IRAQ-KUWAIT GULF WAR
The Iraq-Kuwait Gulf War was originally known as the Second Persian Gulf War, which later on came to be known simply as the Persian Gulf War. This war fought was between Iraq and allies of Kuwait, from January 16 to February 28, 1991, lasting only for 44 days altogether. The war had 3 main phases:
1) Iraq's occupation of Kuwait, 2) The diplomatic game and sanctions against Iraq, 3) The allied war against Iraq. Iraq had a number of reasons for attacking Kuwait. First and foremost is Iraq had never accepted the state of Kuwait. Only officially, Iraq had accepted Kuwait. Second, there were tensions over the rights of underground oil resources along the borders of Iraq that Kuwait claimed it to be theirs and was depleting its resources. And also Kuwait was responsible for reducing the oil prices, which lead to economic difficulties in Iraq. But Kuwait did not accept any of Iraq's claims for compensation for Iraq's economic losses. More than any previous war, this war was fought on two different fronts. It was fought in the media, in addition to the war field itself. The media war was initially staged by Iraq and Kuwait. Kuwait hired the best media advisors to present its case, in order to get the support of an international audience, both in terms of ordinary people and in terms of the politicians, while Iraq relied mostly on its own outmoded media personnel. Though Kuwait's way of dealing with the truth has been very much criticized, yet, it won the media war, which was an initial part of the process leading to the real war. In Iraq-Kuwait Gulf war, the world has seen one of the most one-sided battles ever fought in the history of wars. During the first 5 weeks, they bombed every possible military and infrastructural target in Iraq, paving the way for a swift ground campaign near the end of February. Outcome was the heavy causality suffered by Iraqi army (around 60,000 troops) while the loss of allied forces was only minor counting in few hundreds. The Iraqi military was one of the strongest in the Middle East, and would have done well in the war against most European countries. However, Iraq was totally over-powered because of the high technology used by U.S.A. and their allies, while Iraq had conventional military forces. The war almost toppled the Saddam Hussein regime. The Iraq-Kuwait Gulf war also made a good sense to believe that the attack on Kuwait was Saddam's way of trying to win some lands after the bitter Iran-Iraq War, which resulted in nothing, but human and economic losses for Iraq. The Iraq-Kuwait Gulf War also resulted in heavy environmental catastrophes. It became the beginning of an internal independence fight in Iraq as well as years of dwindling economic and humanitarian conditions inside Iraq. For Kuwait, the war came to represent less damage to the economy and environment than was at first expected. The 640 burning oil wells were extinguished more quickly than was anticipated. In addition, the reparations paid by Iraq amounting to 22 billion US dollars aided the rebirth of the economy. |