Kuwait Liberation - Research Paper Example

Iraq’s invasion in Kuwait turned the Middle East into a war zone. This paper intends to discuss the history of Iraq’s invasion, and the criminal and political activities that occurred during the whole phase of war. MLA referencing style has been used properly, and the report is summarized in a concluding paragraph. Iraq had been in war with Iran, before invasion in Kuwait. The Iran-Iraq war, that spread over eight years, was devastating for Iraq. At the launch of war, Iraq had ample hard currency reserves; but at the end of war, the Iraqi nation was in debt of $80 billion (Klein).

Iraq had to pay beck this debt to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Kuwait had been mounting up 900 square miles of Iraqi land, by moving its border forward with Iraq northward. This moving forward of Kuwait’s border was irreversible. Kuwait gained access to Rumaila oil reserve and Iraqi oil field, by using drilling equipment of the Santa Fe Drilling Corporation of Alhambra, California. Kuwait also became a reason of dropping down of Iraqi oil prices. Iraq’s main source of earning was petroleum whose price kept on fluctuating due to international production of petroleum.

Kuwait tended to undermine OPEC quotas by increasing its oil production under the guidance of the United States. Due to this, the price of Iraqi oil went down from $28 per barrel to $11 per barrel (Klein), which damaged Iraq’s economy greatly. Iraq appealed to Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries to stick to the OPEC production levels. Iraq’s appeals were met by USA’s navy buildup in the Persian Gulf. Still, Kuwait continued to increase its oil production, which harmed not only Iraq’s economy but also its own.

Kuwait refused to return Iraq’s territory that it had accumulated during the Iraq-Iran war; rejected the production quotas; refused to stop driving oil from Rumaila oil reserve and selling it at low prices; and, rejected the idea of relinquishing Iraq’s debt. All these events raised tension between the two countries, finally leading to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. However, the United Nations protested against Iraq’s invasion, and instructed Iraq to withdraw its forces from Kuwait (Hussein, Ramadan & Aziz 85).

On August 6, 1990, four days after the invasion had occurred, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution (known as Resolution 661 of 1990), that imposed wide-ranging sanctions on Iraq, and created a committee that supervised those sanctions and made sure that Iraq withdrew its forces from Kuwait. The resolution showed concern with the heavy loss of lives in Kuwait due to Iraq’s invasion; and, showed determination to put Iraq’s invasion to an end, liberating Kuwait and its sovereignty, self-government, and territorial integrity.

The United Nations Security Council passed 12 resolutions, starting from August 6, 1990 till November 29, 1990. The last resolution was Resolution 678 (1990) which stated that, in case Iraq fails to comply with the resolution regarding withdrawal of its forces from Kuwait by January 15, 1991, this would result in authorization of all member states in support of Kuwait to force Iraq to put an end of invasion, and to restore peace in the Middle East. USA never seriously protested with high-profile military demonstrations at the beginning of Iraq’s invasion, and kept a public silence.

USA kept on issuing public statements stressing the point that it had no defense