August 2, 2020
August 2 marks 30th commemoration of Iraqi invasion of Kuwait
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
On August 2, 1990, I woke up from the boom of a low-flying aircraft. I realized that there is something wrong because Last night the Kuwait TV news, where I was chief editor, had reported that talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on defusing an explosive crisis in the Persian Gulf collapsed because “Kuwait did not give in to Iraqi demands to write off . . . debts and to relinquish some of its territory.”
The Jedda talks were held amid reports that Iraq has built up a 100,000-strong army on its border with Kuwait.
On August 2, 1990, Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, Iraq’s tiny, oil-rich neighbor. Within hours Kuwait City had been captured and the Iraqis had established a provincial government. By annexing Kuwait, Iraq gained control of 20 percent of the world’s oil reserves and, for the first time, a substantial coastline on the Persian Gulf.
Why Saddam invaded Kuwait?
At the end of the Iran-Iraq War (Sept 1980 – August 1988), Iraq emerged with a reinforced sense of national pride, but laden with massive debts.
Iraq had largely financed the eight-year long war through loans, and owed at least $37 billion to Gulf creditors in 1990. Iraq owed $14 billion to Kuwait.
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein called on Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates to cancel the Iraqi debt which should be considered payments to Iraq for protecting the Arabian Peninsula from Iranian expansionism.
After Kuwait rejected Saddam’s debt-forgiveness demands, he threatened to reignite a conflict over the long-standing question of ownership of the Warbah and Bubiyan Islands, to which Iraq ascribed importance because of the secure access they afforded to its ports on the Khawr 'Abd Allah—the waterway to the Persian Gulf that remained the only viable alternative to the closed Shatt Al-'Arab, cluttered with debris from the Iran-Iraq War. The dispute over the Bubiyan and Warbah Islands was a key point of contention in the lengthy history of territorial conflict between Iraq and Kuwait. [Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute - United States Department of State]
In July 1990, Saddam accused Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates of breaking with Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) production quotas and over-producing crude oil for export, which depressed prices, depriving Iraq of critical oil revenues. In addition, Saddam Hussein alleged that Kuwait was stealing oil from the Rumayla oil field that straddled the Iraq-Kuwait border. He also demanded that Kuwait cede control of the Bubiyan and Warbah Islands to Iraq.
But on August 2, 1990, a force of one hundred thousand Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait and overran the country in a matter of hours.
The Iraqi Republican Guard units moved toward Kuwait City while Iraqi Special Forces secured key sites, including the islands of Warba and Bubayan, Kuwaiti air fields, and the palaces of the Emir and the Crown Prince. [Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute - United States Department of State]
On August 28, Iraq declared that Kuwait had become its nineteenth province.
US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie
Eight days before his Aug. 2, 1990, invasion of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein met with April Glaspie, then America's ambassador to Iraq. It was the last high-level contact between the two countries before Iraq went to war.
From a translation of Iraq's transcript of the meeting, released that September, press and pundits concluded that Ms. Glaspie had (in effect) given Saddam a green light to invade, according to Carleton Cole of Christian Science Monitor.
"We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts," the transcript reports Glaspie saying, "such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary [of State James] Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction ... that Kuwait is not associated with America."
According to Association of Diplomatic Studies & Training, April Glaspie told Saddam what American policy had been vis-à-vis the Arab borders since the beginning of the division of the Arab region into the nation states, i.e., that the United States doesn’t take a position on the merits of a particular border dispute but wants only that such disputes be resolved diplomatically or through international arbitration.
She left the day after she met with Saddam on a long-planned leave which included home leave, medical leave for both her and her aged mother who was living with her at the time as well as consultations in Washington.
My friend, Mr. Zafar Malik in his book “Kuwait War 1990 & Its Aftermath” refers April Glaspie’s meeting with Saddam Hussain in these words: Only a few days after that crucial meeting, Saddam’s forces overran Kuwait. Saddam perhaps thought that the US ambassador had given him the indication that he was free to do as he chose, and that the United States would not interfere in his actions. That was all the encouragement Saddam needed to assemble his war-gear, don his war uniform once again, and march right into Kuwait, to have yet another ‘victory’ emblazoned on his lapels. p-297-298
About April Glaspie’s meeting with Saddam Hussain, Prof. David Klein of California State University, Northridge wrote in January 2003:
“On September 18, 1990, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry published verbatim the transcripts of meetings between Saddam Hussein and high level U.S. officials. Knight-Ridder columnist James McCartney acknowledged that the transcripts were not disputed by the U.S. State Department. U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie informed Hussein that, "We have no opinion on...conflicts like your border disagreement with Kuwait." She reiterated this position several times, and added, "Secretary of State James Baker has directed our official spokesman to emphasize this instruction."
“A week before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Baker's spokesperson, Margaret Tutwiler and Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly both stated publicly that "the United States was not obligated to come to Kuwait's aid if it were attacked." Two days before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly testified before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee that the United States has no defense treaty relationship with any Gulf country." The New York Daily News editorialized on September 29, 1990, "Small wonder Saddam concluded he could overrun Kuwait. Bush and Co. gave him no reason to believe otherwise."
Illusions of triumphs: An Arab view of the Gulf War
Prominent Egyptian writer Mohamed Heikal wrote a best seller book in 1992 titled: Illusions of triumphs: An Arab view of the Gulf War. He challenged the western view that the Gulf war was a crushing victory for international cooperation over a brutal dictator.
Heikal asks why did Saddam Hussain enjoy the support of millions in the Arab and Third Worlds? Why did many Arabs feel a degree of sympathy for Iraq’s long-standing complaints about Kuwait.? Why did President Bush give the Arab World only 48 hours to find an Arab solution to the crisis? Why did most Arab countries find it impossible to share the West’s euphoria after the defeat of Iraq?
The war brought feelings of shock caused by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, followed by feelings of guilt among Arabs who participated in or condoned the devastation of an Arab country by an American-led coalition.
Washington wanted Arabs to feel that the US was defending them against an aggressor: the reality was that the US defended its own interest, and used methods of divide and rule to achieve its aims after the invasion of Kuwait. Playing on the fears of weak, rich, tribal societies surrounded by oceans of poverty and need, the Americans had no difficulty in convincing kings and sheikhs (who had long been conditioned to accept the need of American protection) that Baghdad was planning to seize their thrones.
500,000 Iraqi children died
In the aftermath of Iraqi invasion of Kuwait severe economic sanctions were imposed by the United Nations which impacted the life of Iraqis who faced shortages of medicines. High rates of malnutrition, lack of medical supplies, and diseases from lack of clean water were reported during sanctions. In 2001, the chairman of the Iraqi Medical Association's scientific committee sent a plea to the British Medical Journal to help it raise awareness of the disastrous effects the sanctions were having on the Iraqi healthcare system.
It was reported that at least 500,000 children died because of lack of medicine and sufficient food.
Tellingly, Madeleine Albright, the former US Secretary of State said on May 12, 1996 that the deaths of half a million children as a result of the absolute, all-embracing deprivations of the UN embargo were: “A hard choice, but the price, we think the price is worth it.” Albright was US ambassador to UN when she gave this interview.
In May 2012 Albright was awarded by President Barrack Obama the Presidential Medal of Freedom -- the highest honor awarded to civilians in the United States.
Mechanisms of Western Domination
Prof. David Klein of California State University, Northridge wrote in January 2003 under the title Mechanisms of Western Domination: A Short History of Iraq and Kuwait:
“In spite of partial truths imbedded in this standard explanation, it smacks of propaganda. Much more needs to be understood by the American public before it allows its government to wage war against Iraq.
“The history of Iraq, Kuwait, Britain, and the United States reveals that the reasons for the Iraqi invasions of Kuwait and Iran are far more complex and interesting than the standard answer allows.
“Over a period of decades, and especially in recent years, Britain and the U.S. have consciously manipulated tensions in the region and have masterfully set into motion sequences of events leading to the Iraqi invasions.
“The purpose of these manipulations was to increase power and control over Middle Eastern governments and their oil resources by elite U.S. and British interests.”
When Allies Helped Pay for Gulf War
According to former Secretary of State James Baker , Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Germany and Japan. Together, allies outside the United States covered more than 80 percent of the war’s cost, estimated by the Department of Defense to be $61.1 billion.
.According to Pentagon calculations, the United States spent $7.3 billion on the Gulf War. That’s just about 12 percent of the costs of the operation.
The lion’s share came from Kuwait, which pitched in $16 billion at the time (26 percent), and Saudi Arabia, which contributed $16.8 billion (27 percent).
Japan chipped in $10 billion (16 percent); Germany, $6.4 billion (10 percent); United Arab Emirates, $4 billion (6.5 percent); and South Korea, $251 million (0.5 percent).
Arabs put Gulf War costs at $620 billion
The Persian Gulf War cost Arab economies $620 billion in direct losses, most of which consisted of the massive physical damages done to Iraq and Kuwait, Arab central bank governors said in a report in September 1992.
The $620 billion in losses was headed by $190 billion in damages to the infrastructure of Iraq and $160 billion in damages to the infrastructure of Kuwait, the central bank governors said.
The losses also included an estimated $185 billion drop in economic development in various Arab countries, primarily Kuwait and Iraq, and a $84 billion increase in government spending in a number of Arab countries, the report said.
The report was prepared jointly by the Arab League, the Arab Monetary Fund, the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development and the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries.
In December of 2002, Saddam Hussein officially apologized for the Invasion of Kuwait. Ali Abdullah Saleh, the leader of Yemen who had supported the invasion, also apologized in 2004. The US has maintained a military presence in Kuwait. Some believe this presence offers protection to the country while others believe it is an example of Western imperialism.
Abdus SattarGhazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America (www.journalofamerica.net) email: asghazali2011 (@) gmail.com
The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
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