The Causes Of The Persian Gulf War

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The Causes of the Persian Gulf War
“Two dozen U.S. and British aircrafts bombed five radar and other anti-aircraft
sites around Baghdad with guided missiles yesterday in the first major military action of
the Bush administration. It was the largest airstrike against Iraq in two years and hit
sites near the Iraqi capital, a significant departure from the low-key enforcement of no-fly
zones in the country’s south and north. The U.S.-led alliance declared the zones
off-limits to Iraqi aircrafts after the Persian Gulf War. President Bush, speaking at a new
conference in Mexico alongside the Mexican President, Vicente Fox, called the raid
‘routine.’ But it was widely interperted in Washington and other world capitals as
presaging a get-tough attitude by the new administration toward a country that has
vexed U.S. policymakers for more than a decade. ‘Saddam Hussein has got to
understand we expect him to comform to the agreement that he signed after The Desert
Storm,’ Bush said...” (Ricks A1)
Saddam Hussein’s continuing failure to cooperate is one of many results of the
Persian Gulf War. Between January 17 and February 28, 1991, an international military
coalition sanctioned by the United Nations and led by the United States defeated the
large, well-equipped Iraqi army and forced it to withdraw from occupied Kuwait. The
allied offense, whose military code name was Operation Desert Storm, involved ground
troops from 19 countries joining together from virtually every region on the globe: North
America, South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa,
Asia, and Australia (Yant 18). In essence, from the Iraqi position, there were three,
main, inter-state causes of the Persian Gulf War: 1) To aquire a major port on the
Persian Gulf, 2) To eliminate the $13 billion debt that Iraq owed Kuwait, 3) To gain vast
oil reserves.
In order to better understand the Iraqi position, it ...