Six carrier battle groups sailed into the theater of operations to support the Coalition offensive to liberate Kuwait. Meanwhile, a powerful coalition of 35 western and Arab countries responded to the Iraqi aggression by deploying 580,000 troops along the SaudiArabian border in Operation Desert Shield. Hussein had no intention of giving up his prize without gaining political and financial benefits.įearing his next move, the United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq in an effort to get Hussein to withdraw his forces from Kuwait. As a result of his swift conquest of Kuwait, Hussein controlled one-fifth of the world’s oil reserves. In just 48 hours, the Iraqi Republican Guard overran Kuwait forcing the country’s surviving military units to flee to neighboring Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Hussein invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, claiming that the small country at the tip of the Persian Gulf was Iraq’s 19th province. Iraq not only owed money to the neighboring Islamic nation of Kuwait, but also found that high oil production in Kuwait depressed the price of Iraqi oil exports. When the Iraq-Iran War ended in 1988, the Iraqi government sought to find a way out of the state of impoverishment in which it found itself after the eight-year conflict. “A battle of such scope requires great sacrifices both in quality and quantity irrespective of the foreseen and unforeseen consequences, which will no doubt please the friend and anger the enemy.” “The battle in which you are locked today is the mother of all battles,” he said, brandishing a rifle in a bellicose speech to his armed forces. With just nine days to go in the countdown to what would become the Persian Gulf War, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein delivered a speech to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the modern Iraqi Army. IN November 1990 the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq if it failed to withdraw from Kuwait by January 15, 1991.
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