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Page 1: INVASION OF KUWAIT The Gulf War Student: Bianca Elena Vîlcu Professor Coordinator: Arkadiusz Kotliński Poland,2013.

INVASION OF KUWAIT

The Gulf War

Student: Bianca Elena Vîlcu

Professor Coordinator: Arkadiusz Kotliński

Poland,2013

Page 2: INVASION OF KUWAIT The Gulf War Student: Bianca Elena Vîlcu Professor Coordinator: Arkadiusz Kotliński Poland,2013.

INTRODUCTION

Since the beginning, Iraq had always claimed

Kuwait part of its territory.  One of the early claims

surfaced in the 1930's when oil was discovered in

the region.  Another claim came right after Kuwait

gained its independence, but Britain and the Arab

league rejected that assertion.  

Page 3: INVASION OF KUWAIT The Gulf War Student: Bianca Elena Vîlcu Professor Coordinator: Arkadiusz Kotliński Poland,2013.

During the 1980 Iraq-Iran War Kuwait aided Iraq with large

amounts of money, and relations between both countries got

even better.  But that didn’t stop Saddam Hussein from

invading his neighboring country on August 2, 1990.  Again,

his justification was that Kuwait historically belonged to Iraq,

and the land should be returned it its original owners.  Iraqi

troops crossed the borders by land and in about 48 hours

seized and took complete control of the whole country.

Page 4: INVASION OF KUWAIT The Gulf War Student: Bianca Elena Vîlcu Professor Coordinator: Arkadiusz Kotliński Poland,2013.

CAUSES OF THE GULF WAR

The causes of the Gulf War actually started when Iraq was at

war with Iran. During this war Iran was not only attacking Iraq

but also attacking oil tankers from Kuwait at sea too. To support

the ending of the war Kuwait financially aided Iraq by lending the

country 14 Billion US Dollars. Iraq tried to convince Kuwait to

dissolve the debt as Iraq had done Kuwait a favour by being at

war with Iran, Kuwait declined and this caused a rift between the

two countries. For a year they tried to resolve the financial

situation but to no avail.

Page 5: INVASION OF KUWAIT The Gulf War Student: Bianca Elena Vîlcu Professor Coordinator: Arkadiusz Kotliński Poland,2013.

Another reason was Saddam Hussein's need for oil.

He had amassed a huge debt with western Europe

during the Iran-Iraq war and needed some way of re-

paying that money. Hussein had also caught Kuwait

exceeding quota's set out by OPEC which drove the

price of oil down and making Iraq lose money. Iraq

did also not have direct access to the Persian Gulf

which would help in the exporting and importing of

goods.

Page 6: INVASION OF KUWAIT The Gulf War Student: Bianca Elena Vîlcu Professor Coordinator: Arkadiusz Kotliński Poland,2013.

Hussein delivered a speech in which he accused neighboring

nation Kuwait of siphoning crude oil from the Ar-Rumaylah oil fields

located along their common border. In addition to Hussein's

incendiary speech, Iraq had begun amassing troops on Kuwait's

border. Alarmed by these actions, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt

initiated negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait in an effort to avoid

intervention by the United States or other powers from outside the

Gulf region. Hussein broke off the negotiations after only two hours,

and on August 2, 1990 ordered the invasion of Kuwait. 

Page 7: INVASION OF KUWAIT The Gulf War Student: Bianca Elena Vîlcu Professor Coordinator: Arkadiusz Kotliński Poland,2013.

THE GULF WAR BEGINS

On November 29, 1990, the U.N. Security Council authorized the

use of "all necessary means" of force against Iraq if it did not

withdraw from Kuwait by the following January 15. By January, the

coalition forces prepared to face off against Iraq numbered some

750,000, including 540,000 U.S. personnel and smaller forces from

Britain, France, Germany, the Soviet Union, Japan, Egypt and Saudi

Arabia, among other nations. Iraq, for its part, had the support of

Jordan (another vulnerable neighbor), Algeria, the Sudan, Yemen,

Tunisia and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).

Page 8: INVASION OF KUWAIT The Gulf War Student: Bianca Elena Vîlcu Professor Coordinator: Arkadiusz Kotliński Poland,2013.

Early on the morning of January 17, 1991, a massive U.S.-led air

offensive hit Iraq's air defenses, moving swiftly on to its

communications networks, weapons plants, oil refineries and more. The

coalition effort, known as Operation Desert Storm, benefited from the

latest military technology, including Stealth bombers, Cruise missiles,

so-called "Smart" bombs with laser-guidance systems and infrared

night-bombing equipment. The Iraqi air force was either destroyed

early on or opted out of combat under the relentless attack, the

objective of which was to win the war in the air and minimize combat

on the ground as much as possible.

Page 9: INVASION OF KUWAIT The Gulf War Student: Bianca Elena Vîlcu Professor Coordinator: Arkadiusz Kotliński Poland,2013.

Though the Gulf War was recognized as a decisive victory for

the coalition, Kuwait and Iraq suffered enormous damage, and

Saddam Hussein was not forced from power. Intended by

coalition leaders to be a "limited" war fought at minimum cost,

it would have lingering effects for years to come, both in the

Persian Gulf region and around the world. In the immediate

aftermath of the war, Hussein's forces brutally suppressed

uprisings by Kurds in the north of Iraq and Shi'ites in the south.

Page 10: INVASION OF KUWAIT The Gulf War Student: Bianca Elena Vîlcu Professor Coordinator: Arkadiusz Kotliński Poland,2013.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE GULF WAR

The invasion was a turning point in Kuwait as it changed almost every aspect of the

country.  The people were somehow hostile toward the ruling family who were in

exile during the war.  Fortunately, the rulers responded by:

1- Instituting martial law and staging trials.

2- Compensating citizens for their loses.

3- Granting more freedoms to the people, especially those of expression and press.

4- Reinstating the National Assembly in 1992.

 Another lasting impact was the imposition of no-flight zones in Iraq patrolled by

US and allied aircraft, the long term presence of US forces in Saudi Arabia and

Kuwait, and the continued interest by UN inspectors in the Iraqi WMD programs.

Page 11: INVASION OF KUWAIT The Gulf War Student: Bianca Elena Vîlcu Professor Coordinator: Arkadiusz Kotliński Poland,2013.

AMERICAN INTERVENTION

US interests in the region played a dominant role in the decision to accept the

Saudi invitation to oppose Iraqi aggression.

On January 17, 1991, American and allied forces began launching air attacks

on Iraqi forces and on February 24 the ground campaign began. By February

27, the coalition had achieved their stated mission of ejecting the Iraqi army

out of Kuwait. Exactly 100 hundred hours after the ground battle had begun,

the allies suspended all offensive operations. While Bush's decision to conclude

the war without removing Saddam Hussein from power would become

controversial, his advisors would recall that the president was insistent that the

war should not exceed the authorization of the Security Council. 

Page 12: INVASION OF KUWAIT The Gulf War Student: Bianca Elena Vîlcu Professor Coordinator: Arkadiusz Kotliński Poland,2013.

Interviewed in 2007, when the U.S. had been

fighting in Iraq for more than four years in a war

initiated by Bush's son, President George W. Bush,

Colin Powell remarked, "In recent months, nobody's

been asking me about why we didn't go to Baghdad.

Pretty good idea now why Baghdad should always be

looked at with some reservations."

Page 13: INVASION OF KUWAIT The Gulf War Student: Bianca Elena Vîlcu Professor Coordinator: Arkadiusz Kotliński Poland,2013.

CONCLUSION

In the end, this was a popular war that secured

economic advantages for the Western World -

ensuring our way of life was not threatened by a

shortage of the free flow of natural resources. It

confirmed the value of air power and air superiority

on the battlefield. Finally, it proved that armed

aggression never prevails in the face of a free

alliance of nations determined to see justice done.


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