The Causes of the Persian Gulf War Essay -- essays research papers fc

The Causes of the Persian Gulf War â€Å"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 is necessary to look at some of the historical factors. The discovery of oil by the the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC; later renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and still later British Petroleum) in Iran in 1908 stimulated a great interest in potential Iraqi oil resources. Financial groups from several major nations engaged in protracted negotiations with ... ...; Works Cited Bennis, Phyllis and Moushabeck, Michel. Beyond the Storm. New York: Olive Branch Press, 1991. Saddam Hussein - His Rise to Power. Ed. Gerald Butt. Nov 17. 1998. BBC News. 24 Feb. 2001. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/events/crisis_in_the_gulf/decision_ makers _and_diplomacy/newsid_216000/216328.stm>. Freedman, Lawrence and Karsh, Efraim. The Gulf Conflict: 1990 -1991. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993. "Inside the Storm" Dallas Morning News (Dallas, TX). 12 Jan. 1992: 1A+. Ricks, Thomas E. â€Å"Allied Jets Blast Iraq, Largest Strike in 2 Years, Seen as Signal of Get-Tough U.S. Attitude.† San Francisco Chronicle. 17 Feb. 2001: A-1. Schwartz, Richard Alan. Encyclopedia of the Persian Gulf War. North Carolina: McFarland & Co, 1998. Yant, Martin. Desert Mirage: The True Story of the Gulf War. New York: Prometheus Books, 1991.