The reason for Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 can be linked to events that started with Saddam Hussein becoming the president of Iraq. The Iraqi military began to grow until it was so large that Iraq’s neighbors began to fear it. When his force was large enough Saddam launched an attack on Iran in an attempt to take control of the entire Persian Gulf region. That began a basic stalemate between the two countries during the 1980’s. This stalemate was financially draining and Iraq began borrowing from its neighbors, driving the country into debt and causing a 40% inflation rate. Making matters worse the oil states around Iraq began lowering their prices and producing more than was agreed upon, forcing Iraq to follow suit or lose more revenue. To further exacerbate the situation Iraq suspected Kuwait of drilling diagonally to tap into Iraq’s oil reserves.
Saddam planned to invade ant take over Kuwait. For many years the small country had been a thorn in Saddam’s side, with oil prices and the fact that they loaned Iraq money during it’s war with Iran, and refused to consider cancelling the debt, despite Saddam’s claims that he had saved the entire region from the “Iranian Steamroller”. The invasion served more purposes than just punishing Kuwait, it was to control and maintain his military power, which was vital to Iraq’s politics and to keep down the internal strife the country faced.
During the late July of 1990 Saddam began building his forces on the Iraq- Kuwait border, and on August 2 around 150,000 Iraqi troops, including three divisions of the Iraqi Republican Guard, invaded Kuwait. The army met with little resistance from Kuwait’s army, which numbered about 20,000, and reached Kuwait City just four hours after crossing the border. They took the country easily and then sat back and waited to see what the world’s reaction would be. This started what is known as the Persian Gulf War.
Personally I think that Saddam read too many comic books or something because every thing he did reads like something you would find in a cheesy comic book. He tries to dominate a whole region by taking over countries for reasons that cannot be proved beyond a doubt. The way he tries to prevent the UN from forcing him from Kuwait is also like something you can see a villain planning world domination doing.
Source 1: The Gulf War
Source 2: Iraq Invades Kuwait
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