Gulf War: Why did Saddam Hussein invade Kuwait?

Voiceover: “On the 2nd of August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Saddam Hussein’s forces conquered the country within a matter of days, but they would soon suffer a stunning reversal. Using cutting-edge warfighting technology, a US-led coalition crushed the Iraqis from the skies and drove them from Kuwait in the space of just 100 hours. It was one of the most one-sided conflicts in military history. In this four-episode series, we're going to take an in-depth look at the Gulf War, with episodes exploring the air and land campaigns, plus a look at how the first Gulf War paved the way for the second. But first, we need to understand why the conflict happened in the first place. In this episode, we'll go beyond the typical explanations to examine the dark underlying causes of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.”

Megan Joyce, IWM curator: “Saddam Hussein seized power in Iraq in 1979. Busts like this one were omnipresent throughout the country as he sought to create a cult of personality. However, behind this veneer of strength, Saddam was ultra-paranoid about threats to his presidency. In particular, he believed in the anti-Semitic theory that Zionists controlled the United States government and that, together with Israel, these Western imperialists sought to weaken Iraq and control the Middle East. This conspiracy is key to understanding why Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990.”

Voiceover: “Our story begins in the 1970s. The Cold War was in full swing, but Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, did not want any part of it. Instead, his Baath Party sought to redeem what they saw as centuries of Arab humiliation and unify Arab states into a single nation. The project had started well. Thanks largely to booming oil revenues, Iraq was becoming a major regional player. Economic growth was strong, and living standards were improving. But everything was about to change. In 1979, the Middle East erupted into violence. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and in Iran, the Western-backed Shah was deposed in a bloody revolution. It would help to spark one of the most destructive wars of the 20th century.”

IWM curator: “The Iranian Revolution posed a threat to Saddam's rule as Iran sought to export its Islamic revolution around the Arab world. However, Saddam also sensed an opportunity. Iran had been temporarily weakened by the revolution, and Saddam wanted to take full advantage. He saw it as a chance to settle old scores from previous border disputes. Saddam expected a quick, decisive victory, but his invasion of Iran would ultimately lead to an eight-year war that would cost half a million lives.”

Voiceover: “Generally, the Gulf’s Sunni monarchies decided to support Iraq, supplying Saddam with $40 to $50 billion, the bulk of which came from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Saddam used the money to purchase arms from the Soviet Union, but it wasn't enough. By 1982, Iraq was beginning to lose the war. This is where the United States enter our story. Since the 1950s, America had become increasingly dependent on imported oil, much of which came from the Persian Gulf. Protecting this supply was of vital importance to American national security.”

IWM curator: “In 1980, President Jimmy Carter declared that the United States would use military force if necessary to defend its national interests in the region. This became known as the Carter Doctrine. This doctrine persisted under Carter's successor, Ronald Reagan. Fearing an Iranian victory in the Iran-Iraq war, Reagan sought to ensure that neither side could dominate the region and the world's energy supply. The CIA began to secretly supply military intelligence to Iraq, which mainly included satellite maps of Iranian military positions. This suit belonged to the next president of the United States, George H.W. Bush, who followed Reagan as president in 1989. He witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, inheriting a new post-Cold War world. However, his response to the Kuwaiti crisis in the Gulf War was still determined by the very Cold War Carter Doctrine.”

Voiceover: “Saddam's relationship with the United States was fraught with suspicion. He accepted American help but privately feared that they were supplying intelligence or arms to the Iranians as well, in an effort to weaken both sides. Inextricable from this belief was Saddam's view of Zionism and Israel. He peddled the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that Jews controlled Western finance, media, and ultimately the US government itself. Together, these combined forces of imperialism and Zionism were in league to destroy Iraq. He concluded that the only way to defend against America and Israel was to develop weapons of mass destruction.”

IWM curator: “Saddam called on neighbouring Arab nations to acquire nuclear weapons to bring what he called a balance of terror in the region, whilst also developing Iraqi biological and chemical weapons. In 1983, Iraq began to use mustard gas and nerve agents against Iranian troops. Then Saddam used chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians in a campaign known as the Al-Anfal genocide. This led to widespread fear that Iraq may again use WMD against states in the region. Many countries issued civilians with NBC kits and respirators, such as this Israeli anti-gas respirator, which was used by Israeli civilians during the Gulf War. Equipped with a respirator, a detachable filter, a separate flexible drinking tube, and an instructional booklet, civilians in neighbouring countries were prepared for the worst.”

Voiceover: “What had previously been a nebulous conspiracy was about to be proven partly true. In 1986, a Lebanese magazine broke a shocking story, one which would become known as the Iran-Contra Scandal. The United States had indeed been working with Israel to sell weapons to Iran in return for the release of American hostages. The proceeds from the arms sales had then been funnelled to Nicaraguan rebels known as the Contras. One man who wasn’t surprised by the story was Saddam Hussein. Here was the proof that an American-Israeli conspiracy was afoot and that Iraq was the target.

In 1988, the Iran-Iraq war finally came to an end. Iraq was still the region's main military power, however, the costs were almost unimaginably high: hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides and, for Iraq, billions of dollars of debt, much of it owed to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. These economic problems were made worse by the recent collapse of oil prices. Not only did it imperil Iraq's recovery, it also helped to bring down America's major competitor, the Soviet Union. The Cold War was about to come to an end.”

IWM curator: “This is no ordinary rock; this is, in fact, a small fragment of the Berlin Wall. When it came down in 1989, it marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War and the dawn of a new era. But this was arguably a moment of peril for Saddam Hussein. What would the end of the Cold War mean for the Middle East? With the Soviet Union in decline, Saddam was concerned with the shifting global balance of power in the region. Already suspicious of American interests, he believed they, alongside their ally Israel, would now have free reign to undermine his regime and assert their dominance over the Arab world.”

Voiceover: “Saddam's fears soon kicked up another notch. In late 1989, the Iraqi intelligence community began to receive warnings that an Israeli attack was imminent. This had happened before. In 1981, 14 Israeli aircraft had launched a surprise air strike on the Osirak Nuclear Reactor, in attempt to stop Saddam from acquiring nuclear weapons. These new reports were eerily similar. Whether there was any truth in these rumours, we do not know, but Saddam certainly believed them. As such, he looked for ways to launch a pre-emptive strike of his own, both with rockets and more unconventional means.”

IWM curator: “This strange grey pipe may look a little out of place amongst the aircraft here at the American Air Museum at IWM Duxford, but it's actually a section of an Iraqi supergun barrel, which was seized by British customs officers in the UK before it made its journey to Iraq. Saddam had been working on his supergun project for some time after hiring a Canadian artillery expert, Gerald Bull, to work on a project entitled Project Babylon. By 1989, Baby Babylon, a 45m long prototype gun, had been completed and tests had begun. However, less than a year later, Bull was found shot dead in Brussels. It is not known who killed Gerald Bull, but various international intelligence services have been linked to the assassination, including Israel's Mossad. For Saddam, Bull's assassination was yet more proof of an American-Israeli conspiracy against him.”

Voiceover: “On the 2nd of April 1990, Saddam made his strongest threat yet: "By God, we will make fire eat half of Israel if it decides to attack Iraq." Some historians believe that these words were an attempt to distract the Iraqi people from their economic problems and win popular Arab support. But there is also considerable evidence that Saddam was in genuine fear of an Israeli strike and of American hegemony. Israeli military Intelligence later concluded “Saddam really believed that there was a US-Israeli plot against him. He was not merely making it up.” But just as a war with Israel began to seem more likely, a new country appeared to join the Western campaign against him.”

IWM curator: “Iraq was in dire financial straits. The price of oil had cratered, and Saddam had emerged from the Iran-Iraq war with over $35 billion of debt, with around $15 billion of that owed to his tiny neighbour, Kuwait. Saddam wanted Kuwait to write off the war debts, claiming he had protected the region's Sunni monarchies from Iranian expansionism. He was also angry that Kuwait was holding down the price of oil through overproduction and later said that Kuwait had stolen $2 billion worth of oil from an oil field on Iraqi soil. For Saddam, this constituted economic warfare. When Kuwait failed to give in to Saddam's demands, he threatened to reignite a long-standing border dispute over ownership of two strategically important islands. Talks between the two sides soon broke down. Those close to Saddam claim that this solidified his view that an international conspiracy was forming against him and that Kuwait was part of it.”

Voiceover: “In the face of an economic assault from one direction and an seemingly imminent military strike from the other, Saddam made the decision to attack. As his deputy later put it, "There were two options before us: either take the initiative and strike or gradually get eaten up." In July 1990, Iraq began moving troops to the Kuwaiti border. The Gulf War was about the begin. The original Iraqi plan had been only to seize Kuwait's disputed islands and oil fields, but at the last minute, Saddam changed the plan. He now wanted to capture all of Kuwait, as it would take the monarchy out of the picture and give him a stronger bargaining position. On the 2nd of August 1990, Iraqi troops crossed into Kuwait.”

IWM curator: “Despite the very public build-up, Saddam's invasion took the world by surprise. Two thousand tanks led 100,000 Iraqi troops across the border and into Kuwait. Iraqi aircraft arrived over the advancing troops, and the defending Kuwaiti forces were quickly overrun. Within a matter of hours, Republican Guard tanks occupied Kuwait City. Thousands of people fled to neighbouring Saudi Arabia, including the Emir and his family. Days later, Saddam claimed Kuwait as the 19th province of Iraq.”

Voiceover: “The Iraqi invasion was built on a number of assumptions: that the Kuwaiti monarchy would be captured, that the United States would not intervene, and that Gulf states would not allow foreign troops on their soil. But the Iraqis had underestimated the importance of Gulf oil to the United States and the outrage that an attack on Kuwait would cause. As such, all of these assumptions began to fall apart.”

IWM curator: “Bush ordered an economic embargo on Iraq and froze assets in Iraq and Kuwait alongside Britain and France. The UN also established sanctions, imposing them by a vote of 13 to 0, which included support from the Soviet Union. Many Arab states joined the coalition against Saddam, including Saudi Arabia. They were led by Prince Khaled bin Sultan, who assumed the role of Commander Joint Arab Forces and Theatre Operations, a position equal to the responsibility held by the American General Norman Schwarzkopf. Prince Khaled wore this shirt during the Gulf War, which was fitted with the Saudi Arabian Army rank badges of a general as well as his personal identification tag. Saudi Arabia was one of the largest contributors to the coalition's build-up, joining thousands of personnel, armoured vehicles, tanks, and aircraft, alongside exceptional amounts of equipment, ammunition, and supplies to form the largest military alliance since the Second World War. It was a physical manifestation of the very thing Saddam feared most: American power.”

Voiceover: “Faced with this overwhelming force, Saddam was caught in two minds: should he stay and fight or withdraw? Saddam had little desire to fight a war against the United States, but leaving Kuwait could make him more vulnerable to a US attack rather than less. And remember, he was convinced that the United States and Israel were determined to destroy Iraq. Furthermore, Saddam had won many supporters in the Arab world. To withdraw without winning concessions would make him look weak. Throughout August, Saddam tried again and again to find an exit that would maintain his dignity. He wanted any concession which could cover his withdrawal, but these attempts got nowhere. Opinions in the West had hardened. The United States now preferred that the Iraqis stay and face the consequences of their actions. Saddam was about to feel their wrath.”