations. Hiro noted "capital of the Russian Federation could not veto any
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