August 1990

#2
#2
If i remember . . . He owed money to the ruling family of Kuwait and was mad at them for undercutting OPEC oil prices and denying him access to the gulf. Throw in the fact that Iraq viewed Kuwait as a British colonial creation that belonged to them anyway, and voila . . . He tried to flex some muscle.
 
#3
#3
GAVol said:
If i remember . . . He owed money to the ruling family of Kuwait and was mad at them for undercutting OPEC oil prices and denying him access to the gulf. Throw in the fact that Iraq viewed Kuwait as a British colonial creation that belonged to them anyway, and voila . . . He tried to flex some muscle.
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Let's work with that first. Why did he owe them money?
 
#4
#4
Rasputin_Vol said:
Let's work with that first. Why did he owe them money?
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No idea, but Saddam was in economic hard times after the Iran/Iraq War so I'm sure that played into it as well. I think there was also a dispute over a border or a shared oil field or something.
 
#6
#6
Rasputin_Vol said:
Why did we get involved in this dispute between Kuwait and Iraq?
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A destabilized middle east isnt good for business. Industrialized nations have been playing this game in the Middle East for 60 years.
 
#7
#7
GAVol said:
A destabilized middle east isnt good for business. Industrialized nations have been playing this game in the Middle East for 60 years.
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Make that 90 years.

The British are the ones that drew up the borders in the ME to begin with... which is one of the problems that you mentioned with Iraq and Kuwait).

And is it stabilized right now?
 
#8
#8
Rasputin_Vol said:
Why did we get involved in this dispute between Kuwait and Iraq?
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It wasn't Kuwait so much as it was the Saudis. They were afraid that they were next so they asked us to intervene and offered to pay for it. We used Kuwait as the excuse to help out the Saudis.
 
#9
#9
YorkVol said:
It wasn't Kuwait so much as it was the Saudis. They were afraid that they were next so they asked us to intervene and offered to pay for it. We used Kuwait as the excuse to help out the Saudis.
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Why aren't The Saudis, with all of the military spending and expertise we've given them, able to defend themselves?
 
#13
#13
Rasputin_Vol said:
Why aren't The Saudis, with all of the military spending and expertise we've given them, able to defend themselves?
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the Iraqi military was one of the largest in the world, even if you take into account that 75% of it consisted of poorly trained conscripts using vintage Soviet weapons, the remaining 25%, nearly quarter of a million, were pretty well trained and had some very modern hardware.

No country in that region, save for maybe Iran, had anything close in terms of men and materiel.
 
#18
#18
GAVol said:
If i remember . . . He owed money to the ruling family of Kuwait and was mad at them for undercutting OPEC oil prices and denying him access to the gulf. Throw in the fact that Iraq viewed Kuwait as a British colonial creation that belonged to them anyway, and voila . . . He tried to flex some muscle.
Click to expand...

Yep. Also accused them of slant drilling.
 
#19
#19
The Saudi's maintain a token military that is sufficient to protect themselves for a short while and enough to allow them to participate in some regional conflicts. But they have problems with leadership and having enough soldiers to fill out their ranks. If you look across their country, there are more foreigners than Saudis working as most Saudi citizens live off their oil revenues.

In 1990, Iraq and Iran had recently concluded a very bloody conflict where they traded volleys of scud missiles, some even with chemical warheads. No one in the area wanted to mess with either Iraq or Iran in 1990.
 
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