The Biggest Gulf War Ever Happened - Free Essay Example

The gulf war is considered the biggest gulf war that happened because of the damaged that it cost and the countries that were involved. The Gulf War started on 2 August 1990- 28 February 1991. While the Operation Desert Shield (The battle between Iraq and Kuwait)   happened on 2 August 1990- 17 January 1991, and the Operation Desert Storm (The battle between the U.S vs. Iraq battle ) happened on,17 January 1991- 28 February 1991. The countries that got involved location wise are Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Israeli, and the Persian Gulf. The belligerents that were involved are Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United States, United Kingdom, and France vs. Iraq. The strength is 956,600 soldiers, including 700,000 US troops vs. 650,000 soldiers. President Saddam Hussein was the president of Iraq at the time of the war. The war started with Iraq invading Kuwait. There was a couple of incidents causing the invasion of Kuwait. The first is that Iraq claims to Kuwait as Iraqi territory, but historically Kuwait had been a part of the Ottoman Empires. As a result of that incident, the UK drew the border between the two countries in 1922, making Iraq virtually landlocked. Also, Kuwait rejected Iraqi attempts to secure further provisions in the region. The second is that Iraq also accused Kuwait of exceeding its Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) quotas for oil production. The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait were consistently overproducing; the latter at least in part to repair losses caused by Iranian attacks in the Iran–Iraq War and to pay for the losses of an economic scandal, as a result, was a slump in the oil price resulting loss of $7 billion a year to Iraq. Iraq was heavily debt-ridden and tensions within society were rising. Most of its debt was owed to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Iraq pressured both nations to forgive the debts, but they refused. The third incident was in early July 1990, Iraq complained about Kuwaits behavior, such as not respecting their quota, and openly threatened to take military action. Background info about the military actions: Iraq had invaded Kuwait putting over the fifth of the worlds oil within his reach. Hussain refused to remove his troops from Kuwait. He also moved his troops on the borderline between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. If Hussain would have attacked Saudi Arabia the Saudi army would not stand a chance. At that moment he wouldve had control over have of the worlds oil. One of the ways to protect Saudi Arabia was to put the US and British troops on the border, but there was a problem, Saudi Arabia was a Muslim country. The main issue for the American troops was that Sadam unleashing his chemical weapons as in for gas, Saudi Arabia was never attacked. On January 18, 1991, Iraq attacked Israel with a chemical weapons attack. He used the Arab hatred towards Israel to collapse the coalition which didnt work. The U.S army launched 2 Laser-guided bombs in Iraq. In response, Saddam Hussein blew up the oil fields of Kuwait. The US and the coalition army attacked the Iraqi troops in Kuwait. The last atta ck of the Iraqi army was that they fired a Scud missile towards the coalition and the U.S troops. The U.S and the coalition armys had their final attack and they won the war.   (Why would the coalition join the U.S army, add more details about Saudi Arabia)