In the early hours of the morning, about 100,000 Iraqi soldiers with tanks, helicopters and trucks entered the Kuwaiti border. At that time, Iraq's army was the fourth largest army in the world. News BBC.
Within an hour, the Iraqi army reached Kuwait City and by noon, Iraqi tanks surrounded the Dasman Palace, the royal palace of Kuwait.
The Emir of Kuwait had fled to Saudi Arabia by then. He left his stepbrother Sheikh Fahad Al Ahmed Al Sabah in his palace. Iraqi soldiers shot him on sight.
According to an Iraqi soldier who witnessed it, his body was placed in front of a tank and the tank drove over him.
Before invading Kuwait, Saddam Hussein presented a statement of claim to Kuwait on the 22nd anniversary of the Baath uprising.
These included demands such as the right to set international oil prices, debt relief from Kuwait during the Gulf War, and an Arab plan modeled after the Marshall Plan to help rebuild Iraq.
"If Kuwait does not listen to us, we will have no choice but to take the necessary steps to assert our rights," President Saddam Hussein threatened on Iraqi TV.
All efforts to convince Saddam failed
Saudi politician and Shah Fahad's close adviser. "Both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have pretty much given up hope of repaying the loans they gave to Iraq during the Gulf War," Gazi Algoseibi said in an interview.
"But they felt that if they made that official announcement, it might send the wrong message."
"Shah Fahd sent a message to Saddam Hussein to waive the debt, but Saddam gave the impression that he was not happy with such a position in Saudi Arabia. It was then that Shah Fahad realized that bad times were coming for Kuwait.”
Saddam Hussain, however, decided to attack Kuwait before presenting his claim. By July 21, about 30,000 Iraqi troops had moved toward the Kuwaiti border.
At one o'clock on July 25, the US ambassador to Baghdad summoned April Gillespie. Saddam Hussein wanted to know his opinion about the Kuwait campaign.
Before that, Saddam Hussein had a diplomatic disagreement with Gillespie in February. In a Voice of America broadcast, the US ambassador compared Saddam's Iraq to Ceausescu's Romania.
Gillespie apologized to Saddam Hussein for the broadcast, saying the US had no intention of meddling in Iraq's internal affairs. Saddam Hussein ended the July 25 meeting saying that if there is no agreement with Kuwait, then Iraq will not accept death.
Assumptions about Saddam's attitude were wrong
Conn Coughlin, Saddam Hussein's biographer, writes in Saddam's Secret Life, "After that meeting, Gillespie felt that Saddam Hussein was making empty threats, that he had no real intention of attacking Kuwait."
“Five days later he went to Washington to confer with President Bush. When news of the Gillespie-Saddam meeting emerged a few days later, Gillespie was described as childish in his thinking. It was also written that the US ambassador had given Saddam Hussein the green signal for an invasion of Kuwait,” wrote Conn Coughlin.
Gillespie denied the allegations. In an interview with The New York Times in the 1990s, he said, "Neither I nor anyone else could have imagined that Iraq was planning to take over Kuwait."
Kuwaiti, Saudi and Western analysts were all wrong in this incident. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak personally assured Washington and London that Saddam Hussein had no plans to invade Kuwait. He also said that this crisis will be solved through diplomacy.
Iraqi forces entered Kuwait unhindered
On August 2, 1990, at two o'clock in the morning, about 100,000 Iraqi soldiers with 300 tanks crossed the border into Kuwait. It was impossible for the Kuwaiti army of 16,000 men to confront the Iraqi forces. Therefore, the Iraqi forces did not face any obstacles on the border.
When Iraqi forces reached the capital, Kuwait City, Kuwaiti forces offered little resistance. But in a short time they were captured by Saddam Hussein's forces.
Kuwaiti warplanes were flying in the sky, but not to bomb Iraqi forces, they were fleeing to Saudi Arabia. The Kuwaiti Navy was standing in one place as if watching.
Saddam Hussein's only failure was the emir of Kuwait and all his cabinet members fleeing to Saudi Arabia.
The Iraqi Republican Guard was instructed to go to the Dasman Palace and capture the royal family upon arrival in Kuwait City.
Conn Coughlin writes, “Sheikh Fahad was the only member of the royal family not to flee to Saudi Arabia. When the Iraqi forces reached the palace, he was standing with some Kuwaiti soldiers on the roof of the palace with a pistol in his hand. An Iraqi soldier shot him.”
British airmen were captured
Iraqi forces took over Kuwait within seven hours. About 300,000 Kuwaitis fled the country along with the entire government. That's when Saddam Hussein got an opportunity to seize a British Airways plane.
The British Airways flight from London to Delhi landed at Kuwait airport to take fuel. Western intelligence agencies were guessing that Iraq had taken over Kuwait, but they didn't think to alert the private jets.
Whenever the plane landed in Kuwait, all crew and passengers were taken prisoner. They were taken to Baghdad, so that the hostages could be used as human shields in the event of a bombardment there.
Within hours of the invasion of Kuwait, President George W. Bush imposed economic sanctions on Iraq. Ordered the warship 'Independence' to depart from the Indian Ocean towards the Persian Gulf.
US seizes all Iraqi money
The US seized all Iraqi money and assets deposited in US banks. At that time the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was on a visit to the United States.
He compared the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait to the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in the 1930s. On other issues, the United States and the Soviet Union took opposing positions but issued a joint statement condemning the Iraqi attack on Kuwait.
The United Nations and the Arab League also condemned the move by Iraq. The UN Security Council imposed a complete economic and trade embargo on Iraq.
Iraqi oil pipelines running between Turkey and Saudi Arabia were cut. Saudi Arabia seeks military assistance from the United States as Iraqi troops gather on the Saudi border.
In the next six months, the United States airlifted nearly 60,000 troops to Saudi Arabia to protect Kuwait from Iraqi control.
On August 7, President Bush announced in an address to the nation that he was sending the 82nd Airborne Division to Saudi Arabia.
That was the beginning of 'Operation Desert Storm'. This war is the largest US military operation on foreign soil since the Vietnam War.
Arafat and Miteran supported Saddam Hussein
Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein appointed his cousin Al Hasan Al Majid as governor of Kuwait. This Mr. It was Majid who gassed thousands of Kurds in Halabja in 1988.
Only one or two state leaders came forward in support of Saddam Hussein.
Among them was Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Analysts Mr. Arafat was somewhat surprised by this decision because at one time Mr. Saddam Hussain exerted all his energy to weaken Arafat.
In September, Saddam Hussein received support from another quarter. French President Francois Mitterrand said in a speech to the United Nations that France considers some of Iraq's claims over Kuwaiti land to be legitimate.
Shortly before this, Iraq earned the sympathy of France by releasing 327 French workers working in Kuwait.
The workers were released on the same day that US Secretary of State James Baker visited Paris to decide on a strategy against Iraq.
Saddam Hussein's meeting with British hostages
Britain was the second most vocal opponent of Iraq's occupation of Kuwait after the United States. Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein decided that he would meet with the British hostages.
Conn Coughlin writes, "Saddam Hussein met with them and said that the presence of those hostages in Iraq was necessary for peace." He was of the opinion that as long as the hostages were in Iraq, the Allies would not bomb.
"Saddam Hussein's meeting with hostages was televised live around the world. Stuart Lockwood, a seven-year-old British child, was asked by Saddam Hussein if he had had milk that day,” writes Conn Coughlin.
The fear that was seen in the child's face and eyes at that time, was telling the condition of the rest of the hostages.
Meanwhile, former heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali, former German Prime Minister Willy Brandt and former UK Prime Minister Edward Heath went to Baghdad to convince Saddam Hussein. But Saddam Hussain did not respond to their request.
New identity cards issued in Kuwait
A third of Kuwait's population, nearly three hundred thousand, fled when the invasion began.
On December 22, 1990, the Economist newspaper wrote, "Saddam Hussein's agents brought in the opposition and tortured the vacated palace rooms." Many streets have been renamed. Citizens are being given new identity cards and asked to get new license plates for vehicles.
"The time difference between Baghdad and Kuwait has also been removed. An order has been issued banning the residents of Kuwait from having beards. Those who violate the ban are being stripped of their beards,” reported the Economist.
An Iraqi general, Wafiq al-Samurai, said of Saddam Hussein's orders at the time, "Saddam Hussein ordered us to capture US troops and station them near Iraqi tanks, so that we could use them as human shields."
“He had a misconception that this way we could use thousands of US soldiers as human shields. I and other generals would have been surprised to see his childish thinking,” said General Samurai of Iraq.
It is doubtful whether the United States will fight the long battle
In a May 2002 interview with The Atlantic, Samurai said, "When I tried to tell Saddam Hussein that we were headed for destruction, he wanted to know if that was my personal analysis or the reality."
"I said that I am giving this opinion based on the information that is in front of me. He said, now you listen to my opinion. Iran will not interfere in this fight. How much our forces can fight is beyond your imagination. They are able to build bunkers for US airstrikes.
They can continue fighting for a long time, many people will die. We will take this loss, but the US will not be in a position to take it. Saddam Hussain was of the opinion that they will not accept a lot of deaths in their army," said General Samurai.
Iraq is devastated by airstrikes
President Bush ordered air strikes on Iraq on January 16, 1991. There was widespread damage throughout Iraq. In just four weeks, four of Iraq's nuclear laboratories were completely destroyed.
All the military and economic pillars of Iraq began to be destroyed. Roads, bridges, power plants and oil mines were bombed.
The morale of the Iraqi Air Force also suffered a major blow when more than a hundred of their fighter jets took off and took refuge in Iran. There were also reports that soldiers took refuge in Iran with warplanes after the Air Force's failed coup against Saddam Hussein.
Saddam Hussein was executing air force officers for failing to counter US airstrikes, hence the revolt.
58 thousand Iraqi soldiers are prisoners of war
During the war, Yevgeny Primakov went to Baghdad as the envoy of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
He was quite surprised to see that Saddam Hussein's weight had decreased by about 15 kg.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz visited Moscow on February 18. Mr. Aziz.
But by then world leaders had begun to distrust Saddam Hussein so much that they did not think assurances alone would work.
Meanwhile, fearing that Iraq might be invaded by land, Saddam Hussein ordered to set fire to all oil fields in Kuwait.
Finally, President George W. Bush ordered Army Commander General Norman Schwarzkopf to use force to remove Iraqi forces if they did not leave Kuwait by February 24.
Iraq conceded defeat within 48 hours of the US attack. Iraq's troops were in no condition to fight, battered by six weeks of relentless airstrikes.
By the end of the second day of the counterattack, 20,000 Iraqi soldiers had been captured and 370 tanks had been destroyed. Finally, Saddam Hussein ordered his forces to return to where they were stationed on August 1, 1990.
There was not a single Iraqi soldier in Kuwait on February 26. They were either captured as prisoners of war, or returned to Iraq. The number of Iraqi prisoners of war had risen to 58,000 and nearly 1.5 million Iraqi soldiers were either wounded or killed.
The Iraqi army officers made only one request, that they be allowed to return to the helicopters, as all roads and bridges had been destroyed. US General Schwarzkopf accepted the request of the Iraqi officers.
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