ydefense contractors going out of business because of the end of the ColdWar, supplied him with the weapons to fight Iran and later Kuwait and theCoalition. With a large army like his, it would be very easy to defeat thefar smaller Kuwaiti army compared to his. 1CNN The Gulf War (Video) (Atlanta, CNN News, 75 min., 1991) Oil had made Kuwait one of the richest and most progressive countriesin the world. This desert land is one of the world's leading producershaving over one-tenth of the world's known petroleum reserves. "All of thisin 20150 square kilometres, a little smaller than the state of NewJersey."3 Kuwait is one of the world's wealthiest nations in terms ofnational income per person. It has free primary and secondary education,free health and social services and no income tax. There was much toprotect. All of this was attractive and irritating to Saddam who would anddid use a fraction of his army to attack and invade Kuwait in which it onlytook the Iraqi army 6 hours to reach the capital city. They had after theirinvasion about 19% of the world's known oil reserves. 3"Kuwait",World Book (New York, World Book, 1990), Vol 11, p.354 Historically Iraq had claimed that it had a right to Kuwait. "Theywere jealous that Kuwait was in control of the two islands needed for adeep water shipping port:the Bubiyan and Warbah islands."4 These islandsalong with some parts of Kuwait were a part of Mesopotamia which theOttoman Turks conquered. "The Ottoman Empire was defeated during World WarI and the British made their "own lines in the sand", dividing up the landaccording to their own strategic needs and in the process recklesslydividing up ancient communities and boundaries that had been recognized fordecades."1 Most of Mesopotamia became Iraq and some other parts to Kuwait.In 1961, Kuwait became independent and the Iraqis threatened to invadeexcept that British troops kept the peace. This was to be the first of manyborder skirmis...
