The Gulf War

362 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Impacts of the Persian Gulf war

The Gulf War

The Gulf war originally started between Iraq and Kuwait. These two countries had a border dispute over the Persian Gulf Islands for many years but had never let it elevate to a level as bad as the Gulf War.

In 1979 the president of Iraq was replaced by Saddam Hussein and was automatically placed into war with Iran until 1989. In March 1989 Hussein signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia formalizing their border and the offered Kuwait the same agreement. Kuwait was afraid of destroying the new relations with Iran and refused to sign an agreement with Iraq. Saddam faced an economic crisis do to the over pumping of some Gulf States. He was mad that Kuwait exceeded the OPEC quota and sold its oil below the agreed floor price. The Iraqi government also said that Kuwait was stealing their oil. The Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz claimed Kuwait was illegally pumping too much oil from the Iraqi side of the border. Kuwait denied and stated the same allegations on Iraq.

Iraq invaded Kuwait in August of 1990. The Kuwaitis 20,000 man army was no match for Iraq's 100,000-man force and lost there capital in under a day. Within the first week of the attacks the UN security counsel called for the immediate withdrawal of all Iraqi troops out of Kuwait. President Bush imposed an embargo and tried to get the rest of the world to except it. Iraq did not comply with the demands set by the UN and the Gulf war started.

By the second week the United States was sending 40,000 troops to Saudi Arabia and fifty war ships to the Gulf. In January the number of US and Coalition troops was over 500,000. The military coalition consisted of thirty-five countries. On January 16 coordinated air strikes began with Stealth bombers against targets in Kuwait and Iraq including Baghdad. The allies launched a ground assault on February 24, within two days The Iraqi military was collapsing. On the 26th Kuwait said that we had driven Iraq out of the capital. The allies bombed the retreating Iraqis for forty hours.

The Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz flew to New York to work out a cease fire, and accepted the U.N. resolutions including having to surrender its claims to Kuwait.

Show More
Related

  • Desert Storm Pros And Cons

    691 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kuwait has the 3rd most oil in the Middle East. Iraq was very poor and needed money. They had just suffered a war with Iran. (Stroilov)They invaded Kuwait in hopes of getting oil to sell and get some money. America was the number 1 country buying oil from Kuwait so we put troops on Kuwait's grounds to defend them.(Stroilov) The deadline for Iraq to leave was Jan. 15, 1991, so Iraq needed to leave and America took action and forced them out of Kuwait. Although before they left they set over 600 oil wells on fire. It took over 1 year to extinguish the fires. In the Gulf War USA played a big part to defend Kuwait. (Stroilov)In 1990 USA defended Kuwait from Iraq invading them for oil to sell it. Later Iraq did get into Kuwait and Desert Storm

    Read More

  • Desert Storm Research Paper

    697 Words  | 2 Pages

    Iraq and Saddam Hussein were trying to take over Kuwait, which was a major oil supplier to the world. If Iraq got Kuwait than Saudi Arabia would be right next to them. So then Iraq would pose an Immediate threat to take over Saudi Arabia, which was also a major oil supplier.

    Read More

  • The War Powers Act of 1973

    1541 Words  | 4 Pages

    18 May 2006. . War Powers Resolution -. 15 May 2006. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 18 May 2006. .

    Read More

  • OPERATION ANACONDA

    2014 Words  | 5 Pages

    The US immediately sent SOF units and CIA officers to recon the area and meet with the Northern Alliance. The primary battle leading up to this operation was Tora Bora, which was absent of conventional forces. Up until this point, the war on terror was predominantly a Special Operations fight along with Air Force for overhead support.3 SOF and the Northern Alliance had already displaced Taliban forces out of many towns and villages in northern Afghanistan to gain control of key terrain. Key towns in northern Afghanistan, including Taloqan, Konduz, Herat, and Mazar-e Sharif, took only three weeks to clear.4 The SOF units were making huge impacts across the country calling in air strikes.

    Read More

  • The United States 's Operation Desert Shield

    1183 Words  | 3 Pages

    Saddam Hussein’s main purpose of sending troops to take over Kuwait was to take control of their oil fields, which Hussein believed would be an easy task; however, he failed to understand that the United States and United Nations were keeping a very close watch on the Iraqi’s actions. Hussein also had other motives, such as freeing himself from the debt he was drowning in from the Iran-Iraq War just two years earlier. He set the pretense for war with Kuwait by defining their refusal to give land to Iraq as an act of military belligerence. President Bush ordered the United States to respond just five days after Iraq had invaded Kuwait. If the United States had not taken action, Hussein would have possibly continued to invade other oil producing countries and take control of the United States main sources of oil as well as threaten a number of innocent people’s lives.

    Read More

  • Battle Of 73 Eastings Battle Analysis

    1918 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Persian Gulf War started on 17 January 1991 in response to Iraq’s invasion and annexation

    Read More

  • Geography and History in the Iraq War

    1255 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... Kuwait to get to the southern part of Iraq. In this situation, Iraq was left cornered. Also the movement of some of Osama Bin Laden's beliefs had greatly affected the war. This brought forth many opposing forces against the United States.

    Read More

  • The Battle of Fallujah

    1016 Words  | 3 Pages

    U.S. Military Commanders promised an overwhelming response. On the morning of Sunday, the 4th of April, 2004, platoons of Marines began to position themselves around the city. The following day, the fighting began and quickly intensified. This day was the start of what is known as Operation Vigilant Resolve. It was an operation set to take back control of Fallujah from the insurgents (McCarthy, 2004).

    Read More

  • Operation Desert Storm Phases

    1587 Words  | 4 Pages

    During the first and the second phases, the coalition adopted a strategy used in the Second World War. It attacked Iraq’s infrastructure through use of superior air force power. The focus was the military communications systems and government electricity

    Read More

  • The Reasons Of The Iraq Invasion Of War By Peter Fitzgerald

    728 Words  | 2 Pages

    I searched a lot to find an article that talks about the Iraq invasion of Kuwait. The article by Peter Fitzgerald “The Invasion of War” explores the reasons of the war between Kuwait and Iraq, considering that they were great allies in the past. He suggests that the differences between these two countries were economic and diplomatic. In the past the two were great allies and they greatly assisted each other during wars providing a protective edge in their territories. Their friendship was brokeup when the Iraq government realized that they owed them billions. Although at that particular time after the Iraq-Iran war Iraq used much of their resources and could not pay their debt to Kuwait. In a desperate move to resolve this problem, they requested for a reduction in oil prices (Fitzgerald 45).

    Read More

  • Operation Vigilant Resolve

    863 Words  | 2 Pages

    On March 18, 2003, Coalition forces would launch the initial attacks on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. A full invasion of the country followed, and Hussein was overthrown from power. While the end of Hussein’s oppressive reign was considered a victory for many of the Iraqi people, the Sunnis of the Ba’ath Party refused to accept his demise. Although the Sunnis were in the minority, the city of Fallujah would remain home to many of the Ba’ath Party supporters. On March 31, 2004, almost a year to date from the end of Hussein’s reign, four American Blackwater contactors working in Fallujah were attacked, brutally beaten, burned and dismembered by a group of Iraqi insurgents. Two of the bodies were hung from a bridge for all of the citizens of Fallujah to see, and a mob style celebration took place in the city. The highly publicized incident would be the igniter for the First Battle of Fallujah, known as Operation Vigilant Resolve. On May 1, 2004, the battle would end with the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the city and control being turned over to the newly formed Fallujah Brigade. The mission as a whole was a failure, and the shortcomings of Operation Vigilant Resolve were ultimately a demonstration of the underestimation of the power, size, efficiency, organization and control that the Insurgent Forces had in Iraq as well as the lack of a consistent strategic plan from the American forces.

    Read More

  • Auschwitz: Should It Have Been Bombed?

    1589 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Allied forces did not have the resources to carry out a strike. The Allies, especially the Air Force, were heavily engaged in actions elsewhere; any non-military mission could have possibly cost the Allies the winning of the war, and would have, at th...

    Read More

  • Comparing The Persian War And The Peloponnesian War

    1829 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Persian War was a war between the Greeks and the Persians. Even though the Greeks were still not united they fought to defend each territory that was theirs. The Peloponnesian war was a war among the Greek city states. That is the difference among the two; one was fought against an enemy who attacked the Greece land and the other was fought among the Greeks themselves. The Persian War begun because the Greeks made a military rebellion in Asia Minor which caused the Persians to face more conflicts themselves. This was known as the Ionian Revolt. After the Ionian Revolt, the Persians more than ever wanted to take over Greece Eventually leading to the Persian War. This was the reason why the Persian war began, basically of revenge. The major parties involved in the conflict of this war were the Persians and the Greek city states.

    Read More

  • Essay On The Similarities And Differences Of The US And Iraqi Constitutions

    1184 Words  | 3 Pages

    Rivkin, David B., Jr., and Lee A. Casey. "The New Iraqi Constitution." The Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation, 16 Sept. 2005. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.

    Read More

  • The Iraq War Of Iraq

    1565 Words  | 4 Pages

    The abrupt end of decade long dominating regime in three weeks had created a political vacuum, that is evident in shifting coalitions and divisions among religious groups, ethnic groups, regional groups and even classes (Barnett et al. 2003, 25). US did not realize, moreover, the depth of the hostility between Kurds and Arabs, Sunnis and Shiites, and the members of different tribes and local religious groups. Furthermore, to deal with destruction in Iraq new plan was decided by the US. The plan was to pull out all troops and hand over the responsi...

    Read More

More about The Gulf War

Open Document