Why did iraq invade kuwait ?

Question

Dont bother answering if you dont know.Was it simply to take their oil?There must be more to it than that? Was it originally Iraqs land?why did saddam feel he was justified in doing this?I want to see facts not theories and guesses

sorry..wrong category but thanks for the answers

sorry..wrong category but thanks for the answers

Answer 1

It was a decision by Saddam Hussein. It's been well documented but in a nutshell, he thought the US military would stay out of it.

On 24 July 1990, two Iraqi armoured divisions moved from their bases to take up positions on the Kuwaiti border. Later the same day the US State Department spokeswoman, Margaret Tutwiler, asked whether the US had any military plans to defend Kuwait, replied: ‘We do not have any defense treaties with Kuwait, and there are no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait.’ The next day Saddam Hussein summoned US Ambassador April Glaspie to his office in what was to be the last official contact between Baghdad and the United States before the invasion of Kuwait.

From those meetings, Saddam figured he could invade and the US wouldn't get involved, considering it an inter-Arab conflict.

I agree that this question belongs more in history or politics.

Answer 2

As I read some long back. Kuwait explored more oil from its fields which was against the OPEC also. Secondly if Kuwait explores more oil since it is at a lower level than Iraq, Iraq will be left high and dry. I don't know how true the above argument is. Many a times media gives the "Masala" for our brain. It may be that Kuwait king might have told Saddam to get married his daughter and later disagreed....all fun....But, take this topic to Politics....let us get serious at least when we discuss philosophy. Politics is one subject which cannot be included in philosophy. Because there is no science in politics......

Answer 3

Saddam and Al Quaeda and a lot of muslims feel the need to feed the tension between the West and muslim nations. The leaders of countries like Iran were scared of Westernization so to unite the muslim nations against the West Saddam invaded Kuwait knowing that the west would retalliate and then all the ignorant muslim brothers would join forces to say "get orff my land" and complain about westerners killing thier brothers.

All this whilst conveniently ignoring the murder of muslim by muslim in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan etc etc.

The west should have let Saddam take Kuwait and denied him the platform for a Jihad

Answer 4

Kuwaitt used to belong to Iraq, and Kuwaitt exports 3 times the Oil than Iraq did at that time, To Saddam it seemed like a quick fix.

Kuwaitt was removed from Iraq in World War 2, it was a major port and a stragic point.

Answer 5

The war in the Middle East is so complicated that involved so many factors that led to that war. In the beginning, the major reason behind the war that Iraq had waged against Kuwait was not the oil, since Iraq has more oil than Kuwait. It was the territory needed on the Arab Gulf that Iraq was in desperate need for it but was totally taken by Kuwait. Before the war against Kuwait, Iraq got involved with a war against Iran because of the same reason. Iraq doesn't have enough territories at the Arab Gulf and needed that space to expand as their economy grew fast in the Eighties of the previous century. Iraq has a very small area at the Gulf and was desperate to expand and enlarge their see ports. When Iraq failed with Iran to take any territories from them, they looked to the other side of the gulf wherein Kuwait was enjoying an enormous space at the gulf most of which were never used. Iraq occupied Kuwait in less than three hours and the oil was not the their reason for seizing Kuwait. But Oil was the reason for the United States and for Europe and for Japan and all the advanced countries in the world to condemn Iraq for their invasion against Kuwait. The price of oil at that time was sold to the United States by Kuwait for 8-10 Dollars a barrel. With the Iraqi occupation, the free world was threatened economically resulting in all the mess that we see at current time. That was the main reason behind the invasion of Iraq against Kuwait.

Answer 6

Saddam thought he could get away with it after the US government supported him during the Iran-Iraq war which began when he invaded Iran in 1980.
It is necessary to understand what happened in this conflict and how Saddam was aided by the USA and its allies in the region to see why he went on to invade Kuwait.
In December 1983 Ronald Reagan's special envoy, Donald Rumsfeld, shook hands with Saddam on a visit to Baghdad when fully aware that Saddam had been using chemical weapons.

Answer 7

I would guess it would be to plunder their enormous wealth. Iraq owed Iran lots of money in reparations from their war in the 1980s and conveniently had a super-rich, easily-invadable state right next door.

Also, Iraq doesn't have much coastline, so Kuwait City on the coast would provide them with a very useful seaport to ship out their oil, taking pressure off Basra

Answer 8

Iraq was bankrupt after its foolish military adventure with Iran from 1980 to 1990. The 1st Gulf War cost over 1 million Iraqi and Iranian civilian and military casualties. Saddam needed to refill his bank account to pay for programmes to appease a populace disillusioned with the rule of the Baath party and his disastrous leadership.

Iraq had a tenuous claim on Kuwait, and wanted the oil and its wealth.

Saddam made a major miscalculation believing the UN, the West and the USSR would ignore or turn a blind eye to any Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, as the West - Britain, USA, France and Germany - had been Iraq's major armaments supplier and supporter in the war against Iran, along with the USSR.

Saddam did not realize that his plans were counter to Western interests.

Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990. And the rest as they say is History.

PS Kevin O, Michael K, Michael P you all say that "Kuwait was part of Iraq before the First and Second World Wars".

This is simply not true, and is historically inaccurate.

I agree with your statement "Kuwait exported 3 times the Oil that Iraq did at that time. To Saddam it seemed like a quick fix."

1) Iraq did not exist as an independent country before WW1, and was a province of the Ottoman Empire, known as Mesopotamia in the West. At the end of World War I, the League of Nations granted the area to the United Kingdom as a Mandate. Iraq was granted independence in 1932. Before that there had NEVER been a country known as Iraq in history. Iraq had been part of the Ottoman Empire, Arab Abbasid Caliphate, Greek and Persian Empires for over 2,500 years. You have to go back as far as Assyria and Babylonia to find the last time an independent Iraqi state existed. After that some might say the Arab Abbasid Caliphate centred on Baghdad was an Iraqi state. But the Abbasids never thought of themselves as Iraqis.

Iraqi nationalism is a recent 20th century phenomenon.

2) Kuwait, having amassed great wealth, was the first of the Persian Gulf-Arab states to declare independence, on June 19, 1961. Iraq challenged this declaration, claiming Kuwait was part of its territory based on the principle that Kuwait was part of the Ottoman province of Iraq (Mesopotamia). It threatened to invade Kuwait but was deterred by the British, who flew in troops.

Barson makes a very good point that Iraq's claim on Kuwait is analogous to China's claim on Tibet.

Answer 9

The OPEC nations agree on a standard price on which to sell their oil. Both Iraq and Kuwait were part of OPEC, however Kuwait unilaterally decided to sell sell its oil at a different price resulting in Iraq losing Billions. The rest is History.

Answer 10

Hussein's primary justifications included a charge that Kuwaiti territory was in fact an Iraqi province, and that annexation was retaliation for "economic warfare" Kuwait allegedly had waged through slant drilling into oil supplies on Iraqi territories. Hussein deposed the monarchy after the annexation and installed a new Kuwaiti governor.